It’s apparent to anyone who watched the RepublicanNational Convention last week each speaker was dedicated to theparty’s talking points.
To be featured at the podium, a speaker was required to exploitSept, 11, 2001, with excessive mention, endorse the Iraq war, scarepeople into needing four more years of a failed administration andtake a jab at “the senator from Massachusetts.”
We can dismiss this as politics as usual — elaborate,empty promises and vague, subjective rhetoric are commonplace onboth sides of the aisle.
But it’s something else entirely for an assembled body ofour elected officials to mislead us about the state of our economyto keep their political and financial interests afloat.
When President George W. Bush beams with feigned optimism aboutour economy — “strong and getting stronger”— or California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger challenges thefiscally responsible not to be “economic girlie men,”we are being actively deceived.
At times like these, I’m always tempted to needle theRepublican machine with something it finds particularly bothersome— facts.
Bush raised taxes on the middle class.
And I’m not sneakily referring to those trivial thingssuch as medical bills, prescription drugs, college tuition or thesteadily increasing cost of living — though these arecertainly noteworthy. No, I mean that the Congressional BudgetOffice has published findings demonstrating that while the top 1percent who average $1.1 million yearly have seen their share ofthe federal tax burden drop by more than two percentage points, themiddle class ($51,500 to $75,600 annually) share of the burdenactually increased.
The top of the middle class was actually the hardest hit, withan increase of about .8 percent.
What justification can there be for this sort of practice?
Supply-side economists continually try to make the classicReagan-era case that cutting taxes in the upper socioeconomicechelons will — through investment (and some sort of magic)— create opportunity for the impoverished throng that lurksbelow.
We’re to trust the elite with tax cuts and wait around forthem to spend them in an economically beneficial way.
This philosophy is not supported by the boom of the 1990’sthat occurred in the wake of substantial tax increases underPresidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Conversely, with tax cuts in place, our current economicrecovery is slowing dramatically, according to quarterly grossdomestic product reports.
Tax cuts are expensive — this is especially true whenyou’re occupying two foreign countries.
The result is a massive deficit.
Some economists argue when the government overspends, it canstimulate the economy, and the fiscal misstep actually will pay foritself. This minority says it causes a boost in the short run andis no danger in the long run. We shouldn’t worry, theysay.
But Alan Greenspan, our current Federal Reserve chairman, doesnot share this sentiment and is vocally adverse to national debt.An April 2000 analysis by Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman forthe National Bureau of Economic Research shows all rates ofdomestic investment slowed in the United States during the deficitsof the Reagan administration.
Since Bush took office, 5.2 million people have lost theirhealth insurance, 4.3 million people have fallen below the officialpoverty line and the average family income has fallen by$1,511.
Real GDP growth has declined rapidly since third quarter 2003.The only thing saving the unemployment rate is the sheer number ofdiscouraged workers — those who drop out of the labor forceafter being unable to find work and are no longer counted inrate.
Jobs simply are not being created by the billions of dollarsbeing doled out to the American aristocracy.
Help is simply not on the way for those who need it. WhenPresident Bush decries Democratic presidential nominee John Kerryfor wanting to raise “your” taxes, remember whose taxeshe’s actually talking about.
Kerry has no plan to raise middle class taxes in order to fixbudgetary mismanagement — he doesn’t need to. He caneliminate the tax relief on the richest 1 percent and reverse muchof the damage in our budget.
Our cowboy president is trying to scare us into letting theultra-rich vote themselves free money in the false name of economicstimulus. It’s welfare for billionaires.
Publicly, Bush made over thirty thousand dollars this year fromhis own tax cuts — and there’s no telling how hisfriends did.
How’d you do?
