Demo Platform Committee Yesterday - Corporate Agenda Wins Every Round
So far in the first 2 hours of amendments the following Sanders amendments have been thrown under the bus.
1. Making mortgages public records instead of private corporate records. They used to be and still are wherever I have lived internationally.
2. Male-caregivers not included in social security benefit increases, only women. As a single father, that would be personally insulting if I was an American.
3. Cost of living for seniors indexed actual increases in elderly cost of living to adjust their benefits instead of general cost of living indexed to adjust benefits.
4. Scrap the $250,000 cap on social security payments (therefore allowing the rich and people with capital gains the ability to not pay their fair share of social security).
5. Federal Reserve should be made a public institution to serve the people.
6. Encouraging states to adopt the North Dakota public banking system to support people and industries of their states. (Clinton duits angry about even proposing public banking).
7. Proud of the automobile (and bank) bailouts saving the industry from collapse.
Note, this is at least ten hours long and I add as it goes along. Two hours in and I am exhausted.... so are the Sanders delegates who want a recess at 1 AM this morning and are shouted down by the chair asking for a recess.
8. At 1 AM and an angry fight on recess. The meeting started hours later than scheduled The Clintonites want to keep it going until 3 AM at least. (Once again. I would plain out walk my ass out of there and leave these Corporate assholes to vote unanimously on all their garbage).
My opinion so far is that every Sanders amendment will get voted down about 70-100. I can also see the beginning of anger in the Sanders delegates. If I was on the floor I would be ready to walk out.
I am at hour 2:05 at http://www.c-span.org/video/?411163-101/democratic-platform-committee-me...
9. Defends the Export-Import Bank (83% of which goes to Boeing, GE and Caterpillar, known as The Bank of Boeing, aka corporate welfare) Passed by Clintonites.
9A. Amendment to the above by Sanders: Policy of Dem Party to oppose corporate welfare to companies that export jobs overseas. VOTED DOWN 70-103.
10. Rejected art, music and science added to "computer science in high schools."
11. Help small businesses with tax cuts, cutting back red-tape and other "Chamber of Commerce" proposals without defining "small business or red-tape." Note: Small business doesn't mean your mom and pop corner store or your lawn mower fixing business, it means smallish big businesses if that makes any sense, and red-tape means health benefits, safety measures and the like. Passed 63-100.
Recess...
Comments
Thanks for this information; I wouldn't have seen it.
From what you say, there's no point in any but the most conservative staying in the Democratic party.
The break point for me is FDR's Workers Bill of Rights and I guess that would be hooted off the agenda.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
I don't understand 3 & 4, but 2 is sexist
I can hear that group MRA(?), screaming, but rightfully so on this one. And wouldn't it affect men caring for a disabled spouse? I once worked for a man who refused to put his wife in a home. She eventually died at home, not at a home.
3 & 4 went over my head.
Reply...
Absolutely sexist, it was clearly made so in the proponents speeches that it should only apply to women. There is a cap on how much one pays their social security tax. So if you earn more than $118,000 you pay the same as someone below 118,000. The Clintonites want to raise the cap to $250,000 for "some", Sanders proposes to not have any cap. You pay according to your ability and you pay on capital gains.
Bottem line: The Clintons say they are for expanding social security and in fact are for diminishing it.
From the Light House.
Ah, thanks for the explanation, Alex nt
Social security is a shared
Social security is a shared responsibility between an employer, and an employee. The Social security/medicare tax rate is 15.3% on wages paid to the amount of $118,000..1/2 paid by the employee, one half paid by the employer (this is why corporate America is so dead set against SS/Medicare) Wages paid above and beyond the first $118,000 are exempt from SS and Medicare taxes.
Anyone!!Please correct me if I am wrong, but I was an employer for many years in small business.
Edited for added info.... Also, self employed individuals pay the entire 15.3% as a part of the SSE requirement and filing at the end of the year. Another unfair point is that many in the top tier income brackets do not earn wages, so their income, capital gains, investment income, etc., are most often exempt from any SS taxes. They only pay SS on the WAGES they earn, that are subject to self employment income, or those paid them by an employer. All in all, the most wealthy in our country pay Social Security taxes, and Medicare taxes on a small share of their income
You are unfortunately correct on all points n/t
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. - e.e.cummings
Thank you
I see the deduction on my checks, but honestly don't think I'll live long enough to collect. But, if I do, I doubt SS will be around by then.
I do find it bizarre that Republicans call it an entitlement as if it's a hand out. Kind of like if the ATM gave you a snooty look and called the withdrawal from your own account an "entitlement". Bizarre.
What's bizarre is that
What's bizarre is that something people are entitled to receive - an entitlement - has been labelled as meaning a hand-out, being so very carefully confused with the term used when describing someone pushy as having 'a wrongful feeling of being entitled' generally.
People are entitled to entitlements like SS, but the Greeds and their political hand-servants feel entitled to take away pensions people have paid into to use themselves for their own purposes. On this side of the looking-glass, that's fraud.
And you are entitled to your own money from your own account, btw - don't let the banksters con you into claiming you aren't, lol.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Thanks
Thanks for clarifying. As a not-American I probably don't understand this sort of detail on anything except foreign policy and perhaps climate change. I do have a fairly accurate olfactory sense for corporate capitalist stinkers.
From the Light House.
My understanding
Number 3 is to create a separate Cost-of-Living adjustment based on what retirees actually spend their money on instead of just the general inflation. Old people tend to spend a lot of their money on rents, foods, medical cares which have been increased much more than other optional expenses like iPhones, laptops, new cars, etc.
In fact, since the Clinton years, the US started to add hedonic values to products when calculating inflation so you never have high inflation any more.
For example, for a lap top that you can buy for $700, they compare it to what similar computers would have cost 30 years ago and figured that it would cost millions of dollars so they consider that prices on computer products are dropping very fast (but mostly due to capability, not in actual monetary amounts). Adding stuff like that (cars and technology products, etc) to the overall inflation picture and you get a lower inflation and that reduce the Cost-of-Living adjustment for Social Security payments.
Of course, the Clintonite democrats would reject #3 because it would take away the scam they had managed to pull off on the SS payments to the workers.
Number 4 is probably not described correctly. I believe there is a proposal to remove the SS cap for incomes above $250,000 only. So, you still have the usual SS cap but people making over 250K will have to pay SS for the income above 250K. This is a fairer way to deal with the SS problem since in those days when the government virtually lied about the budget surplus under the Clinton years (the surplus was due to SS and Medicare surpluses, not due to general income tax collection) and used that as an excuse to cut income taxes, it benefited mostly the richest (Bush claimed that since they paid the most in (income) taxes, they deserved to get the most tax cuts from the (SS and Medicare) budget surpluses).
I understand, unfortunately lol
Blows my mind that if you make minimum wage you're expected to pay into SS, but if you make a lot of money, you only have to pay into SS for a portion of it. I'm finally understanding the phrase 'ignorance is bliss' and kind of wish I could take back my initial comment, so I could unlearn how this all works so well for certain people.
Thank you for clarifying.
Thank you for clearing all this up... I am trying to watch this, take notes, post and chat with my daughter on FB in Bolivia all at the same time. Also when it comes to esoteric things in social security I am, as a non-citizen, woefully ignorant. Hope you all understand...
We have a different system... One of them is the Bono de Dignidad. Everyone over 60 gets cash once a year, not much but enough for food anyway. All you need is your ID or two witnesses that you are over 60. Paid for out of natural gas royalties.
From the Light House.
No need to apologize, Alex
I trust what you post. You know your stuff (normally I'd say something else, but I recall your objection to me calling Her Highness a not nice word.)
Utmost respect y trust!
There's more than one proposal--regarding lifting the Soc Sec
cap--but offhand, I agree with CV that the $250,000 threshold is the one that sounds the most like Bernie's proposal.
One of the less talked about proposals--doing away with the FICA tax altogether--is the one that's most likely to be passed (IMO). Not that I think they'll necessarily push this through in the next couple years, or so.
Their first chore at hand is to complete the process of slashing the actual benefits. Then, they will tackle the radical reform of financing the program.
Corporatist Dems (and Repubs) would support this, because it would further disassociate earnings from monthly benefits. And, clearly, they have long been unhappy with the 'transfer' aspect of the Social Security program.
Al From was the first Dem that I heard mention this as a possibility (on C-Span).
The primary reason that neoliberals won't lift the cap, is the same as a commenter above cited--business doesn't want to pay more, they want to pay less. And 'lifting the cap' would add to employers' costs/financial burdens.
So, substituting a dedicated income stream from a 'VAT' tax would be a perfect solution--it would let employers off the hook, completely.
EDIT - changed problem to 'program'--talk about a Freudian slip!
Mollie
“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit, and, therefore, to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)
National Mill Dog Rescue (NMDR) - Dogs Available For Adoption
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Televised floor fight brewing on TPP
We might get a televised convention floor fight on TPP and perhaps some of these other platform planks. That will raise the visibility of the platform and force the Democratic Party to decide if they are with the 1 Percent or the 99 Percent.
TPP In Democratic Party Platform Is A 'Whose Side Are You On?' Moment
"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
TPP and $15
$15.00 won, thats about it so far. These are the tip of the iceberg compared to the pro-corporate issues that are being ramrodded into the platform. These Clinton planks are couched in the double-speak Clinton/corporate language so it sounds great, until you read the and find out they are all anti-working class.
From the Light House.
TPP Lost
What was passed was not opposing it, just some tweaks... and a practical promise to vote it in during Obama's administration.
From the Light House.
Alex, $15 won 'over time.' I'll post piece at EB next week. NT
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Twas ever thus. The Corporate Party of America has won.
#JillNotHill #NeverHillary #NeverTrump Burn it all to the ground.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020
Latest vote to repeal The Affordable Healthcare Act
From Down With Tyranny:
With a little help from our Blue Dog friends:
Full story here: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2016/07/yesterday-house-republicans-...
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
I say that Bernie needed to
I say that Bernie needed to spend time denouncing and fighting the fraud in many states so that it would get more cycle news time, maybe get folks to realize that this whole primary is/was a sham.
They are showing with the meeting that they really do not give a damn about a progressive platform, they would have rathered he had caved in earlier and went away.
Bernie needs to act up, act out, and make a stink over this at the convention and say FU to DNC/DWS/HRC all at the same time. He played nice, he played by the rules, and they shit all over him and us by extension.
FUCK THEM!
Vote Green, Vote for the honest woman, vote Jill for POTUS 2016!
So long, and thanks for all the fish
OK... the session ended and...
I am exhausted and need to maybe have a shot of rum and get out in the garden. I haven't found today's session and I am most interested to see the foreign policy and climate change planks as these effect everyone worldwide. If anyone finds the feed, let me know please and I will try and get up the energy to move forward...
From the Light House.
Thank you for that.
Believable yet unbelievable.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Oh my. Not unexpected though.
Bernie isn't going to get a damn thing out of that bunch of corporatist whores. THIS is why he can't endorse her. They've lied and cheated the entire way. He endorses that shit and he is suddenly irrelevant. No, the revolution was not about 'him'. But it sure as hell wasn't about him joining the enemy either.
Poor Sanders. He should just say screw it, I'm running with the Greens. That would be the correct thing to do in light of all that's happened these last few months.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
"all of it is non-binding anyhow"
Quote is from another comment thread, but it applies here as well.
The Platform is but symbolic. It is the list of lies the Party candidates will tell us during the campaign. None of this will matter once the votes are counted, for what are we going to be able to do about it anyway.
Goodbye, American Democracy. It's a shame we had to prove Benjamin Franklin correct.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
Don't know how you stomach watching that
Feel nauseous just reading about it.