Just how far will the GOP wage war against the poor?
It's not a secret that the GOP is waging outright class war on behalf of the ruling elite.
Republicans in Congress are openly admitting they plan to use their tax reform bill to justify slashing funding for essential social programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps.
...Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) laid out the plan in an interview Wednesday on Ross Kaminsky’s radio show. “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” Ryan said, adding that health care entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid are “the big drivers of our debt.”
The fate of Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) remains unfunded and in limbo.
Obamacare was undermined and is now on life support.
However, it's the coming attack on the New Deal and Great Society programs that will define the next few years.
Medicaid is the low-hanging fruit, and the GOP wants to gut this first.
Polls show this is a bad idea.
Only 12 percent of American adults want to see President Trump and Congress decrease spending for Medicaid, according to a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Four in 10 preferred to increase Medicaid spending. And nearly half — 47 percent — want funding levels to remain the same.
Next on the chopping block is Medicare. Even their base thinks this is a bad idea.
According to data from the Pew Research Center, only 15 percent of Republicans support decreasing funding for Medicare, the federal health insurance program primarily for people 65 or older. And only 10 percent of Republicans support decreased funding for Social Security, an entitlement program primarily benefiting older Americans after retirement.
All right. But who turns out on voting day? Not poor people. Not young people. Old people do. What do old people think?
Even though the solutions offered by the GOP would likely resolve Social Security's shortfall, they aren't too popular, according to a national survey conducted by The Senior Citizens League (TSCL).In polling older voters across the U.S., TSCL found that only 25% were in favor of raising the full retirement age from 67 to 69. Mind you, these elderly folks wouldn't be impacted by this move either way. Three-quarters of the respondents just genuinely don't like the idea of working Americans having to wait longer to collect a full retirement benefit.
On the other hand, TSCL asked the same group of survey respondents how they felt about increasing revenue for the Social Security program by eliminating the maximum taxable earnings cap tied to the payroll tax. Currently, earned income between $0.01 and $127,200 (as of 2017) is taxed at 12.4% by Social Security's payroll tax, with income above this amount exempt. In total, 73% of respondents were in favor of completely removing this cap, which would also likely resolve the program's funding issues over the next 75 years.
So basically, the only people that support the Republican efforts at gutting the safety net is the ruling elites.
No one else!
At some point even Republican voters with buy a clue (except for fundamentalist Christians). At some point the reality of the situation will filter through to them and they won't turn out to vote.
You can't get rich from bribes if you don't get elected.
At some point the pain of losing elections will become too great.
At this point, all the Dems have to do is to come up with an drastically alternative view of the future. It's long past time for it.
That's where Medicare For All comes in.
Comments
Will the dems have a BFO this year?
You might not have heard about a BFO, but once it is explained, you will get it.
It is, ... B = blinding, F = flash, O = obvious, or, blinding flash of the obvious
Bernie's platform will sweep the country
But, what about money? The plutocrats own both parties, so ....
It looks like they have to be fought rather than joined
since they're bought
they must be fought
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare
The ONLY way Bernie
wins is running as an Indie. Period. The. Only. Way.
If he runs as a Dem he'll get the same fucking he got in 2016.
I have no idea why he still clings to a dead party, but it's prolly an indication he wishes to repeat 2016: Run. But. Don't. Win. Just run to get his ideas out there to the masses.
Well, guess what? It's too late for messages. He runs as a Dem I won't support his candidacy. It's Way past time for Bernie to put up or shut up.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
@Wink
probably because he knows what chance an actual Indie-with-a-chance '3rd party' Presidential candidate has of being permitted into the debates, never mind being allowed to win an election?
In the attempted replacement of corrupted Dems with those who actually believe in democracy, at least everyone will be looking out for cheating - and hopefully protesting and refusing to accept suspicious electoral results en masse, which might enable the UN to step in. Most of even the most corrupt leaders of these countries don't want to miserably die along with the rest of planetary life, as we all will under The Psychopaths That Be, in any or all of a multitude of ways, quite likely within the decade or sooner.
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.
But none of that
"play by the rules" crap matters. None of it. It won't matter that he misses the debates, is ignored by The Press... blah blah blah... People already know who he is, what his message is. How is running as a Dem going to improve that? Becuz it won't. The DNC is going to run 2016 all over again, and if Bernie is a Dem candidate - if they even allow him to be - he's going to get the same as he got in 2016. So what advantage is there in running as a Dem as opposed to running as a 3rd party Indie? I see none. He should see none, too, if he's even serious, and run Indie. He can still run the same Primary campaign he ran in 2016. He just won't be running for the Dem nomination.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Old people will vote for this
if they make it so that only younger people get hit, like 55 and under as Lyin' Ryan advocated before. Maybe they won't, but if people like my idiot family are any indication many of them will vote to cut it. And Ryan knows just how to play it with that sickening LIE that "entitlements" are the main driver of the damned debt. How stupid are these people to not bother to look at that $700B on "defense" spending and get it? Willfully stupid is what they are, living in their denial and telling themselves how exceptional they are for living in what they're now making a shit hole of a country. Stupid fucks.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I had a discussion with my retired uncle
He's a former union rep, but he's been around Republicans for too long.
He wants them to cut food stamps.
When he mentioned that I responded, "So you want to take food out of the mouths of children?"
"Of course not.."
(I interrupted) "Children are the largest demographic that relies on food stamps."
"Well, uh..."
(I interrupted again)"You haven't really thought this one through, have you?"
Awesome!
Good for you, don't you love it when they go speechless? LOL. My mother was a hard case but there were times I shut her down with fact and logic. She even got it once on regressive taxation with Herman Cain. But she was just stubborn enough to continue to vote Idiot. It is a point of loyalty for them I guess? She was a huge Rushbo fan and anything that did get through that fog was soon replaced with his latest idiot screed.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
It's not only the
children, , which is a strong enough argument, but Food Stamps (SNAP) can be looked at as a subsidy for Employers. Rather than pay workers something close to a living wage, they pay barely above minimum wage. The Government then picks up the rest of that $15 an hour in the form of food stamps. A subsidy if I ever saw one.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
politics
The older people are the parents of the younger ones; don't tell Paul Ryan.
They are not in such a good mood, they have been on C-SPAN complaining that the increase they received in Social Security was eaten up by Medicare premium increase.
It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. Carl Sagan
I know I should not resort
to the age thing, that comes out due to my personal bias and beating my head against the same wall arguing with very stubborn right wingers. I've long thought many will see it once it starts effecting them personally. Sad it has to come to that, but maybe more are seeing it.
The thing that bugs me is that older people, like my parents, seem to be really susceptible to that bit about leaving behind a debt. Lyin' Ryan plays on that sense of fairness and twists it to the PTBs advantage. And people like my mother still believe Lyin' Ryan. And Rush Limbaugh. I hate what both of those freaks stand for, but I hate them more for how they manipulate people, especially older people. And who's my mother going to believe? Me, or Rush? I think we know the answer to that, Rush is famous after all....
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
People think that people who are on social programs are just
not applying themselves hard enough. If they'd get an education then they too could get better jobs. Tell that to the thousands of people who have huge student debt because they can't find jobs.
People also believe what Ryan says. The social programs especially welfare is where congress needs to take an axe to, but not corporate welfare. Never that.
Ryan is probably having a hard time walking with the boner he has because he can finally destroy the programs. Then he'll retire and get a cushy job. Just hope there is a Hell for him and anyone who signs off on this.
Here in the USA arming and funding Israeli genocide and mass murder is perfectly OK, but objecting to it will get you expelled, arrested or deported.
Yup. Our parents told us to get educated....
And yet we have less than nothing to show for it because 'Murica is literally hollowed out after decades of organized theft by the super-rich.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Another war is Boomers vs Millennials
so an age war. But we are on the same side according to your Pew polling above. But again, slice and dice is the way to go with a slim victory in elections.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Phony Age Identity division
Saying "all Boomers X" or "all Millennial X" is no different from "all whites X" or "all men X".
That's why I keep banging on universal issues. SS, Medicare, and Medicaid.
We are under siege by the ruling class. If now isn't the time for the 99% to come together, when is it?
No real progressive challenge
at least for Senate seats
The de facto Democratic nominee in Arizona
is Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a card-carrying Blue Dog from Phoenix. It will be interesting to see whether or not John McCain will be able to finish his term.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
But How Will We Pay For It?
Here's how from an excellent article at Truthout, based on Modern Monetary Theory, with a clear cut demand for socialist solutions. I'll just post the author's four planks at the end of the article:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/43082-but-how-will-we-pay-for-it-m...
The story has an overview of MMT. For more MMT economic theory visit Billyblog from the c99percent blogroll.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/
"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'm hardly poor, but near as i can figure it, the GOP
bill is bumping my 2018 federal income tax by about 5%, though depending on how that child tax credit got implemented, i might be closer to break-even.
of course, that'll be a mighty short-term break-even, given the long-term price we're all going to pay.
EDIT: Okay, nevermind that, I just reviewed what my deductions etc and final tax bill were in 2016, and I'd say my tax bill for 2018 is probably going to be about 25% higher than it would have been under the previous system.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
@UntimelyRippd Ouch! And hugs.
Ouch!
And hugs.
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.
... In polling older voters
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/health/disparity-in-life-spans-of-the...
This next report really needs to be read in full at source, if at all possible. As the authors state, the effects of income inequality on health have long been known, as have other often-related factors, as follows (from the article following):
They are killing us relative Poors in a multitude of ways, while blaming our 'lifestyle choices', when we cannot even choose what we consider to be safe foods, because the GMO food supply monopolists don't want their unwanted GMOs labeled, knowing that informed people don't want to eat them, and polluting industry of all kinds doesn't want the 'costly burden' of restrictions on murderously poisoning human and environmental health cutting into 'maximized profits' at the expense of planetary life, so that we cannot have safe drinking water from the tap or safe air to breathe, because corporations globally - especially including the US MIC and fossil fuel industry - get to suck up trillions in public money rather than paying their fair share of taxes while underpaying workers as much as they are permitted to, while fighting to do away with paying people at all and trying to force our only remaining choices into whatever profits them most, at least while we still have any income at all - and such self-interests own the concentrated corporate media and industry researchers telling us what they want us to believe, or, where necessary, allowing a toned-down version of what they'd rather we didn't. Especially as so much is generally based on 'industry science' as an assumed starting point in studies.
Nowadays, you can buy health and happiness, if you're rich enough to buy healthy food and other products, a healthier location for a home constructed of, and furnished with, more expensive and typically less toxic materials and are not up all night stressing out about how to cover the bills, never mind afford eat anything at all. The Poors cannot afford even a healthy diet of safe foods, never mind all of the rest, too-often poisoned for extra profits, as we thereby are, ourselves.
The following (UK) newspaper article tells it like it actually is and admits the actual gap in life expectancy - from a non-psychopathic and human viewpoint.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-25-year-gap-between-the-li...
And what's likely the real rate of life expectancy difference in America, which lacks even a Public Health Service or Welfare payments for the most desperate? Lower than this? I somehow doubt that very much.
Compare those in-the-hundreds of millions-multi-millionaire and especially the multi-billionaires in the process of becoming trillionaires, some having achieved this goal, often by draining/poisoning everyone and everything else in every way they can with this:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-in-five-american-households-have-z...
How is a waitress, store clerk or similar other supposed to continue working until nearly 70 on her/his battered aching feet and a starvation-level minimum wage insufficient to keep a roof over their heads, especially without even food stamps for a daily meal?
They probably can't, even if they can 'compete' with desperate masses of young, active people coming out of college with massive student debt and no hope of a job in their field - and they'll die without ever getting back any of what they've paid into their entire working lives to supposedly ensure a survivable retirement in old age. I expect that wait-until-you're-70-to-retire idea's a source of great amusement for The Psychopaths That be, if not for the rest of the world, assuming that the latter survives the profiteering and destructive tendencies of those PTB that long.
Got sidetracked but will put it on what must now be a long-dead thread anyway, 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.