Who Won the War?

Go back in time to 1945. "We" won the war - against Germany and Japan. Who has the two strongest economies in the world now? Germany and Japan (Well OK maybe China too.)

Now fast forward to 2008. Who won the election? Well, I THOUGHT that it was the Democrats. But you could fool me now! Who is winning all the victories? The Republicans. Who is compromising, capitulating and failing to achieve what they promised to do in that election? The Democrats. Are the Republicans compromising, or indeed giving up any of their nefarious goals, no they are not. How are they winning these battles? The Democrats have a majority, but the Republicans are winning all the battles! Something is wrong, the Democrats are not fighting, and they are losing, the Republicans are fighting, and they are winning - even without a majority in either house! Unbelievable.

Look at the Bush tax cuts, which were going to expire on Jan 1st 2011 - thus cutting our horrendous deficit and debt and our loans from China. Then it was just the rich that were going to have the tax cut expire. Now the rich get the tax cuts too. "But we got the unemployment extended", say the wimps. The unemployment payments are extended for 13 months, the tax cuts to the rich are extended for 2 years. (After that the Republicans will obviously be back in power - no they are not in power now, even though it seems that they are.) And tax cuts for the rich will be extended indefinitely and probably cut even more!

The unemployment payments would have been extended anyway. He - Obama - could have called for that on it's own and it would have passed easily. No, we are giving the Republicans everything they want, and without even a fight.

To repeat some figures from an earlier Blog, in 1970 the richest 1% of Americans had 8% of the countries income, now the richest 1% of Americans have 26% of the countries income. Notice the trend here?

The richest 1% of Americans pay just 16% of their income in taxes! That's less than you and I pay! (40 years ago they paid 40% of their income in taxes.) They will not be satisfied until they have 99% of the countries income AND pay NO taxes. And it seems that we all want to help them achieve that!

The "Income Gap" in the United States now is the biggest that it has ever been, in our entire history. And we have the biggest income gap in this country than in any country in the world. And we want to make it even bigger! People, even 'poor' people like you and me are clamoring for taxes to be cut to the rich! If the tax cuts were allowed to expire, just on the rich - the 2% of Americans making over $250,000 a year - Social Security and Medicare that are in dire straights and close to running out of money would be saved for at least the next 75 years.

People seem to think that if the rich get a tax cut they are going to open up businesses, hire millions of the unemployed and spend huge amounts of money that will bring in taxes and all will be well again. Hello, - the rich have had this tax cut for the last ten years, do you see them spending us out of this mess? Do you see them opening businesses all over and hiring people by the millions? Then why would they do it if we extend their tax cut for another two years if they haven't done it in the last ten years?

A lot of people don't realize that the taxes that we pay are not on our entire income. It is amazing how I have spoken to people who will say "I have this friend with a small business who "makes" $250,000 a year, if this tax goes into effect he will have to close up." After a couple of questions it turns out that he doesn't "make" $250,000 a year - he grosses, or brings in, a total of $250,000 a year. He would not of course be taxed on that. He first gets to deduct his expenses - rent, heat, light, insurance, employment taxes on himself and any employees, health insurance, trucks, gas, materials and a myriad of other expenses that are not subject to tax. He is probably lucky if he clears $50,000 a year. That is what he pays tax on. And there are many people believe that he will have to pay tax on the whole $250,000. Why do they believe that? Because FOX "news" and their ilk have no compunction whatever of telling you that and a lot more lies. Bill O Lie ly and a host of other extremist Republicans will say almost anything that will smear Obama, and his followers will believe everything that they say.

One final figure, of every dollar that the US Government spends they borrow 40cents!!
That is the same as if YOU earned $60,000 a year and spent $100,000 a year - borrowing the other $40,000. How long do you suppose you could do that? Pretty soon you'd be spending ALL of your income on interest!