Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Pulling a Boehner--Jobs and Income Inequality

I'm so completely disenchanted, annoyed, pissed off, Rush Limbaugh-purple-with-rage at McConnell, Cantor, Ryan, Boehner, Republican primary presidential field, et. al. in their dogmatic devotion to Job Creators. Dum duh nuh nuh! We can't raise taxes on a bunch of people that pay the 2nd lowest corporate tax rate after breaks and loopholes have been accounted for.

What have these Job Creators done with their record profit margins, bailout money, tax breaks, and subsidies? Well Goldman Sachs sent 1,000 jobs to Singapore, Nike paid another 400 children $0.50 an hour in Indonesia, and nobody created a single goddamn thing in August of 2011. Listen, I'm fully aware that anybody who has read anything about anything knows this Tea Party philosophy bullshit doesn't work. I know it, Clinton knows it, Obama knows it, you know it, your wife, your kids, Antoine Dodson fucking knows it. Hell, the GOP and Congress even know it.

I know we all know why the Cantors and Boehners of the world defend the interest of these poor, billion dollar companies ("people" if you're into that Romney rhetoric). Lobbbbyying. Yes. Like you've never heard that before. The GOP has no interest in bettering this country. Do you really think that the richest 0.2% of households in the U.S. would have noticed a 0.5% surtax for $35 billion to save jobs for teachers and first responders? Oh wait, sorry that's the public sector, so that doesn't count. Do you think any millionaires will notice a 0.7% on adjusted gross income over $1 million? We may never even fucking know.

This is the difference between the Tea Party and GOP, "I've got a corporate dildo in my ass moving my mouth up and down like a gay sex puppet" philosopy and the Democrat proposals and American Jobs Act. We have the lowest revenue in 60 years. Corporate profits are sky high, so much so that they're sitting on a couple trillion dollars for shits and gigs. Taxes are lower than under the Republican second coming of Christ, Reagan. Why are there no jobs? Well, unfortunately, the canon of capitalism has never been to create jobs or hand out benefits to workers has it?. It is about unrestricted profit increase. Again. And again. And again. That's why since 2009, 88% of income growth has gone to corporate profits while 1% has gone to workers' wages. That's why 95% of the country is getting poorer every year. That's why 37% of young families in this country are in poverty. That's why in the last 32 years, the top 1% of the country saw after tax income grow by 275% while the bottom 20% saw it grow by a mere 18%. That's why 1% of America controls 40% of the wealth (depending on the interpretation of several statitsics).

The billions of dollars they spend on lobbying each year is why the richest 400 Americans' wealth has nearly quadrupled with their taxes nearly being halved. That's why when the Tea Party has been clamoring about "No new taxes!" they meant for the CEOs of their companies. That's why 1400 millionaires paid no federal income tax last year. That's why 25% of millionaires in this country pay less taxes than middle America. That's why Warren Buffet paid a lower tax rate than his secretary. And finally, that's why we won't see what a measly 5.6% surtax on millionaries would do to fund the entire $447 billion American Jobs Act.

I've said it once, I've said it a million times. At this point in our evolution, we still have these residual Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms to hoard resources and power. By "we" I mean our fellow human beings occupying public office and corporate scum, the least evolved of us all, whose time on this planet is winding down. Capitalism is not necessarily the problem. It works because it is driven by our own competitive nature. However, when it goes unchecked, unregulated, this is what happens. The wealth is held by a few and benefits are not extended to the rest. Trickle down economics is, and will always be a fallacy, created by the rich that have controlled Washington for the last 30 years, preaching this great chain of being, Calvanistic bullshit to keep us down. Pretending  like we don't all drive a Mercedes because we don't try hard enough or it must be God's will. Pelting us with the Beattitudes and patronizing being poor and out of work as a war of attrition in realizing this phantasm we call American Exceptionalism. This is why we are occupying all these cities. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" must have been out whacking off because it never showed up. That's why we needed unions to create our middle class and make sure workers could make enough just to put food on the table and not have to worry if one of their family members got sick without health insurance.

To create jobs, we need incentives for altruism. These people don't do the right thing without reward. That's just the cold, hard, Clint Eastwood stare, truth. $9,600 tax credits for hiring wounded veterans out of work for 6 months or longer. Payroll tax holidays for new hires and worker benefits. Money to rebuild infrastructure. Saving the jobs of teachers and first responders, you know, those people that raise our kids for us and save our asses when we're in a bind without asking for any reciprocation? $4,000 tax credits for hiring the unemployed. Allowing families to refinance mortgages at a lower rate. Tax cuts for working American families. That fucking socialist we have running our country is at it again! What do we do?

These assholes who caused and are now exacerbating this collapse and recession shouldn't be rewarded preemptively and begged, "Oh please, pretty please create some jobs now?" They should be watched like Commies on the turf of the Wolverines and given incentives for doing the right thing, not just for us, but for themselves. I don't recall electing Goldman Sachs, or Chase, or Pfizer.

Out of 21 developed countries, when taking social problems into consideration, the U.S. ranked dead last followed by Portugal and the U.K. in quality of life. All of this spurred by income inequality. If this is the American Dream, when the fuck are we going to wake up?

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