Showing posts with label voodoo economics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label voodoo economics. Show all posts

Saturday, October 25, 2008

NEWS FLASH! Chief McCain Advisor Revealed; Labels McCain Hero "Socialist"

[A Hypothetical Report Found on a Campaign Bus Somewhere in Iowa]


DES MOINES—“John McCain and Sarah Palin Now Use Joe the Plumber as their chief economic advisor,” revealed one usually reliable source close to the Republican presidential campaign, speaking on condition of anonymity. Mr. the Plumber fills the spot previously occupied by Phil Gramm. Mr. the Plumber's resumé as economist was not immediately available for review by this reporter.

The McCain Campaign's Former Chief Economic Advisor resigned from the campaign earlier this year following political fallout from a comment that, “We have sort of become a nation of whiners.” The comment was made many weeks before the onset of the current economic crisis which compelled Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to approach the United States Congress with his $700 billion Wall Street “rescue plan.”

“The Obama-Biden Idea About Taxing Wealthier Americans to help out middle-class Americans is not ‘patriotic’ in critical times like these,” chief economic advisor the Plumber reportedly told the McCain-Palin campaign.

“Joe the Plumber Calls This ‘Socialism,’” Alaska Governor Sarah Palin subsequently reported, quoting the newly prominent economist.

(The Original “Joe the Plumber,” Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, reportedly makes about $44,000 a year. Mr. Wurzelbacher has an income-tax lien on file with the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas in Toledo, Ohio. Mr. Wurzelbacher reportedly believes that lower-income people should pay the same taxes as the wealthy. Whether this position includes opposition to the progressive Federal Income Tax is unclear to this reporter.)

The Federal Income Tax Was Promoted by former Republican President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt (1901-1909) as a progressive instrument, part of his efforts to create a “Square Deal” between big business and its workers.

Among Candidates in the Current Presidential Campaign, both the McCain family and the Obama family would pay higher taxes under the Obama plan, and lower taxes under the McCain plan. Neither the Biden nor Palin families would benefit from either plan, according to sources familiar with the two tax-plan proposals.

“Is it Merely Coincidence That the Modest Obama
tax increase would also be paid by Senator John McCain’s family?” asked our occasionally reliable source. “Country First is harder to believe when Joe the Plumber becomes the chief economic advisor, and the result is a reduction in the candidate’s taxes.

“But Who Do the McCain-Palin Campaign want to give the big tax breaks to? People like Senator John and Cindy McCain.”

Senator McCain and Governor Palin Have Implied
that Teddy Roosevelt was “Socialist” in relation to support of his progressive income tax, which Barack Obama also supports.

On Socialism, Teddy Roosevelt Himself Wrote, in his 1913 An Autobiography, “many of the men who call themselves Socialists today are in reality merely radical social reformers, with whom...good citizens can and ought to work in hearty general agreement, and whom in many practical matters of government good citizens well afford to follow.” [Italics, ChannelingBarack Obama™]

“The Issue of Economics Is Not Something I’ve Understood as well as I should,” Senator McCain recently admitted. “I’ve got Greenspan’s book.” The Senator was apparently referring to The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, by Alan Greenspan, published 2007 by the Penguin Press.


Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Can America Really Have It Both Ways?

Anyone Listening to Senator McCain over the past few weeks has heard him promise to rid Wall Street of greed, while deregulating the economy so that America can get back to work.

But Greed Is One of the Key Reasons
that regulation is needed. And regulation is what the Republican Party has spent the last eight years getting rid of.

Senator McCain, Like Most People, wants to provide necessary government services, while lowering the taxes necessary to pay for them.

The Way Conservatives Explain It, when tax rates are lowered, tax revenues go up. If that’s the case, doesn't it make better sense to get rid of tax rates entirely, and let tax revenues rise through the roof?

Another Way of Saying This Is
“You Get What You Pay For.” Republicans don't want to pay for anything. These years of the twenty-first century in America so far are the result.

“Voodoo Economics,” is what George H.W. Bush called it. And current circumstances make it look like he had something.

The Past Seven Years Provided an Unprecedented Opportunity
for Conservative Americans and the Republican Party to put their free-market ideas to the test. Controlling all three branches of the Federal Government for six of those years is about as good as it gets. And yet almost 90% of Americans say that the economy now is about as bad as it gets.

The Free-Market Ideology Does Not Work. Not back in the 1920s. Not in the twenty-first century. It makes no sense. It is illogical. It is “voodoo economics.”

Yeah, But What Really Went Wrong? Maybe the following quote from David Brooks’s column, “Revolt of the Nihilists,” in The New York Times, 09/30/2008 (italics by Channeling Barack Obama) may shed some more light on a key Conservative ideological flaw:


“What We Need in this Situation Is Authority. Not heavy-handed government regulation, but the steady and powerful hand of some public institutions that can guard against the corrupting influences of sloppy money and then prevent destructive contagions when the credit dries up.”


What Public Instititutions Is David Brooks Talking About? The Carnegie Library? The American Red Cross? The Daughter of the American Revolution?

The Key to the Republican Disaster
is this cluelessness about government. Republicans don’t know what government is. They don’t know how it works. They finally seem tired of running it.

Here’s Hoping that on November 4, 2008, They Finally Give America Some Government Back
.


My Name Is Not Barack Obama, and Barack Obama does not even know that this exists.