Bottom Left Politics

Your daily dose of politics, with a progressive twist.

Extending Jobless Benefits Won’t Cut It

Good news for out-of-work Americans arrived yesterday in the form of an unemployment benefits extension passed by the Senate.  The measure, which will extend unemployment benefits for at least 14 more weeks (20 more weeks in states that are worse off), awaits further action in the House – which will probably happen today – before it heads to President Obama’s desk.

This is great news for the thousands of Americans who have been down on their luck lately, but it isn’t nearly enough.  Extending jobless benefits for another 14 weeks is the equivalent of giving a starving man some table scraps.  Some more unemployment money may be enough to barely make rent and put some food on the table that no Senator would ever think of eating, but it’s not going to fix anything.  It doesn’t address the root of the problem, which is unemployment.  If the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress don’t take swift, bold action soon, we’re in for a very lengthy jobless recovery.  The “economy” may improve, but the working class will still be out of work.  Unemployment figures will continue to rise.  Unemployment benefits will run out again.  We can keep looking to Congress to extend benefits, but how long will that game last?  How can we truly have an economic recovery when our citizens can’t find any work and must beg Congress over and over for more scraps?

We need leadership from the President and from Congress (but mainly from the President), and we need it now.  We need President Obama to take the bully pulpit out of the closet, dust it off, and use it for something other than peddling bank bailouts.  We need a public works program established on the federal level that puts unemployed people back to work – on our infrastructure, on our hospitals, on our schools, on green technology.  It worked during the Great Depression with the Works Progress Administration, and it can work in the 21st century.  Instead of spending billions on bailing out bankers who have been robbing America blind, we need to spend money – and I mean real money, not a piddly few billion thrown as a bone – on the people.

We need a people’s recovery more than an economic recovery.

The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.

November 5, 2009 Posted by Kristofer Paul | Economic Issues | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments Yet

Death and Taxes

Obama’s proposed stimulus plan is hearing howls and cries from both the Right and even, to some extent, the Left.  I’ll admit that there are some things about it that make me scratch my head, and I’ll also admit that I’m quite nervous about taking on up to $700 billion of new debt.  But I do believe that, unlike Bush, Obama possesses both intellect and a social conscience, and I am therefore much more willing to give him – and his proposal – the benefit of the doubt.  But, even if this stimulus plan succeeds in reviving the economy, we’re still going to have to pay off the $700 billion that we’re pulling out of thin air;  how are we going to do that?  Of course, there is only one answer:  higher taxes.

If there’s one way to make an American angry, it’s telling him that his taxes are going up.  Why is that?  Why are we, on the whole, so opposed to paying our fair share to society, in which we all happily live?  For some reason – probably, at least in part, the Right’s reigning ideology that a person is entitled to 100% (or pretty damned close) of what he earns – we are collectively outraged at the thought that the government is taking in revenue from our hard-earned paychecks.  Interestingly enough, the same people who advocate low taxes are usually the same ones who have “Support the Troops – Let ‘Em Win” signs in their front lawns.  We demand two wars (and, obviously, high military spending), public services, Social Security, and just about everything else – but God forbid that we should have to pay a little more in taxes.

A little-known fact is that the Right’s ideology is, well, wrong.  Blatantly wrong.  A simple glance at history tells us that tax hikes are extremely healthy for an economy;  if Obama’s stimulus plan rebuilds our economy, and if he raises income taxes – at least on the rich – we’ll undoubtedly see a surplus again sometime down the road.  Economic prosperity follows tax hikes;  Republicans don’t like to admit it, but it’s true.  Some of our strongest years have been during periods of high taxes;  after the George H.W. Bush tax increase (and then the tax increases of the Clinton Administration), we saw unparalleled prosperity and an extraordinary surplus.  Yet, somehow, we’ve bought into the lie that high taxes strangle an economy.

Let’s look on the other side of the coin – tax cuts.  Throughout our history, we have seen three major periods of tax cuts – in the 1920s under Hoover, in the 1980s under Reagan, and, of course, the Bush tax cuts that we all know and love.  Each tax cut has seen an initial boom, and then a crash.  That’s just how it works;  we all know what happened in the 1920s, Reagan’s tax cuts were followed by a recession, and we’re currently seeing the economic results of Bush policy.  But we continue to buy into the Republican lie that high taxes are bad and low taxes signal economic growth.

Obama’s stimulus plan is undoubtedly important.  However, it needs to be accompanied by a new policy of fairly taxing the rich – it may be unpopular initially, but history has proven that it is the correct decision.

January 12, 2009 Posted by Kristofer Paul | Economic Issues | , , , , , , | No Comments Yet

Christmas in the Recession

As I sit here on a Tuesday, waiting for the Obama report on the Blagojevich scandal to be released, I have to wonder if America, as a whole, realizes that it’s in a recession.

I’m about to go Christmas shopping;  and I’m not going to go all out for Christmas, either.  I’m cutting down on the number of gifts I’m buying, and I’m certainly cutting down on the quality of the gifts I’m buying, for I’m on a very limited budget.  Is everybody else in America doing the same?  I know a lot of people are.  Many people across the nation realize that, while Christmas is a wonderful time of year for gifts and what-not, they just can’t afford to maintain the same level of materialism they’d once maintained.  Some Americans are not buying gifts at all, instead using the Christmas season as a time to be with family without a gift exchange.  And, yet, millions of Americans are still driving around their huge SUVs, which have been stuffed full of packages.  How do they do it?  Are they immune to the recession?

I don’t think so.  I think that, in spite of the recession, many people in this country – for whatever reason (pressure from family, financial ignorance, stupidity, etc.) – are spending money they don’t have.  And why not? – our federal government doesn’t exactly set a good example, now does it?  And this, at the core, is the problem that America faces.  It faces the consumerism that has arisen out of the capitalistic notion upon which this nation has been founded;  it has been drilled into people’s heads since childhood that happiness depends upon what you have, what you can buy, HOW MUCH you have and can buy, and so people run around buying new houses, leasing new SUVs, and, especially at Christmastime, breaking out the plastic credit cards to charge loads of presents.  And nobody seems to care.  They’re like a bunch of lemmings jumping off a cliff – the cliff of bankruptcy and financial ruin.  What are they buying?  Games to add to their large collections of games, clothes to add to their enormous wardrobes, jewelry that nobody needs, the list goes on and on.

Why?  I never really thought about this until, well, this year.  This year, for the first time, I am experiencing a truly tight budget.  For the first time, I feel the pressure to buy those Christmas gifts, and, at the same time, I know I shouldn’t be buying ANY Christmas gifts.  Is this really what Christmas is about?  I’m not one of those Christians who will go on about the birth of Jesus, but maybe it’s time to get back to the roots of the holiday.  Maybe it’s time to emphasize the family more, while drastically cutting down on the consumerist aspect of the holiday.  Maybe it’s time to MAKE presents.  But I don’t know.  Is that feasible?  Is that possible?  Probably not.  I’m just babbling on while America buys presents.

Because of the Christmas season, there will be no blog entries for the rest of this week.  The next blog entry will be posted on Monday, December 29.

December 23, 2008 Posted by Kristofer Paul | Economic Issues | , , , , | No Comments Yet

The Republicans that Stole Christmas

Well, with the news officially in that Chrysler is going to shut down every single one of its plants for at least a month (perhaps longer), I wonder if people have gotten it through their thick skulls yet that the GOP doesn’t give a damn. I wonder if the Republicans – of which there are undoubtedly many – that gather within the gargantuan buildings to build America’s cars understand yet that the Republican Party is not the party of the working class, that it is nothing more than a convergence of thieves, liars, and wealthy elite. Has working-class America gotten the picture yet? We could only hope.

I don’t hold too much hope, though, that the working-class individuals who have been brainwashed since their youth into having angry spasms at the mere mention of the word “Democrat” have simply woken up. Not yet. Even as they go home and wonder if they’ll have jobs to go back to come January, and even as they feel the constant strain of this economic recession, they’re still asleep. They’re but the sheep (just like in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times) hurrying into the factories to punch the time clock to make somebody else above them on the organizational chart – a Republican, of course – richer and greedier. Yet, as far back as they can remember, they’ve pulled that lever for the champion of the average working man; from Reagan to Bush to Dole to Bush to McCain, the cycle just never ends.

Even as Republicans blocked the passage of aid to the automakers – aid that, with the appropriate oversight and restructure, could very well save these companies and thus save literally millions of American jobs – nobody seems to take notice. Free market solutions, they say. We need to let the market work itself out. The Invisible Hand at work; ask a Detroit autoworker about the Invisible Hand, and see what he says. These jerks, these scoundrels of the highest degree, that still infest Congress never cease to amaze me. Even in this state of recession, they’re still defending the free-market capitalism that has led to this catastrophe in the first place. They’re still clinging to Adam Smith’s ideology that may have applied back in centuries past, when there actually WAS such a thing as a free market, but which is useless and irrelevant in today’s world. And the right-wing talking heads continue to lambast Obama and liberals for not upholding this corrupt, horrifically wrong system. And guess what – people still fall for it. Even as the automakers collapse into bankruptcy, and even as millions of Americans lose their livelihood and dignity and self-respect as they plunge into a state of economic turmoil, in 2012, BY GOD, they’ll vote for whatever dimwitted Republican decides to rear his or her ugly head.

And the gears continue to turn, and capitalism marches on.

December 18, 2008 Posted by Kristofer Paul | Economic Issues, GOP/Right Wing | , , , , , , , | No Comments Yet

I love the smell of recession in the morning!

Oh my God. Somebody make it stop. Make the bad news stop. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, by God, it gets worse.

It was bad enough that we knew we were in a recession. But now we KNOW we knew we were in a recession. As if you weren’t feeling it already, the National Bureau of Economic Research has announced that your – our – suspicions were correct. Yes, indeed, it is a recession.

Is that bad enough? Some may think so. And those people would be wrong.

Not only is it a recession – it is going to be a record-breaking recession. It is going to be worse than 1980 and 1981; it is going to be worse than the average post-World War II recession. But don’t worry. Our President is on it. Yes, George W. Bush himself came out with words of confident leadership on Monday on ABC’s “World News.” Know what he said? Are you ready for this? “I’m sorry it’s happening, of course.” He’s sorry it’s happening. He’s…sorry it’s happening?

Well, so am I. Damn, am I ever sorry it’s happening. You know what else I’m sorry about? I’m sorry that this country put this son of a bitch in office in the first place. Incompetence in the Bush Administration is nothing new and nothing exciting, but “I’m sorry it’s happening” takes it to a whole new level. He went on to say: “On the other hand, the American people got to know that we will safeguard the system.” Really? Do I got to know, George?

And, in the midst of this crisis, the conservatives are still running their mouths, sputtering Reagan-era rhetoric: “Government is the problem!” “Regulation bad!” What dinosaurs. These are the same asses Obama promised to unite with. These are the same asses I thought it would be nice to pull into the process of change as I rallied behind Obama. Now, Mr. Obama, I’d rather you throw them under the proverbial bus. We need to stop beating around the bush (no pun intended) and pretending that these imbeciles have a point. They don’t. They got us into this mess, and they’re not going to help get us out.

It’s getting’ uglier. And the Republicans ain’t gettin’ smarter.

December 2, 2008 Posted by Kristofer Paul | Economic Issues | , , , , , | No Comments Yet

Let It Die

I know in advance that I’m going to make myself look horrible in this blog entry. But you know what? That’s okay. That’s why Barack Obama will never approach me to be Secretary of the Treasury.

Were I offered the position, or any position of notable influence within the economy, my solution would be simple – the absence of a solution. I am sick and tired of seeing these half-assed, half-brained economic rescue ideas coming from the people who are supposedly well-versed in economics. This is one area on which I agree with Rush and Sean; NO MORE BAIL-OUTS.

Of course, that doesn’t make me similar to Rush or Sean. The means may be the same, but the ends are vastly different. Rush and Sean and their colleagues on the right wing want to stop bailing companies out because they believe it is socialistic and an intrusion upon the private sector. They believe that the private sector needs to work itself out. Well, on that point, I agree. The private sector really does need to work itself out. But, judging from history (just open a history book, for God’s sake), free-market capitalism will not solve the problem. What it will do is completely sink the economy. What I’m proposing, and what other individuals on the left are proposing, is that we ignore the corporate problems and let the economy die. Just let it die. Let the free market die; let capitalism itself die. Let it fall in on itself. Let Reaganomics die. Let the laissez-faire ideology die. Just let it die.

Yes, that’s a bold, audacious position. But you have to admit that it’s probably the most sensible. Just look at these bail-out proposals. AIG’s bail-out just got bigger. President-Elect Obama has just asked Bush to help the automakers by giving them a bail-out. Bail this out, bail that out. Where is it going? Where is this money – this taxpayer money – going? It’s going to the thugs in Corporate America. It’s being taken from the taxpayers with little or no governmental supervision, based on the idea that they must know what they’re doing – they’re in the private sector, after all!

We need to stop. These bail-out plans…they’re just delaying the inevitable. What “inevitable,” you ask? The inevitability of the collapse of capitalism as we know it. It will be painful, but it will be quick, if we stop injecting the economy with these false medicines.

That’s not me being a Communist, either. Notice that I added “as we know it” after “the collapse of capitalism.” Capitalism will live on, but not in its current form. If this economic crisis will teach us anything, it will be that the private sector does NOT know best, and that the only good capitalism is regulated capitalism. I stand by my belief that what we’re witnessing is the end of the free rides and the golden parachutes. If we play the cards right, we can change the face of Corporate America.

But who am I kidding? We’re talking about Democrats here. We’re in for a slow, painful, grueling ride. Hold on to your hats.

November 12, 2008 Posted by Kristofer Paul | Corporate America, Economic Issues | , , , , , , | No Comments Yet