"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."~ John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural Address on January 20, 1961
* NOTE: This is personal and comprehensive (and scathing but honest andaccurate) observation on the status of the current Republican Party --- writtenby an ex-Republican.
CAUTION! Contains adult material that may not be suitable for children.
Two different political philosophies on charity and taxes
More than ever, and mostly because of the Great Recession, manyAmericans now need government assistance, such as Medicaid and food stamps.Instead of responsibly padding the federal piggy bank in anticipation of anational emergency duringthe "good times", the Republicans recklessly raided the cookie jar, drasticallycuttaxes for the rich, ignorantly de-regulated the banks (albeit, withBill Clinton's help), brutally outsourcedmillions of jobs under George W. Bush, who also gave us twocontroversial wars --- all that combined, is what haddecimated our budgets and created our huge deficits --- putting a huge strain on oursocial programs today (aka "entitlements").
And after all their carnage was complete, after wrecking the economy andputting millions of once-middle-class Americans out of work, the GOP had the rawaudacity to point their crooked finger of blame at President Obama...but why?Was it because, like FDR, Obama had cared about the poor and middle-class? Orwas it because Obama was too much like Theodore Roosevelt, the lastRepublican who cared about a "Square Deal" for the poor and averageworking Americans?
Or maybe it was really because Obama was half black.
The Democrats (for the most part) want to preserve our social safety nets.The Republicans, in very stark contrast, want just the opposite during theseharsh times of severe economic hardship for millions of Americans. The GOP just wantsto cut, cut, cut!
Ever since the unemployment rate was at 10.2%, when over 15 million people wereout of work in October of 2009, most Republican state legislatures had thought thatthen was a good time to lay off thousands of government workers and to slashunemployment benefits. And some had even introduced drug tests in order for thejobless to qualify for those government "hand-outs", butthe GOP lawmakers did not apply the same means testing for their owngovernment salaries.
Across the board, the Republicans have been saying for over four years (beginningexactly on the same day that Obama was first sworn in as our President) that ourcountry's number one priority should be the annual budget and the national debt--- so that our futuristic children (the great-grandchildren and the great-great-grandchildren) would not be saddleddown with the burden of our debt, and so therefore, be forced to live among The Walking Dead.
When the Republicans forget who caused the debt, this phenomenon is known asa "deficit attention disorder".
The Democrats feel much differently about real people than theRepublicans do...they care aboutthe children, the poor, the disabled and the elderly that we already have amongus --- those who are currently living in the "here and now".
The Republicans claim we can't afford to feed our children and old people,and that it's not because we lack the necessary revenue streams, but because ofwasteful government spending (as though, feeding people is also"wasteful" spending.)
Tax evasion (and fair taxation) is a major revenue problem
But we DO have a revenue problem --- and it's because of anunder-funded tax collection agency that's battling tax fraud on a massive scale.(After all, how can we be expected to feed all those poor and lazy people if wecan't bilk those poor and misunderstood billionaires?)
Last year the IRS identified roughly twomillion tax returns that were potentially fraudulent from tax year 2011, a sharpincrease that has the agency struggling to keep up. The agency's shrinkingresources and growing responsibilities are making it next to impossible toprevent delays and backlogs.
On a budget of $11.8 billion in the 2012 fiscal year, the I.R.S. collected$2.52 trillion, meaning it brought in $214 for every dollar it spent. In otherwords, hiring more tax auditors to find tax cheats would be a great investment.But theRepublicans argue, that with more tax cuts for the rich, they won't cheat asmuch!
While the IRS had pushed last year to increase its 2012 budget by $1 billion,the 2012 budget that was ultimately passed by Congress, had actually cut the IRS'sbudget by about 3%.
The national taxpayer advocate, an independent position with the I.R.S. thatCongress created to assist taxpayers in resolving problems, has criticizedCongress’s recent budget cuts to the I.R.S.
But in spite of those cuts, the IRS is boasting that so far, it has collected $5 billionfrom offshoretax cheats, even though in 2011 astudy showed (Downloadthe PDF file) that 18-23 % of total reportable income may not properlybe reported to the IRS. This gives rise to a 2009 “tax gap” in the range of$390-$537 billion every year in lost tax revenues (That's a lot of food stamps!)
The IRS launched its first voluntary amnesty program in 2009 (when MittRomney had closed his Swiss bank account with UBS), and its second amnesty program in2011. This year theagency introduced its third program. The IRS plans to examine the impact oftheir OffshoreVoluntary Disclosure Programs -- which lures in tax evaders with the promiseof reduced penalties --- but still, no jail time. Although....
MarieEstelle Curran, a 79-year-old widow in Palm Beach, Florida had inherited aSwiss bank account from her late husband worth $43 million. For nine years,instead of reporting her income to the IRS, she moved the money from one bank toanother, even setting up a shell company in Panama. She is set to be sentencednext month (March 2013) and could face six years in prison. (Bankers get out ofjail free, but grandma gets hard time? I doubt it.)
Who sounds more creditable? Who can we believe?
When the Speaker of the House John Boehner and the House Majority leader EricCantor tell us, "We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spendingproblem" --- do you really believe them, or do you ONLY watch FoxNews 24 hours a day?
In his closing argument during the O.J. Simpson trial,Johnnie Cochran had plead to the jury, "If it doesn't fit, you mustacquit". How many people were convinced that O.J. was innocent?
When Michael Steele, the Republican Party's first African American to headthe RNC, was immediately selected in the aftermath of President Obama'selection, how many people were convinced that it was for merit alone, and not mostlyto counter the first black president? (Some referred to him as a"token", and there were rumors that Oreo cookies were involved.)
How many people believe that a congressional member of the Tea Party, who hails from aSouthern state, which has a long and well-documented history of votersuppression laws, isn't in any way bigoted, biased, prejudiced, or racist ---and would never suppress anyone's vote?
If you believe any of that, then MSNBC's Al Sharpton has a bridge to sellyou.
Part of the GOP plan to divide and conquer
How many people believed, that when Newt Gingrich had called Obama the"food stamp president", it wasn't to divide whites and blacks --- andwas sneakily implying that thewhites were the nice, hard working middle-class people, who were beingforced to support the lazy and poor unemployed blacks?
If Eddie Murphy had tried to convince you that he was really white, andsecretly a member of the Ku Klux Klan, would you believe him? If not, then how can youpossibly believe the Republicans about not having a "revenue problem",especially when you knowfor a fact, that we have a huge problem with income tax evasion?
And why would anyone believe Newt Gingrich or any Republican for that matter,who comes from a Southern state and believes that it's mostly black people whoare sucking up the government's revenues and living on food stamps and welfare,but never mentions corporate welfare?
If the Republicans had ever wanted to discriminate against someone, and suppresstheir votes (because poor people don't vote, or shouldn't vote),maybe it should be the white people, not the black people that they should shun --- because most likely, there were almost as many poor whitepeople voting for Obama as there were poor blacks and Hispanics combined.
Poverty is now officially bipartisan..."We are the forty-sevenPercent!"
Bigotry and racism
All throughout 2009 and 2010, when we heard all the Republicans in congressand the Tea Party members railagainst ObamaCare®, it was ridiculous to think that it wasn't atleast partially driven by bigotry and racism. We weren't blind, wesaw their protest signs. "Black people getting more free stuff" wasthe underlying (if not, subliminal) message we heard.
And who are these Tea Party people anyway? Just Dixiecrats,reincarnated.
And the same thing had occurred when we heard from all the GOP's presidential candidateslast year. It was so obvious --- it was thick enough to cut with a knife. NewtGingrich and Rick Santorum were the two most obvious offenders. (Herman Cain wasthe exception, but as a multi-millionaire, he didn't care too much about poorpeople in general...and would have lowered his own taxes with his 999 Plan).
We have all known a bigot in ourlifetimes, or may have once been oneourselves. And many of us have bigots in our own families. Remember the TV show Allin the Family? We all know a bigot when we see one; but to hear a Republicanbigot deny this, it reminds us of Shakespeare: "Thou dothprotest too much."
It was almost laughable; they all looked like lying fools...oras the fabulous Reverend Al Sharpton had once said in a TV ad, "They got theblueberry pie all over their face, they were the ones eating the pie!”
And still today, after over 30-plus attempts, the TeaParty-led Republicans are still wasting time and passing legislation inthe House to repeal ObamaCare® --- even though they knowthese bills (and abortion bills) could neverpass in the current Senate. (They remind me of bigoted old dogs with crusty oldbones.)
And what's even more atrocious is, the Republicans have vainly attempted toturn the argument around, by falsely saying Obama hates all white people (suchas his mother and grandparents). The pot calling the kettle black (with everypun intended).
More Whites are Poor
In 2011, as a percent of the entire U.S. population, there were more blacks (35%) living inpoverty than whites (13%); but by the number, there were far more whites (25,865,700) living in poverty thanblacks. (12,876,400).
Source: www.statehealthfacts.org
According to the U.S. Census, theyreported that in 2010, the poverty rate for:
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Whites was 13.0% (30,849,009), and in 2011 went down to 12.8% (30,849,000) --- a change of -0.2% (most likely due to government assistance)
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Blacks was 27.4% (10,929,000), and in 2011 it went up to 27.6% (10,929,000) --- a change of +0.2%
But this doesn't tell the whole story either, because governmentassistance (e.g. TANF and SNAP) keeps people from ever being counted in thepoverty rate. But even so, the rate for whites is lower compared to thetotal population, but the number is much greater, even though blackpeople in the United States have a much higher risk of living in poverty thanwhite people.
And when we look at people living in extremepoverty --- households making less than 50 percent of the "poverty threshold"(Excelfiles for download) --- of 20 million people who live at this alarminglevel, about 42 percent are white and 26 percent are black.
More Whites are also on Food Stamps
As of February 8, 2013, the latest datashows that 47.7 million Americans now rely on food stamps -- and 36% are white,while only 22% are black. Poverty has not just been a problem for minorities inurban neighborhoods (orthose living in the rural areas of Southern states), but it is also beginning todevour what was a majority white middle-class in the suburbs as well.
The New Poor
Astudy from Stanford University shows that back in 1970, 65 percent ofAmerica’s families lived in “middle-income” situations. By 2008, only 43percent of U.S. families lived in middle-income neighborhoods. Meanwhile, overthat same period of time, the share of families living in either poor or richneighborhoods essentially doubled.
This is the new demographics(besides just the Latinos) that the Republicans missed in the last election ---the people whose policies they've helped exasperate (by making them poorer), sonaturally they're going to vote against them.
According to the Social Security Administration, 50% of allworkers in the U.S. workforce nets $26,966 a year or less (that's people ofall races, colors, creeds, etc.)
Obama received 63 percent of the votes of Americans making less than $30,000and 57 percent of those making between $30,000 and $50,000. Above $50,000,Romney won 53 percent of the votes of Americans making between $50 and a $100thousand and 54 percent of the votes of Americans making above $100,000.
When the Republicans tried to divide the nation (and the vote), they usedrace (e.g. "food stamp president"). But then they accused Obama of dividingthe country by using class [warfare]. But when white people lose their jobs (orare severely under-paid) and need food stamps to feed themselves and theirfamilies, they're not going to vote for anold rich white guy who promises to cut food stamps, they'll vote for a black manwho at least acts as though he cares. (The Republicans call food"free stuff".)
PHOTO BELOW: During the Great Depression, and especially in the DustBowl, most poor people were white --- but just like today, theRepublicans didn't want to give them "free stuff" either. And backthen, just like today, the Republicans had also accused the unemployed of being lazydrunks.
“Three or four million heads of households don’t turn into tramps and cheats overnight, nor do they lose the habits and standards of a lifetime. They don’t drink any more than the rest of us, they don’t lie any more, and they’re no lazier than the rest of us. An eighth or a tenth of the earning population does not change its character which has been generations in the moulding, or, if such a change actually occurs, we can scarcely charge it up to personal sin.” – Harry Hopkins, Federal relief administrator under Franklin D. Roosevelt – 1933
* Note: I Photoshopped "coffee and donuts" in the picture toread "stuff" :)
Pompous, cheap, stingy and hypocritical millionaires
Vice-presidential loser Paul Ryan (who last year wanted the capital gainstax rate for the rich to be 0%) is currently touting more budget cuts that would eliminatefood stamps for 1.8 million adults and children --- and would also eliminateMeals on Wheels for our seniors.
And what was the GOP thinking by running Mitt Romney for president last year, the poster boy ofwealth and excess? "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have asafety net there." The net he promised the voters he would cut.
People like Mitt Romney (and many billionaires on the ForbesFortune 400 list) have always acted as though they're entitledto earn millions every year. And Mitt Romney, who doesn't care whose pension hesteals. representseverything that's gone wrong for the poor and middle-class in this countryover the past 40 years --- and it's only getting worse.
That's why black people get "free stuff", for the same reason whywhite people like me do; because unless you were rich to begin with, theRepublican Party has been screwing us all.
There's far more poor people than there are rich people, and there will onlybe a growing number of poor white people in the future. Instead of a"lost decade", we will most likely have a "lost generation".
But in all fairness to the current Republican leaders, they don't hate allblack people, unless of course, they're poor. But they do hate all poorpeople, that's why God made so many of them, just to piss off the Republicanpoliticians.
And that's also why, at this rate, only the richest (and/orthe dumbest) people will ever be voting for any future Republican candidates, nomatter what color they are. But if they do, may God help us all.
* Full Disclosure: I know these things, because I too was oncea Republican, and ignorantly believed everything the GOP leaders and Fox Newshad told me --- But no more! --- And that's whyI hate Republicans and the Fox News channel. Thank God I've finallyseen the light!
Related Post: RepublicansThink I'm A Lazy Black Man
* Alsoposted at the Daily Kos
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