I am not convinced despite all his talk, President Obama, really knows what is going on with the citizens who are unemployed and have in many cases these are the same people who have lost their homes. How do we get him to see the light and do what is necessary to put people back to work? I for one do not know or maybe he does not give a rats ass.
IF Citizens United is repealed then no more unlimited amounts of money will be permitted to be given anonymously to campaigns, and with that, government jobs given to people who gave substantial amounts of money to a campaign will be made public. ALEC and the fact that they write laws known as "model laws" that are made into actual law will be public knowledge and the backers and legislators who are putting into law these ALEC laws will be held accountable for their lack of working for "we the people." Republican's backers are the ones who want privatization because their contributors to their campaigns want to own government contracts so they can put the profits in their own pockets instead of workers making a living wage. As a civil service employee who is restrained by the Hatch act and not able to help candidates I support, I am offended that certain governors, have privatization panels and teams and also hire people who are currently holding an elected office, and gave money to the governors campaign. When these people are given by the governor a high level position such as (for instance) a veterans home they then can put into action union avoidance tactics. All of this is designed to make sure the wealthy can put contract money into their own pockets and less to the workers. Privatization does not save money, it redistributes the money so the wealthy become even wealthier and the middle class work harder and make less money, and lose retirement and health care. Citizens United must be overturned, two Supreme Court justices are personal friends of the Koch brothers, one of the Justice's wives received 160,000 dollars from the Koch brothers. The Justices who are friends of the Koch's and who should have recused themselves are Scalia and Thomas. The main goal of the Koch's and most Republicans is in essence taking over our country and putting the running of our country in the hands of those whose main interest is making money, not the betterment of mankind. They want unions obliterated because they want to shift the balance of power and they want total control of our country, our laws and the running of government services. These same legislators are quick to point out the wages of public employees and inflate it if necessary to their goal but are not willing to put themselves in that same class, they are also public employees but make much more money than ordinary workers and with retirement they can claim 2 years for every one year worked, at least in some states, I am not sure how this is with all states. Legislators who want to break unions on the path to privatization never talk about their own wages, health care and retirement funds, perhaps they feel they deserve the pay and perks they receive. These legislators put into law "model laws" written by ALEC that support special interests such as making fracking fluid a secret claiming it's a trade secret, they deny their are health hazards and they deny the water is polluted during fracking. Big oil and Pharma are only two of the many favorite "causes" they support with "model" laws. It is not a coincidence these same businesses and organizations support these legislators campaigns. There are over 900 "model" laws written by ALEC, ALEC is one of the organizations that the Koch brothers developed and hide behind, the Tea Party would be another organization they support, many other organizations sound to the public like a good idea until the research is done and the real reason they exist exposed. The Koch brothers father belonged to the Birch society and what they wanted then they still want, the takeover of our country by any means. Some of the model laws want anything affiliated with the public's right to know obliterated at the most and at the least make it nearly impossible for the public to search out and find the truth of government functions. ALEC and other organizations are claiming non-profit status and yet they are making a profit. I cannot understand why the IRS is not pursuing legal action against ALEC because they are making a profit. I cannot understand why the Citizens United decision has not been overturned. The balance of power of our government is gone because a few wealthy people are now deciding who and how our government functions are run. In Wisconsin when the recall occurred the majority of money supporting the governor came from out of state. Before Governor Walker initially ran for governor there was no negative statements regarding unions or of his agenda to destroy unions during his campaign. With privatization of government services there is a very real possibility that foreign entities could be in charge of government functions and those same aforementioned foreign entities may not have the USA's best interests at heart. When private companies run government services it is a recipe for disaster. Laws have been changed to keep privatized prisons full and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Anyone running or working for the government should have it's citizens as their primary concern and the fact that privatization does not save money but simply puts the majority of the contract money in the pockets of the owners of the private company and then takes away income, retirement and health care to the workers. These "right to work" laws Republican lawmakers push for is to destroy unions and make the balance of power shift so that workers cannot complain about unfair treatment and bargain for a living wage with health care and retirement. Our government is compromised and if things continue without intervention from people in power we are heading for a country we no longer recognize with no hope for our children and grandchildren to live the American dream. This brings me to this, Charter schools, they have the same or worse level of dysfunction as private schools and with charter schools, the teachers do not have to be certified. To keep the public uneducated makes the job of fooling the public easier. Propaganda is also used liberally in their pursuit of destroying what I hold dear, the balance of power, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. May God help us all and may be remind our legislators WHO they work for, which is of course the public.
There are a lot of problems in this article. I don't mean I feel a different way. For the past little time I've viewed myself as a democratic socialist.
First this article assumes that the deficit is not an issue. True, that the deficit and our gigantic level of debt is not as bad as would appear to an uneducated layman, our debt is still valued well and we appear to be having no issues in getting financiers of it. Our credit rating, although dropped from AAA to AA+ is still among the best in the world. And people seem to love our treasury securities simply because of the fact that we are so stable and because of the safe return they provide. But that doesn't mean it's not an issue. Reducing our national debt is a sound thing to do. It's much better to be a creditor nation than a debtor nation.
Second of all, while government spending DOES increase economic activity and help get us out of a recession or sluggish growth cycle, this article acts as if the economy is completely devoid of any ability to heal naturally. Fiscal stimulus by the government is just one portion of the consumption function. And anyone who had any kind of economic sense would know that. Therefore either the author of this article is not familiar with fundamental economic theory in the slightest or someone is being blatantly dishonest in the way this article is worded. C+G+I-E=Y (Y being GDP) Government is just one part, and not even the largest of that function.
I just felt like I had to write this rebuttal as a comment. It's shameful to see such slant coming from what I have found in the past to be a very reliable source of information.
Cut the damn oil subsidies, for one. There are tons of places to cut that NEED to be cut to stop the giveaways to big money and to foreign countries. Keep our money at home....and leave social security and medicare alone! I'm a big NASCAR fan, but PLEASE....do Nascar racetracks really need millions in subsidies from the federal government??
This is not new and didn't start with ALEC. More than 20 years ago I was sitting in a bullpen at the USAID office in El Salvadore. Two male contractors came through discussing how the labor person was coming the following week and they were going to subvert his attempt to unionize the Maciladora workers.
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