Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Does the GOP's "Smaller Government" Mean Forced Abortions?

Since the Republicans and Tea Party members swept into office, we no longer hear the Speaker of the House John Boehner asking "Where are the jobs?" Instead the GOP has been focused on the federal funding of abortions. But if less babies were killed, wouldn't that increase our population base, thereby creating a "bigger government", and in turn, a larger budget deficit? If a whole bunch of young single moms starting having babies, wouldn't we need MORE social services, not LESS?

I'm not taking a moral stand or preaching either PRO or ANTI abortion, I'm just asking the questions. Because I see a HUGE dilemma in cutting the budget when more government services are actually needed with a naturally growing population base, as opposed to lowering the taxes on the uber-rich when all the government budgets are already severely lacking revenues. Does that make sense to you?

The Republicans have been trying to convince voters NOT to raise taxes on top 2% to erase our budget deficits. Quite the opposite; the GOP is now attempting to actually LOWER taxes on the uber-rich with their false arguments about "creating jobs".

The Republicans have always represented the larger corporations and big banks rather than average working people...that's why so many jobs left the country and we now have such high unemployment and huge budget short-falls. And that's why during the Great Recession the rich got richer while the poor got poorer - and that's why the Republican's plan to cut the budget only hurts the very people that they put out of work over the last 30 years - and who the Republicans have also just recently reduced to poverty, because of deregulation in the financial industry.

Now quite ironically, it appears as if the GOP and Tea Party are trying to increase government (the population base), but at the same time, deny all those people a way to survive. Sure, they could cut funding for all abortions and all social services entirely, but will that mean that people will just stop having babies? I DON'T THINK SO! Unless you live in China, where abortion is actually forced on people to control their population growth.

The GOP and Tea Party's mantra is "smaller government" and "cut the budget", even though the U.S. population* grew by 100 million more just since 1970. And 30 years from now the U.S. Census predicts another 100 million. The U.S. population IS the "government", so how does the GOP and Tea Party propose we achieve this "smaller government"?

* Currently our government consists of 308 million people, half of which are our workforce. Of those 154 million, 25% are under and unemployed, and the federal poverty rate is now at 17.3%.

And we are living longer too. Life expectancy has hit another all-time high, rising to 78 years and 2 months for a baby born in 2009. The infant mortality rate also hit a record low of 6.42 deaths per 1,000 live births, a drop of nearly 3 percent from 2008. Many more Americans will be living, and they will be living longer. What does the Tea Party want? Population control? Forced abortions? "Smaller government"? Or shouldn't they just raise the capital gains taxes on billionaire's personal income who don't expand businesses or hire people from their personal funds, but instead, just earn paper profits and then hoard their wealth.

The Bush Tax Cuts were crumbs for average working folks but were a HUGE windfall for the uber-rich. Now we have HUGE budget deficits and the GOP wants to lower taxes for the rich even more, layoff more government workers, bust labor unions, and cut social services for all the poor people they created.

That's the GOP's plan for invigorating they U.S. economy: Create more poor people, then deny them government help by cutting the budget, then lowering taxes for the rich to make them richer. Meanwhile the jobs continue to hemorrhage to other countries all over the world to "emerging markets" where American corporations can pay them with cheaper labor (enabling foreigners to have an income to buy their goods for a higher profit margin).

So tell me, if your household earnings (whether through employee wages or from a small business) netted less than $250,000 a year, why would you even be a member of the Tea Party, vote Republican, or believe anything you hear on Fox News? Unless of course you were a corporate CEO whose salary was primarily paid in stock-options paying a low capital gains tax. (I also once thought that what was good for my boss and his company, was also good for me. Ha-ha!) So tell me, why do Americans always vote against their own self-interests?

Read: Rising Wealth Inequality: Should We Care? by Michael I. Norton

"Why do Americans seem unperturbed about the growing gap between the rich and the poor? Many studies have shown that income inequality is rising. In several different types of communities, median family income is lower now than 30 years ago. In a recent survey of Americans, my colleague Dan Ariely and I found that Americans drastically underestimated the level of wealth inequality in the United States. While recent data indicates that the richest 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all wealth, people estimated that this group owned just 59 percent – believing that total wealth in this country is far more evenly divided among poorer Americans. What’s more, when we asked them how they thought wealth should be distributed, they told us they wanted an even more equitable distribution, with the richest 20 percent owning just 32 percent of the wealth. This was true of Democrats and Republicans, rich and poor – all groups we surveyed approved of some inequality, but their ideal was far more equal than the current level."

Why then, given the consensus on this more equal America, are Americans not clamoring for redistribution?


The actual United States wealth distribution plotted against the estimated and ideal distributions across all respondents. See more details.

The uber-rich has most the money now, but they don't want to share. But yet you always vote for Republicans to continue this massive redistribution of our nation's wealth to the very few. WHY?

It all boils down to this: The Republicans (and Tea Party, which ITSELF is a corporation) wants to:
  • Lower taxes on all the corporations who outsource domestic jobs to foreign countries; 
  • and also wants to lower taxes on the uber- rich, thereby  creating a much larger budget deficit;
  • while paying less in government services to the growing poor that the corporations and uber-rich created;
  • as the U.S has an ever-increasing population base, but with higher unemployment;
  • with ever more babies being born into poor families with no federal funding for any social services such as healthcare, unemployment benefits, food stamps, and abortions. 
The rich can buy all the abortions they want, and if the U.S. population doubled next year, the people that the GOP and Tea Party* represents couldn't give a damn, so long as they don't have to contribute one dollar more to our American society. As far as they're concerned, America as a country could go bankrupt tomorrow, why would they care? They'll have their loaf of bread.

* This could almost be funny (from a Tea Party newsletter):

Tea Party Patriots, Inc. operates as a social welfare organization organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to Tea Party Patriots, Inc. are not deductible as charitable contributions for income tax purposes.

1025 Rose Creek Dr, 620-322
Woodstock, GA 30189
http://teapartypatriots.org/ 

READ: As Tea Party Koch Brothers Earned An Extra $11 Billion In Recent Years, They Laid Off Thousands

2 comments:

  1. For the life of me, I can't figure out what these Tea Baggers are on about. Makes no sense to me.

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  2. I have noted the same thing about "small government" demanding women surrender domain over their body during pregnancy. In truth, the theoretical idea of "small government", allowing ultimate freedom first to the individual, then the State and last to the Federal government with jurisdiction in the District of Columbia verses "big government" providing for the good of society has absolutely nothing to do with decisions made in Congress or personalities that run for elected office. Campaign promises are not legally enforceable verbal contracts - for reasons unbeknownst to me.

    You ask good questions Bud. We all have some "greater good" to be achieved during our most intense struggles. I am convinced that your articles (demonstrating your own shifting perspective) and their ability to influence others is contributing to us creating a better world. Thank you.

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