Newt Gingrich - Enough Can Never Be Enough

 (* This is but 1 of 3 consecutive posts I made today.)

Wow! Talk about a blatant and full frontal assault on the working-class in this country; and just when I thought I heard it all. That is, until Newt Gingrich recently dropped his big bomb shell.

Despite all the political grand-standing, the current budget crisis (in ALL levels of our government) boils down to this one and very simple statement: We've had a growing population; too many people have been unemployed; and we've had an unsustainable tax rate.

That's it. It's that simple.

And what we fail to remember is that just ten years ago in 2001 we had a budget surplus. Since then, the rich got tax breaks, the stocks soared, we lost millions of jobs, our housing market crashed, and while the rich got richer, we became burdened with massive debt.

That's it. It's that simple.

  2010 - 308,745,538 - U.S. population with 20% (U-6) unemployment
  1970 - 203,392,031 - U.S. population with only 4.9% unemployment
 +105,353,507 - Population difference in the past 40 years

Over the last 40 years, since the Vietnam War (just before job outsourcing escalated), the U.S. population grew by almost a 1/3 (over 100 million people). In 1970 the unemployment rate was only 4.9% (a little more than China's is today).

Now in 2010, with a much increased population base and an increase in retiring Baby Boomers, it only stands to reason that the cost of running our government would be higher as well, especially in 2011 dollars after being adjusted for inflation.

But today, with the wealthiest paying far less in taxes now than they were in 1970, and because there are far less domestic private sector jobs due to overseas investment by American corporations for cheaper labor, the United States hasn't been taking in enough tax revenue to sustain itself as a fiscally healthy and prosperous nation.

But the Republicans want to blame us.

It's not because poor people are taking advantage of the food stamp program (SNAP), it's because rich people no longer wants to have to pay for their meager food stamps any longer (or for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, infrastructure, waste and sewage sanitation, clean water, the power grid, or anything else for that matter).

The other night on Fox News I heard their commentators saying that the Democrats haven't been meeting the Republicans half-way on the proposed budget cuts - that the Democrats have been refusing to "compromise" with the Republicans...WTF!?!?! Don't they remember the infamous "Obama Compromise" of two months ago? That was when the Democrats caved in on extending the Bush tax cuts for another two more years for the rich; when the jobless were held hostage for receiving the funding for 13 months of unemployment benefits (if they still qualified). Are the Republicans crazy? Have they all gone mad like Glenn Beck?

Now, do wanna hear something that's even more crazy? I've been hearing this week that not only does Newt Gingrich want to make the Bush tax cuts for the rich permanent, but he also wants to lower the corporate tax rates and to eliminate the capital gains taxes entirely! (I'm assuming he's also including the estate taxes too.)

OMG!!! That's how those people who worked as hedge fund managers at Enron, investment bankers at Goldman Sachs, Wall Street stock brokers at Bear Sterns, and financial market-makers at AIG, all made their billions of dollars in bonuses over the last two and a half years....(whether the company itself failed or not), by earning commissions and profits on the buying and selling of "financial instruments" - and only paying capital gains taxes! That's why our nation is broken now!

Regular income tax is only paid on base salaries - such as what average workers earn, and income taxes rates are usually much higher than capital gains tax rates (15%), which rich people can always take advantage of. *An no money is paid into the Social Security or Medicare fund.

* Budget deficits occur when we take in less money than we spend - that is, when budget receipts are exceeded by outlays. Receipts come mostly from Income and Social Security taxes, paid by individual Americans.

Did Newt Gingrich just fire another shot across the bow of average working Americans who are already suffering horribly with lost jobs, reduced hours and benefits, increased worker productivity, lower home prices, the cost of living, and the burden of huge budget deficits?

The Republicans (who represent the interests of major corporations and the wealthy) have been bitching, belly-aching, moaning, groaning, crying, whining, and complaining about a "fiscally sustainable budget deficit" just after the rich had ten whole years of tax cuts! And just recently the rich also got another two-year extension of those same tax cuts! But still, where are all the jobs? There's certainly no labor shorage in America.

Now the GOP wants even MORE tax cuts for the rich, while at the same time, cutting MORE from the budget - stuff like Social Security, stuff that those who aren't rich really need!

The GOP knows EXACTLY what they've been doing, what they'll continue to do, and what they will always want to do...kill off the middle-class to make the already-rich, richer still. PERIOD. CASE CLOSED. END OF STORY. THE END.

It has nothing at all to do with being "fiscally responsible" or "for the sake of our children and their grand-children's future". Hogwash, that's all a crock of poop - the big GOP lie! It's not just "too much government spending" per se, there's also a very huge lack of "government funding". And it's not just because of a little fraud or abuse if a few poor people get a little extra in food stamps; it's the EXTREMELY gross and fraudulent corruption and abuse that happens with corporate and government "no-bid contracts" within the defense and space agencies. If one wants to really cut out the BIG MONEY, that's just one of many places where it can be found...not just inside the old people's retirement and healthcare funds (i.e. Social Security and Medicare).

And if it weren't so evil, it would almost be a joke as to why the tobacco, farm, and oil subsidies are never even mentioned! Not a frigging whisper! Hardly ever!

What is the disparity in wages now between the rich and poor? What is the unemployment rate now while jobs continue to go overseas? The DOW JONES has doubled in the last 2 years while millions of average Americans remained unemployed, yet record bonuses were being paid to bankers and CEOs. Guys like Newt Gingrich most likely made tons of money with capital gains, so THEY won't need Social Security when THEY get too old or too sick to work!

Now Newt Gingrich (who's been thinking about running on the GOP ticket for president in 2012) wants to have these rich people pay almost no damn taxes at all by lowering the corporate tax rates (which many don't pay anyway) and by eliminating entirely the capital gains taxes!

Corporate CEO's base salaries are many times partially paid with stock options, to evoke performance (like rewarding them for outsourcing jobs); and when these stocks are sold, they pay a capital gains tax, whose capital gains tax rates were lowered by Bush in 2003 for the rich fat cats on Wall Street. We saw how well that turned out for our government budgets. Now Newt Gingrich thinks we should eliminate captial gains taxes entirely! Un-frigging-believable!



EXAMPLE: If (or when) Microsoft, APPLE, or Exxon-Mobil buys out their major competitor, their competitors' CEOs stand to earn billions of dollars in capital gains (and pay NO taxes!), and the CEOs like Rex Tillerson, Steven Jobs, and Bill Gates' companies would be paying less in corporate taxes too...and billions and billions of dollars more would then be denied to our already under-funded government treasuries...a blatant and full frontal assault on the working-class - - - and on Social Secuiry for average workers who belong to ANY political party.

The only way "middle-class" people had possibly benefited from this before were those who owned a home that still held some equity, and whose principal residence was that home for at least 2 of the past 5 years. They could sell their house and make a ONE TIME capital gain without paying taxes on that particular sell. (Stockbrokers and corporate CEOs can earn multi-million dollar commissions and bonuses continually, all the time, year after year after year!)

This has always been the GOP strategy, to throw a bone to a few, just to enrich the very wealthiest even more. Tactics like this get those like us to vote for people like Newt to initiate things like that which actually hurts people like us all the time. When will we ever learn? Da!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello, Tea Party? Can you hear me? Wake the frick up! I used to think like you too! It's not about political affiliations, it's about a real class war, and the little people of ALL political affiliations will suffer...even you, if you earn less than $1 million a year.

Those few in the "middle-class" (people who can still profit from the sale of their principal home, or take out a reverse mortgage in their "golden years") will be paying so much more in many other ways - in other taxes, goods, government services, and more lost jobs - because the rich won't be (again) contributing enough to the deficit. When will people like Newt Gingrich and the Republicans ever enrich these people and themselves enough?

Look at our deficit today. Almost ironically, the average taxpayers have to fork over yet more money, just to pay for a million more IRS audits this year, trying to claw back as much tax revenue as they can. But the GOP is fighting to have the rich pay "less to zero" in more taxes, claiming it will be good for America and the economy (So I'll ask: "Whose America, whose economy?")

Newt Gingrich, Fox News, the Republicans, the big banks, and the big American corporations are all headed in one direction only: To have the wealthiest pay ZERO taxes at all, and to eliminate our Social Security and Medicare; and then pay Chinese wages to you to work for them. Only THEN will enough ever be enough. Only THEN will they finally be happy. Only THEN after they have it all, and after you've lost it all, will enough ever be enough for the likes of Newt Gingrich and his ilk.

Isn't this exactly why we see the all the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa today? Are people like Newt Gingrich trying to start another American revolution? And he wants to run for President of the "United" States? Po-leeeeeeze!

If the GOP had their own way, on EVERYTHING, and completely eliminated the Democratic party entirely, and we ended up with a one party nation - doing EVERYTHING the Republicans wanted us to, with no adversaries at all...how would America look in say, ten or twenty years, with no corporate or capital gains taxes? Like Mexico? Like Libya? Will you be one of the "favored ones", or would you be living in a shack like most of the others?

Lower the corporate taxes? Collect no capital gains taxes? I can only best describe Newt Gingrich's crazy proposal as nothing more than a another cold and ruthless suggestion made by a soul-less and greedy man who'll always think that enough can never be enough.

One last thought: How did all those rich people amass so much wealth BEFORE the Bush tax cuts in 2001 if their taxes were too damn high before? Hmmmmmmm?