I started writing this blog to address our, American, political developments and their, sometimes, misguided instigators. Since the middle of January, though, the international events, stole my attention almost completely. Our own affairs, however, and unprecedented partisanship, especially on the Right became in time too saturated and painful to let them pass without a comment. It's the future of all of us, what is at stake. What's really interesting, is that one can draw some unpleasant analogies between the inner politics of the US and other countries, I have been writing about recently...
For the last few weeks we lived our lives with the "sword of Democles" hanging above our collective head - the government shutdown... The danger has been averted (for a while), but the problem just started to crystallize. Government shutdown is nothing new, it happened pretty recently while Pres. Clinton lead the nation. But, either my political sensitivity was then completely undeveloped, or the situation we witnessed in the past months was a 'completely different beast' from the one in 1995. The country is different now, it grew from 262 million people to 310 million, doubling the national debt to the whooping $14.3 trillion, and exceeding the whole GDP ($14.1 trillion), for the first time since the world War II...
Since the Republicans gained the majority in the Congress of the USA the political climate in the US has changed dramatically. The change came after two years of Obama's presidency, and after two years of the smear campaign against him. The campaign so "low", that it called sometimes for the revision of sanity of it's animators. At the end, EVERYTHING IS ABOUT MONEY...
Eight years of the 'Bush the Second' with their two wars and the unparalleled preferential treatment for the richest 1% of the American Society affected the fabric of the Nation greatly. Coincidentally (although it doesn't seem like a coincidence, but the result), the biggest economical crisis of our lives has killed the "American Dream" for millions of Americans, and still continues to create the waves "washing away joy" from faces of many inhabitants of this land.
Last year, 2010 was another year when the foreclosures reached the record number. During the last 10 years the actual earnings of the common men in America DECREASED, not taking under consideration any inflation factor. But, 2010 was, at the same time, the year when the American Corporations (including the ones who avoided bankruptcy only because of the government bailout) achieved the unmatched, record earnings.
The Lame Duck session of Congress brought some great breakthroughs like the end of "Don't ask, don't tell". But soon after that Obama was forced by the Republicans to forfeit his campaign promise, and extend the Bush Tax Cuts for the richest members of our society.
The New 2011 brought the new fiscal problems to quite of the few States of the Union. In some States, the newly elected Governors dealt with the problem in a constructive way (like Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo in NY), in others not so constructive... like the new Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who was just one of many Tea Party/GOP candidates inserted into office by the billionaires, Koch Brothers. The new State budget proposed by him was by many considered unconstitutional, and by all called by it's real name "union-bashing legislature". Even though Walker removed the Police and Fire Fighters from the bill taking away the "collective bargaining rights" from the Unions contracts, to his surprise both Police and Fire Fighters Unions joined the protest in the Wisconsin capitol.
It became clear for all, that the fiscal problems troubling some US States, as well as the whole Country will have to result in drastic spending cuts. It became clear that everyone will have to make sacrifices. Unfortunately, on the both sides of the isle, the areas designated to be affected by the cuts were completely different.
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The US budget in it's majority is divided in 3 sections:
- 68% of the whole budget take: medicaid, medicare, social security and the national security.
- 20% of the budget take: unemployment insurance, veterans benefits, student loans and tax credits for the middle class.
- remaining 12% contains all other liabilities and responsibilities, including the infrastructure, some social programs, foreign aid and so on...
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Coming out of the economical crisis in the eighties Pres. Reagan (and he was a Republican) made saving the Social Security an unbreakable Principle. Till this day it is a program which is "paid for" ahead, as estimated, until 2040. The other programs may not be that lucky.
In the nineties, without sacrificing the welfare of the seniors and underprivileged, the budget of the US actually became strong enough to produce the surplus.
And then, after the "911" irresponsible cowboy mentality of the "Bush the Second" put the country on the downturn spiral, from which we may have a huge difficulty recovering from. Let aside the wars which still ruin our economy, the costly prescription drugs plan imposed by Pres. Bush Junior along with the tax cuts for the rich are greatly responsible for it. Tax cuts alone increased our deficit for the additional $500 billion every year.
According to the Bush Government Comptroller: 7% of the total Bush debt came from these tax cuts - as revealed by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Cal) on MSNBC.
In the beginning of April the Republican Paul Ryan brought out a budget proposal which besides taking credit for already done or offered by the Presidents cuts and changes, attacked the 2 sacred for the Americans programs, both Medicare and Medicaid. Ryan changes the Medicare into a voucher exposing it to the practices of often unscrupulous insurance companies, in the result creating a situation in which the seniors would have to spent much more on the health care from already stretched by other factors fixed income. His plan also gives to the states the discretionary handling of the Medicaid creating a vacuum in which the poor will put even more strain on the health system. Repealing Obama Care by the Ryan's plan would be devastating for many.
When the Republicans threatened shutting down the Government on Friday night if their plan is not met by the President, suddenly one of the major bargaining chip happened to be nothing else, but the fate of the Planned Parenthood...
Although the whole Republican proposal was supposed to be under a flag of fiscal responsibility, suddenly a political detail became an unsurpassable obstacle. As falsely estimated by Republican Rep. Michelle Bachman, Planned Parenthood "devoured" almost $1 billion a year (in reality $130 million a year). The same time, the Tea Party accused the Planned Parenthood of having 90% of their activities dedicated to abortion (whereas in reality only 1.3% of their deeds was in any way related to it). The list of false accusation is long and utterly ridiculous.
For some reason these Fiscal Conservatives didn't even want to hear about the role which Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthiest 1% of the society play. Saving $130 million a year is more important than loosing $800 billion to $1 trillion a year. I fail to see logic in it. Do we, actually live in the same reality? Sometimes it seems like our worlds do not have anything in common - paralleled realities...
In the countries of the Middle East, created as a result of the revolution or not, but ruled by the regimes for many decades, the social divide has grown to the point of breakage. The economical development of these countries, often based on sale of oil or other natural minerals or other unprocessed goods created the small group of businessmen in whose hands laid the majority of the wealth of these countries. This elite grew apart from the majority of the population so fast an dynamically, that they ceased to feel any connection, any relationship with the masses. The system allowed for the favoritism, nepotism and all sorts of equally despicable deviations. Such state of affairs allowed the Dictators like Mubarak, Saleh, Ali, or Gadhafi, treat the population of their respective countries only as the sprockets in the money making machines - whose fruits they, the Dictators, were cashing without any remorse. In the end, opening fire on the protesters was just defending their own domains...
Even though most pundits and political commentators do not accuse the Republicans (or Tea Party members) in the US of being unpatriotic, their tendency to please ONLY the rich, by all means, doesn't prove their agenda to go along the principles of Democracy. Their budget proposal, being the true indicator of their real attitude toward other social groups, put's the main burden of providing revenue for the country's needs on the shoulders of the workers and the middle class. In fact the latter one is rapidly shrinking, thanks to years of the abuse of the system by the banks and corporations.
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On the April 13, President Obama's televised speech refreshed almost gone by now, hope in the government. In his passionate speech (immediately afterwards trashed by the Republicans) President renewed his pledge to let the Bush tax cuts expire, and making sure that the core of the population - the middle class and the workers - wouldn't have to bear the burden alone. He stated:
EVERYONE WILL MAKE SACRIFICES, BUT NO ONE WILL BEAR ALL THE BURDEN.
He promised the revision of the Tax Code allowing better management of the revenue and reducing the loopholes allowing right now some corporations escape from paying any tax.
During his speech the so called Beige Book ratings were announced. Finally, after a long time of economical stalemate, the economy is estimated to be in a state of "moderate recovery", across the industries, even considering the negative effect of the Japanese catastrophe.
It's obvious that the Deficit in the form we have it right now, is a destructive force. The Head of U.S. Armed Forces - Admiral Mike Mullen stated "that the main security threat to the future of America comes from the National Deficit".
However, according to many experts, the Deficit is only a symptom of the problem - the cause is the system of completely wrong economical decisions which have plagued the USA for many years in the past, resulting in:
- the most expensive and inefficient healthcare, which doesn't do what it's supposed to.
- the most expensive educational system, which doesn't do what it's supposed to.
- very expensive wars, which do not increase the country's security, quite a contrary...
Is President Obama strong enough to lead the country through the recovery?
It seems that most of the programs he tries to save or develop have the strong populous support. Is this support consistent enough to last until the elections of 2012.
We are stuck with the Republican Congress for a few years, but we desperately need the President Obama to serve the second term and hopefully reduce the long lasting effects of the Bush era.
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