Posts Tagged Medicare
Terrorism Tax Essential To Deal With Threats To National Security!
Posted by Ronald in News and Politics on April 17, 2013
It is clear after the Boston Marathon tragedy that we will be dealing with the imminent threat of terrorism, whether external or internal, for many years, even decades.
At the same time, we have many who tell us we must cut Social Security and Medicare for the elderly, veterans, and the disabled. We are also told we cannot afford health care and education,. and that millions of Americans must be sacrificed on the altar of never raising taxes!
Well, it is time that those opposed to tax increases, in a nation with the lowest tax burden of any democracy in the world, start reconsidering.
So a proposal is to recognize the dangers that face us, and to see that we are engaged in a different kind of war, and in all wars except under George W. Bush, taxes went up to support the war.
So we need a “Terrorism Tax”, and it should be one percent on incomes under $25,000; two percent on incomes up to $50,000; three percent on incomes up to $100,000; four percent on incomes up to $250,000; five percent on incomes up to $1 million; and six percent on all income above $1 million, including unearned income!
The author knows he will be attacked for such a heinous suggestion as a “Terrorism Tax”, but our security and safety requires sacrifices from all of us, and those with higher income and assets should be expected to contribute more to the nation that has helped to give them opportunity to prosper!
As John F. Kennedy said in his Inaugural Address in 1961, all of us should share the responsibility of promoting our nation and advancing its agenda, that we cannot afford as citizens to sit on the sidelines and leave responsibility to others. Let us fulfill what Kennedy enunciated 52 years ago!
The Republican Party Losing Its Future By Refusing To Accept Their Shortcomings And Promote Change!
Posted by Ronald in News and Politics on March 28, 2013
The Republican Party is, obviously, suicidal, as it is taking the wrong and unpopular stand on so many issues:
Refusal to back any gun regulations, even after the Newtown Massacre, alienating many mothers and parents.
Refusal to move much on illegal immigration, alienating Hispanics and Latinos, and Asian Americans.
Refusal to stop attacks on women’s rights, alienating large numbers of educated, suburban and young women.
Refusal to stop the attack on Social Security and Medicare, alienating millions of people nearing retirement, and many senior citizens.
Refusal to recognize that gay rights and gay marriage are the future, and therefore, alienating both gays and lesbians and their supportive families and friends, while at the same time, many of these Republicans have been married more than once, and have no concept of “family values”.
Refusal to cooperate on creating a budget that will pass both houses, and face the reality that taxes will have to go up, even more so now that there is growing danger of war with North Korea and/or Iran.
Refusal to repudiate their own Tea Party extremists, who will destroy the party’s future, as they will defeat responsible conservatives, but be unable to win seats in the US Senate or the White House anytime soon. As it is, the Republicans could have won Senate seats in Nevada, Colorado and Delaware in 2010, and Indiana and Missouri in 2012, but Tea Party supporters promoted lunatic nominees over responsible conservatives, and because of that, the Democrats were able to gain seats and keep the majority!
The Republican Party is living in illusion, in denial, in a time warp, in a parallel universe, and they are allowing the evangelical right wing Christians and the radio talk show hosts and Fox News Channel to steer them so far to the right that the majority of the American people will repudiate them for the long run, until they finally get the message, that the nation is a centrist nation, unwilling to cater to right wing extremists!
Republicans Seem To Be Suicidal In Reluctance To Change Course
Posted by Ronald in News and Politics on February 21, 2013
The Republican Party is in its death throes more and more each week.
The country is no longer interested in their agenda, in their candidates, in their goals, and in their promotion of fear and hate!
The GOP has lost five of the last six popular vote totals for President, despite spending inordinate amounts of money, the most ever in 2012, due to the Citizens United case of the Supreme Court in 2010.
But they have elements that are destroying them from within like a cancer!
These destructive elements include:
The right wing conservative talk show hosts on radio and Fox News Channel, who are making massive amounts of money promoting hate, fear and division, and until the GOP tells Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham and their ilk to go somewhere, they will be going down the road to destruction!
The power of the National Rifle Association and Wayne La Pierre, and its campaign to defeat any candidate who wants any reasonable gun regulations, is going to cause the defeat of Senators and Congressmen, who are unwilling to sell their souls to this powerful pressure group!
The Tea Party Movement, which wants to wipe out Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and is furious at Republican Governors, including the latest convert on ObamaCare, Florida Governor Rick Scott, making it a total of seven Republican Governors who have decided to accept that program, has plans to run candidates against anyone who does not wish to support their desire to go back to the 19th century and wipe out all aspects of the welfare state, so Maine Senator Susan Collins is on a hit list, as is even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for not being conservative enough! Do not forget that the Koch Brothers and other wealthy billionaires are the brains behind this movement, which is lower class populism gone wild, but they have the ability to harm the Republican Party establishment! And Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are the lead elements in this Tea Party uprising, who might cause the Republican Party to go down to defeat in many races, because of their loony libertarianism!
The right wing evangelical Christian movement, which will fight any move toward acceptance of gay rights and gay marriage, abortion rights, immigration reform, and gun regulation, as well as their desire to promote religion in the education curriculum, rejecting science and history, and promotion of a theocracy in states that have large numbers of their believers.
The “NeoCons”, Neoconservatives, who want more money spent on defense, advocate overseas military interventions, and glorify wars in the name of American capitalism and profits! They had power under George W. Bush, but are now trying to defeat Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary.
And finally, the no tax increase crowd, led by Grover Norquist of Americans For Tax Reform, a group which is starting to see some Republicans abandon them, but not enough, and willing to back corporate loopholes and the wealthy, at the expense of the middle class and the poor, these two groups failing to understand that this elite has no concerns, except to back the establishment on Wall Street and in the corporate world, even at a time when corporate profits are soaring, and the stock market has doubled under Barack Obama!
These are the destructive elements in the Republican Party, and will cause its total dissolution very soon if the direction of the party is not changed to appeal to the moderate center, the tradition of the party under Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and YES, even in the time of Ronald Reagan, when moderates were still a major part of the party success, and Reagan a conservative but not an extremist, as these various elements of the party are in 2013!