George W. Bush

The Obama Tax Plan: “Class Warfare”, Or Fairness And Simple Math?

Ronald 1 Comment

President Obama has just proposed a deficit reduction plan that would return tax rates for the wealthy back to what they were in the 1990s under Bill Clinton, before George W. Bush gave that elite class a tremendous tax cut, leading to the tremendous deficits we now experience, a major contributing factor to the Great Recession!

Why should the wealthy pay a lower tax rate than the average person? Why should they feel an entitlement to such tax cuts permanently, rather than take on the responsibility to appreciate their success and do their part to contribute to the economic welfare of the nation? Why should they be “privileged characters” who can evade taxes through loopholes and gimmicks?

As Obama said this morning, it is an issue of fairness and simple math!

If anything, the fact that the wealthy have evaded taxes and paid a lower percentage for the past ten years is the true “class warfare”, against the MIDDLE CLASS, which has been decimated by that tax policy!

All polls show the VAST majority of the American people want higher taxes on the wealthy, so Obama is proposing something that is both proper and MORAL at the same time!

Let the Republicans fight it, and Obama will have a great issue against them in the Congressional and Presidential races of 2012. It reminds us of Franklin D. Roosevelt using that issue in the 1930s and winning a landslide second term in 1936!

So let 2012 be like 1936, when unemployment was still very high, but FDR went on to a smashing victory, because the people KNEW he cared about them, and that the Republicans cared only about the wealthy!

What is new about that 75 years after 1936? NOTHING HAS CHANGED!

The Republican Culture: Death, Hate, Selfishness, Lack Of Compassion!

Ronald 2 Comments

The Republican Party, in its mad dash to the far Right with Texas Governor Rick Perry in the lead, is demonstrating its ugly side, arguably the most despicable agenda since the creation of the party in the Civil War era!

Always a major backer of corporations and the rich upper class, the party always maintained some sanity, and while not promoting the social safety net as a principle, we saw members of the party in different northern states and in Congress who worked in unison with Democrats to support the Progressive Era reforms, the New Deal, and the Great Society, and reforms under Richard Nixon.

The one time the party went this far to the Right, they suffered a massive defeat under Barry Goldwater a half century ago. When Ronald Reagan became President on much of the Goldwater agenda, he managed to work across the party lines and take away the rough edges of the right wing, mouthing support but not pursing much of their agenda.

But now with the advent of the Tea Party loonies, the party is adopting a new culture, that should sicken any civilized, decent American citizen!

Unfortunately, as witnessed at the recent Republican debates in California and Florida, there are many Americans who fail to act and believe in a dignified manner of behavior!

Now death, in the form of capital punishment endorsement and advocacy of letting people without health insurance die, has been endorsed enthusiastically by right wing Republican whackos!

Now, hate of illegal immigrants and their children, and wishes to deny them basic education, health care and ability to work and contribute to American society, is endorsed wholeheartedly!

Now, selfishness, including desire to destroy labor organizing, and lack of respect and appreciation of the contributions of public workers, including police officers, firefighters, prison guards, teachers, nurses, librarians, social workers and others is endorsed!

Lack of compassion for the poor, the sick, the disabled, the elderly, and for minority groups in America is hailed as a virtue!

One day, when this sickness in the psyche of the Republican Party is finally expunged, we will look back on this period with shock and regret, and wonder why a major political party would allow itself to engage in such insane behavior!

The great Republican heroes of the past–Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan–would be shocked and embarrassed by what the party has allowed itself to become!

But even the lesser Republican Presidents–William Howard Taft, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush–would, and in the case of the two Bushes, are very disturbed at what their party has become. This is the reason why Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney are seen as mainstream by the Bush family, and why they are clearly against the horrible message of Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann!

Even the great heroes of the conservative Republican movement in the past–Robert Taft and Barry Goldwater–were not as ugly as these Tea Party Republicans are today!

Hopefully, this poison in the political debate going on, will be soundly defeated in 2012, by sane, intelligent people, who realize what the Tea Party control of the GOP has done is to make America far worse off than it was just nine months ago when they took power in the House of Representatives and declared war on basic values of decency!

Tom Ridge Endorsement Of Jon Huntsman An Interesting Development In Light Of Poor Poll Performance of Huntsman: Is There Still Hope For Mainstream Republicans?

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The endorsement today of Jon Huntsman, former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China, for the Republican Presidential nomination, by former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, who also was our first head of the Homeland Security Department under President George W. Bush, is an interesting, and possibly revealing, development!

With Huntsman so low in the polls, only one or two percent, and in danger of being eliminated from future Republican debates as a result, it would seem odd that Ridge, a reputable moderate, would bother endorsing him, when it seems like a lost cause.

But, as has been said earlier in other posts, one must remember that John McCain in 2007 and John Kerry in 2003 looked hopeless at this point of those Presidential campaigns, and instead, Howard Dean and Wesley Clark in 2004 and Rudy Guiliani and Fred Thompson in 2008 looked like the favorites as rivals for the Presidential nominations of their parties.

So to assume that Rick Perry and Mitt Romney might be the frontrunners all the way is a major gamble in many ways!

With Huntsman easily the best candidate in the race, and with solid foreign policy credentials that no one else has, it might be said that former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s endorsement of Romney, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval endorsements of Perry might be a major blunder!

Again, IF the GOP nominates Huntsman, and fights the Tea Party influence, they have a golden opportunity to defeat Barack Obama! If not, it is a lost cause in an almost certain way!

Rick Perry: Dangerous For The Republican Party And America’s Future! He Must Be Stopped!

Ronald 1 Comment

Texas Governor Rick Perry may have flubbed a bit in his debate performance in Tampa on Monday, but he remains the front runner for the Republican Presidential nomination as of today, and it is looking more likely that he really could end up as the nominee of the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan!

This is dangerous for the party and the nation, as Perry has many shortcomings, as well as dangerous aspects in his background and viewpoints!

For the party, Perry represents a threat to the Establishment Republicans, the middle, the mainstream of the party in the past, and gives power to the extremists of the Tea Party Movement!

With Jon Huntsman apparently floundering, even though the author feels he came across very well in the past two debates, the only hope in the field of candidates is Mitt Romney, with all of his shortcomings and faults, but it will not be easy to overcome the Tea Party takeover of the party!

One could say that if the party nominates Perry, they will lose, and that will be, therefore, only their problem as to how to recover from a disastrous defeat in 2012.

But with the economy so bad right now, the idea is starting to develop that maybe, just maybe, Barack Obama COULD lose in 2012, giving us President Perry, and possibly a Tea Party Congress, enough to make one hysterical and give one nightmares, and the purpose here is NOT to joke, but be very serious!

Were Perry to win, we would face the following, with and without a Tea Party majority in Congress:

1. We would have a President who is not very smart, not very curious to learn, not open to new ideas, very rigid in his right wing beliefs, unwilling to compromise, arrogant, cocky, with a swagger about him, and not willing to be transparent in his activities in the White House!

2. We would have a complete takeover of right wing conservatism, leading to total deregulation, cutting of taxes even further on the rich, attempts to destroy several government agencies or make them ineffective in their work, and resulting in widespread corruption due to “cronyism”!

3. We would have a President who would be arrogant toward the outside world, create crises and possible interventions in other countries, and boast about “American exceptionalism”, undermining relations even with our allies and friends around the world.! The neoconservative view of foreign policy would dominate.

4. Civil Liberties would be violated worse than any President in modern times, and civil rights enforcement for Latinos, African Americans, women and gays would end!

5. We would see a theocracy develop, as Rick Perry would constantly invoke Jesus Christ, talk about God and religion more than any President, including Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush, and promote as much combination of church and state as one can imagine might happen.

6. The economy would NOT get better, and instead we would have more poverty, deprivation, and human suffering, similar to the reality in Texas under Governor Perry.

7. War would be declared on environmentalists, and scientists, in the name of industry and religion, undermining our education system nationally, as well as our health care programs.

8. Justice and fairness in the law would be undermined, as capital punishment would become a virtue, and the courts, including the Supreme Court, would become the most right wing in American history since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.

9. The goal of a Perry Administration would be the destruction of Social Security, Medicare, and all other social safety net programs, and basically the repeal of the Progressive Era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, and the other reforms under Richard Nixon in the early 1970s.

10. Fundamentally, America would go back a full century to the Gilded Age, with the total or near total repeal of the 20th century, which made America the envy of the free world!

This is serious stuff here, no joking, and all efforts must be made in the Republican Party to defeat Rick Perry, and if that fails, and even if it succeeds, do everything necessary to reelect Barack Obama as the only hope for moving forward in the second decade of the 21st century!

The What Ifs Of September 11: If It Never Happened, How Would America Be Different?

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As we commemorate the 10th Anniversary of September 11, one can wonder how America would be different if September 11 had never occurred.

Among the thoughts and possibilities are:

1. There would be no Homeland Security Department in the federal government, and no special precautions at airports.
2. There would not be level of secret government activities, including intrusion on American citizens and interferences with civil liberties, that we have now.
3. There would not have been prolonged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for ten years.
4. We would not have the level of national debt that we have now because of reactions to September 11.
5. Very likely, George W. Bush might not have won reelection because of the domestic economy problems, and a “new” type of Democrat, such as Howard Dean, might have won the Presidency.
6. A President Dean, in peacetime, and with reforms, might have won reelection in 2008, and there would have been no President Barack Obama.
7. Problems with Iran might have been more focused on, and there might have been military reactions against Iran as a result, and instead Iran is a major threat to the world in 2011.
8. Problems with China in 2001 might have led to more confrontation with that nation, instead of depending on China for much of our national budget through their buying of US debt caused by the wars we have waged after September 11.
9. We would not have the level of distrust and suspicion of the Islamic faith that we have today.
10. Politics might not be as polarized and confrontational as it has become in the past decade.
11. We might be having a spirited contest in 2012 with different faces in the mix for the Presidency, with President Howard Dean finishing his second term of domestic reform and no major foreign policy crisis, unless Iran or China had become so problematical that there was military conflict with either nation.
12. The Middle East would still have Saddam Hussein, but he would remain contained, but by now, with the Arab Spring, he might be facing turmoil and rebellion, as in the rest of the region.
13. Domestic reforms greater than Barack Obama has achieved would have likely occurred under President Howard Dean, including national health care, as there would not have been the kind of defense and war spending that occurred in the past decade.

Of course, all of the above are suppositions, theories, projections–all of which might NOT have happened, but it is fascinating to try to imagine Others will see things differently, and it is the stuff of historical fiction to conceive a novel with the imaginary past!

Shanksville, Pennsylvania Flight 93 Memorial Dedication Very Moving!

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The dedication of the Shanksville, Pennsylvania Flight 93 Memorial in honor of the courage and selflessness of the 40 passengers and crew which, by bringing the plane down on September 11, 2001, prevented an attack on the US Capitol or the White House, only about 40 miles away, just finished, and it was a very moving ceremony!

Highlighted by well crafted speeches by President George W. Bush, President Bill Clinton, and Vice President Joe BIden, the memorial was unveiled to show forty wall panels, each with the name of one of the heroes of that flight, who gave up their lives for their country!

Eventually, there will be orchards of trees, forty in number surrounding the memorial, but it still needs $10 million to complete. 75,000 people have donated to the project, and 1.5 million have visited the location in the past ten years.

Bill Clinton and Speaker of the House John Boehner have joined forces to raise the $10 million still needed, and this is the time for the extremely wealthy among us to give back some of the unwarranted wealth they have been able to retain, since they did not sacrifice in tax increases over the past ten years, so it is time for them to “cough up” and show their patriotism to the country that has given them the opportunity to become super wealthy!

Why The Best Presidential Race In 2012 Would Be Barack Obama Vs. Jon Huntsman

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A person reading this blog might wonder why the author would write an entry with the above title!

After all, it is clear the the author prefers the reelection of Barack Obama over any Republican opponent!

However, in the tough economic times we have now in this country, it is also important that IF, by some bad luck, Barack Obama does not win reelection, that we have the absolutely best opponent winning the White House, for the good of the nation!

There is no question that former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is easily the BEST candidate in the GOP race, and would be best for the nation!

Why is this so? In no special order, the factors to consider are :

1. Huntsman is the most moderate conservative in the race for the Presidential nomination in the Republican Party, with the most potential to win over Independents and centrists, and even some Democrats, all necessary if the Republicans are to have a good chance of winning.

2. Huntsman comes across as genuine, which fellow moderate conservative Mitt Romney does not, but rather as a person who will say what his audience wants to hear.

3. Huntsman has the best record on job creation, while Governor of Utah, far better than Mitt Romney, who was 47th in job creation, and Rick Perry, creating mostly minimum wage jobs in larger numbers, who trail way behind.

4. Huntsman has come up with a jobs plan hailed by the conservative Wall Street Journal, which has criticized Mitt Romney’s plan, and no one else in the race has even attempted a jobs plan.

5. Huntsman has an enviable foreign policy record as Ambassador to Singapore, US Trade Representative, and Ambassador to China, the only Republican with real experience in foreign affairs.

6. Huntsman was more popular as Governor of Utah, with up to 80 percent support, far outdistancing any of his opponents, meaning Romney and Perry, in that regard.

7. Huntsman has never pandered to anyone, unlike Romney, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, and even Ron Paul. He does not insult anyone’s intelligence with ridiculous, unsubstantiated statements!

8. Huntsman, with his foreign language ability, and in so many other ways, comes across as extremely intelligent and knowledgeable, someone anyone could respect intellectually in the White House. We don’t need someone in office who comes across as reckless, irresponsible, or even someone you could have a beer with, as for instance, George W. Bush! We need someone totally rational and reasonable, and Huntsman fills the bill.

9. Debates between Obama and Huntsman would be a great experience, and we could feel comfortable that if Huntsman won the election, the country would be in good hands, and not go off on a right wing tangent!

This nation cannot afford anyone but the best as our President, and both Barack Obama and Jon Huntsman fill the bill!

This would be, arguably, the BEST combination of candidates for the Presidency since the Presidential Election of 1916, with President Woodrow Wilson opposed by Supreme Court Associate Justice Charles Evan Hughes, with the race barely won by Wilson!

The Lack Of Reliability of September Third Year Presidential Polls: Wesley Clark And Rudy Guiliani!

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The tendency to believe presidential election polls in the fall of the third year of a Presidential term comes back, as we enter September, with Rick Perry having a growing lead over Mitt Romney for the Republican Presidential nomination.

In 2004, former Army General Wesley Clark was leading polls for the Democratic nomination, and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean was seen as the favorite by the end of the year, but Senator John Kerry won the nomination.

In 2008, former NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani led in September for the Republican nomination, with Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee in second place, but Senator John McCain was the nominee.

So it is not yet smart to assume that Perry or Romney have the Republican nomination for 2012 guaranteed!

With both John Kerry and John McCain being “dark horses” at this point in 2004 and 2008, keep your attention on former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman as the “dark horse” of the race, with excellent credentials and centrist tendencies, but extremely low poll ratings.

If Huntsman emerges, it will be a John, but with a different spelling as Jon, who will have been the surprise of the Presidential campaign for the third straight election!

But also realize that both John Kerry and John McCain lost their races to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and the odds of Huntsman to become President, while better on paper than any other Republican candidate, have to be seen as a long shot!

The Urgent Needs For The Jobs Speech Of President Obama

Ronald 1 Comment

President Obama will be delivering a Jobs speech to a joint session of Congress this Thursday, with skepticism and even disrespect already evident, with Congressmen Joe Wilson of South Carolina and Joe Walsh of Illinois already stating they would not be present.

The Republicans are unwilling to do anything to create jobs, and seem ready to refuse the Obama plan to continue the payroll tax holiday, which cut the Social Security tax on employers and employees, giving taxpayers approximately a thousand dollars extra to spend, helping middle and lower income taxpayers, and helping to stimulate the economy. After all they did under George W. Bush to increase the deficit, now the Republicans put the deficit ahead of helping the average American, while not considering any tax increases to be borne by those who have received the bulk of the tax cuts in the past decade, the extremely wealthy! It is this reckless fiscal policy under George W. Bush which has led to this economic crisis we now face!

Unemployment compensation, which has been extended up to 99 weeks in some states, needs to be extended since we have more people with long term unemployment than ever before since World War II. Money coming from unemployment compensation is immediately spent, which would help the economy in a major way.

Infrastructure spending is urgent, not only in creation of jobs, but also the dire need to rebuild and extend our roads, bridges, rail and mass transit, which are in poor shape across the country.

Refinancing of mortgages is urgent to give struggling homeowners the opportunity to keep their homes, as the more homes in foreclosure, the worse the whole housing situation will be for the long run.

Unfortunately, the likelihood is that close to nothing that Obama will promote will make it through Congress, setting up the political debate for the 2012 Presidential Election. The sad part is the great human suffering which will ensue, and the danger that it could lead to violence and turmoil in America!

FEMA And Natural Disaster Funding: Political “Football” For The Republicans?

Ronald 6 Comments

The Federal Emergency Management Agency faces a daunting task dealing with all of the natural disasters that have hit America in 2011!

Hurricane Irene was the TENTH natural disaster of this year costing at least $1 billion, and there are four months to go!

The total natural disaster cost is reaching into the 40s and 50s in billions, with Irene estimated to be one of top ten all time natural disasters!

And this is on top of the tornadoes, floods, droughts, wildfires that have plagued us this year, and not including the Atlantic Earthquake or the new menace of Tropical Storm Lee menacing Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the panhandle of Florida!

The hurricane season is in full swing, and it looks as if there will be more tropical storms or hurricanes named than any year since 2005!

In the midst of this series of natural disasters, we are seeing Congressional Republicans playing politics with human suffering, protesting that FEMA is reaching its budget limit, and there is debate about whether they will gain additional needed funds to match the problems at hand.

Congressman Ron Paul has said FEMA is not necessary at all, and others are acting as if it is another financial boondoggle, when it is performing far better under Barack Obama than it did under George W. Bush.

Will there have to be a battle between President Obama and John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Tea Party Republicans over such a basic need as government coming to the aid of victims of nature?

Is there any common decency left in the opposition party, or shall many unfortunate Americans become the victims of their narrow mindedness and pettiness?

We will see next week when Congress comes back from its month long vacation to deal with the many problems they just dropped, so as to go on vacation for a month, while many Americans could not afford a vacation!