Republican Scam

"In the United States, many working class voters support candidates promising to lower taxes on the wealthy, despite the fact that such tax cuts will arguably deprive them of important government services." Francis Fukuyama in Foreign Affairs 9/2014
How does a program with is so clearly pro-rich and antisocial succeed in appealing to a majority of Americans as it did in 1980 and again in 2015 ? ... the skill of Republicans in using nationalistic rhetoric in cultivating a degree of anti-intellectualism, and above all, in dividing the working classes by exacerbating ethnic, cultural, and religious divisions. Thomas Piketty: Time for Socialism, Dispatches From a World on Fire, 2015-2021
"...what separates successful states from failed ones is whether their governing institutions are inclusive or extractive. Extractive states,...are controlled by ruling elites whose objective is to extract as much wealth as they can from the rest of society and to maintain their own hold on power." (Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson)
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: "And, in fact, we have redistribution in this country, but it is very much upward. You know, the phrase "trickle-down" was invented to mock Ronald Reagan’s tax policies. But the reality is, it’s not trickle-down, it’s Amazon-up, Niagara-up. And all you have to do is look at the data. From 1961 through 2007, the bottom 90 percent of Americans saw their income rise little tiny amount. But if you’re in the top top group of America, the plutocrat class, for every dollar that each person in the bottom 90 percent got after taxes, you got $35.50—$36.50. Your taxes, if you’re in the plutocrat class, fell from a mid-40 percent range down to where Romney is, 15 percent or so. In 2009, we had six people, according to IRS data, who made over $200 million, who paid no income taxes. And we have people who make billion-dollar incomes and can pay no income taxes because of the rules we have that allow people who are hedge fund managers and private equity managers, like Bain & Company, which was the sole property of Mitt Romney, to defer all of their income. Now, how do they live? Just the same way that the guys who create the internet companies, who take a small salary, and the company pays no dividend, are able to afford their private jets and their mansions: they borrow against their untaxed assets. And they get to live a great life, and . . . —you and I pick up the bill." (From Democracy Now! )

Republicans play dirty because Republican policies are unpopular (3/2020)

Are We Seeing the Last Gasp of the GOP’s Two Santa Claus Scam? (1/20/2023)

People who vote GOP, are not voting in their own self-interest.

Republicans plan big tax cuts that will mostly benefit the very wealthy. When they do that the federal deficit will skyrocket again, deficit hawks will wring their hands and say social programs need to be cut including Social Security and other care programs, Medicare will be turned over to insurance companies. and wealth inequality will surge to new heights.

"the real incomes of middle class families have grown twice as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans, while the real incomes of working poor families have grown six times as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans." Larry Bartels, Unequal Democracy, the Political Economy of the New Gilded Age

Republicans never liked the New Deal and over decades have finally overturned it. The US has reached a condition of extreme inequality. A government of billionaires has come to rule. Trump, former casino owner, an authoritarian who relates well with other dictators has a cult-like following, is unconstrained by checks and balances, militarist, is also a racist. He thinks climate warnings are a hoax. His administration attacks all of the supports for democracy, has all the characteristics of Fascism. Looks like we lost WWII. We could lose the planet also.

Is any reform possible ? Can we escape climate collapse ? It would take major changes, and it looks unlikely, particularly if Republicans continue to govern.

Privatization Gone Wild

Kids For Cash

The GOP is funded by wealthy minority that is doing all it can to extract wealth, keep people down, and capture government. Their tax cuts mostly benefit the wealthy paid for by deficit increases and service reductions. IRS funding cuts not only increase the deficit but enable tax cheating. Privatization, tax cuts, deregulation motivated profitable ‘small government’ with few social benefits. That's the scam.

Oligarchs head major corporations, send powerful political messages by lobbying, donating to candidates, raising prices, shrinking product, reduce taxes and regulations, profiting, creating inflation.

“Billionaires aren’t just supporting Trump for the tax cuts. As Peter Thiel once admitted: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Make no mistake: The goal of American oligarchy is to tear down democracy itself.” Robert Reich

The GOP has a long history of attempts to reduce Social Security, Medicare, opposition to unions and women’s rights. So US healthcare is the the world’s most expensive, doesn’t cover everyone, bankrupts the sick, but has created a reported 35 billionaires. Other problems include hordes of homeless, students in lifetime debt, unaffordable child care, substandard eldercare, poor maternal health, and deaths of despair. Wealth disparities are at record highs.

It takes a sociopath to reward the rich at the expense of the poor and is the very opposite of Christian values, but evangelicals lean GOP, and enthusiastically support a leader who has violated all of their commandments.

“How does a program with is so clearly pro-rich and antisocial succeed in appealing to a majority of Americans as it did in 1980 and again in 2015 ? ... the skill of Republicans in using nationalistic rhetoric in cultivating a degree of anti-intellectualism, and above all, in dividing the working classes by exacerbating ethnic, cultural, and religious divisions.” Thomas Piketty: Time for Socialism, Dispatches From a World on Fire, 2016-2021
"For a long, long time, Republicans have been selling you an economic agenda that goes like this: the way you and yours are going to get on the world, with a well paying job and good benefits and a secure, comfortable retirement and so on, is by eliminating government regulations, busting up your unions, and cutting taxes on your boss. Now, even if you don't believe all that, you've been voting for it." Jul 30, 2017
Since the 1990s, Republicans have increasingly embraced the most extreme goals of the party’s corporate and big-money supporters. In 2017, Republican leaders advanced an agenda that managed to feature the two most unpopular pieces of major legislation of the past quarter century: repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act and big, deficit-funded tax cuts for corporations and the rich. The former barely failed. The latter narrowly passed after Republican donors made clear that, if the party didn’t deliver, the funding spigot would run dry. LET THEM EAT TWEETS, How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality By Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson

The Ugly Truth: Republicans Want More Poverty and Crime (5/29/2021)

Republicans, Not Biden, Are About to Raise Your Taxes (10/31/2020)

How Right-Wingers Scam People Into Buying Their Toxic Philosophy: George Lakoff

The scam was this: The banks unloaded their debts onto the taxpayer, and then the fiscal hawks dutifully began screaming about how we were drowning in debt and how Social Security and Medicare were responsible. Cuts in your earned benefits will pay for the banks bad loans. Beautiful !: Mike Lofgren, The Party is Over
So here's the con so far. You must go to college because you're screwed if you don't. Costs are outrageously high, but you pay them because you have to, and because the system makes it easy to borrow massive amounts of money. The third part of the con is the worst: You can't get out of the debt. Since government lenders in particular have virtually unlimited power to collect on student debt – preying on everything from salary to income-tax returns – even running is not an option. And since most young people find themselves unable to make their full payments early on, they often find themselves perpetually paying down interest only, never touching the principal. Our billionaire president can declare bankruptcy four times, but students are the one class of citizen that may not do it even once." Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
the Pentagon System functions as a great form of domestic corporate welfare for high-tech “defense” (empire) firms like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon—this while it steals trillions of dollars that might otherwise in meeting social and environmental needs at home and abroad. It is a significant mode of upward wealth distribution within “the homeland.” from a book review of In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power

How to Tax Our Way Back to Justice (10/11/2019)

Why Republicans Play Dirty (9/20/2019)

How Right Wingers scam people into Buying Their Toxic Philosophy

Capitalism's Self-Inflicted Apocalypse

When Ike was in office the top marginal tax rate was over 90%. But it is difficult to tax the very wealthy because they are inclined to game the system for themselves. Through lobbying, well financed propaganda and other political interference they have managed over decades to reduce their own taxes and shift the burden to the rest of us.

Tax cuts were not the only way to extract wealth, Privatization was also effective in the world's most expensive healthcare, creating profitable prisons which farm out slave labor, private schools entitled to taxpayer vouchers, education is not near as good as, say, Finland, healthcare is not accessible to large numbers of people, higher education is putting a generation of youth into debt that they cannot escape, social mobility has stagnated.

Deregulation allowed markets to go out of control, privatization that removed the public from the process, regulatory agencies were captives of the industries they were supposed to regulate; industry migrated to low wage countries and not much was done to mitigate the damage; The financial sector was allowed to devour the rest of the economy.

Republicans on the Supreme Court decided Citizens United, which allowed big corrupting money into the political process, bought the Supreme Court making it an enemy of democracy.

Trump accelerated this process by giving large tax breaks to the very comfortable and large corporations further exacerbating wealth inequality.

There is other damage from all this, including a loss of democracy. Government does not respond to the will of the people, when polled. Elections are rigged so that the popular vote doesn't much matter.

You may wonder how it is that the Republican scam has worked so well for the well connected or why it is such a disaster for the rest of us. The results are plain to see. The extreme income distribution in the US is leading us to a two-class society. A few very wealthy people have profited immensely by extracting wealth from everyone else. It is part of the vast right-wing conspiracy. If we are not there already, we are on a path that will lead to plutocracy. Extreme inequality is a hallmark of bad government.

Here's how its done:

  • Republicans first cut taxes driving government into debt but mostly benefits the already very comfortable. Under Ike the top marginal tax rate was over 90%, but thanks to Republican propaganda the rate has dropped steadily placing the burden on a much broader population. That's how the wealthy escaped those high marginal rates but starved government for vital resources. Social programs get cut, nothing gets done for crumbling infrastructure, except they discuss privatizing it.
  • Republicans want smaller government, claim that private is better than public, and, as much as possible sell off public assets to the private sector including schools, prisons, military, security, the weather service, etc. Since there is little accountability in the deregulated private sector, they cut wages, raid pensions, bust unions, hire lightly qualified people, and, when profitable, move work off shore. This requires great management skill (a sociopath), so extraordinary salaries are required for a CEO. After this, public employees contracts are 'renegotiated'. That way, everyone, except the CEO, gets cut. That's why the middle class is sinking and how they roll us to the bottom.
  • Republicans cut funding for higher education, load debt onto students and profit from lending with high interest rates, and no longer effectively regulate for-profit schools. Debt is a powerful tool for population control.
  • They render consumer protection agencies, like the CFPB, toothless. Free banks to loan to subprime borrowers knowing that the result will be default, bundle the loans into securities, sell them to innocents, and then bet they will go down, and they make money at every step. That collapsed the economy in 2008, but profited when a bailout became necessary. There was little on no accountability for this massive heist. Republicans then deregulate the financial sector so it can happen again.
  • Banks lobby Congress so that if derivatives trading goes wrong, taxpayers will bail them out. Having learned nothing from the crash, Republicans lead in rolling back regulations like Dodd-Frank.
  • Polluters are treated to aggressive deregulation and much more friendly EPA and courts. Climate problems are erased by lobbyists
  • Privatizing public assets is great for corporate interests.

Market fundamentalism

Lax anti-trust has allowed many industries to become monopolies.

Over the last few years, the financial sector grew like a cancer and destroyed the economy. No other industry could match the profits from the financial sector, so the brightest went not to industry, but to Wall Street.

As wages and benefits declined, demand fell, and the economy went into a downward spiral. Banking went wild after the Glass-Steagle Act was repealed. Derivatives brought short term profit at the price of long term risk.

Newspapers and other media were consolidated, loaded down with resulting debt, milked for extraordinary profits. In the process they were downsized, the product degraded, readership fell, but right-wing propaganda still flourished as oligarchs took over the industry. Newspapers disappeared from shelves. Media concentration leads to increasing market domination by a declining number of corporations, and smaller players are forced out in many ways. The internet offers some diversity of opinion and easy access to the foreign press...for now, but it is being weaponized.

US Manufacturing, pressured by Wal-Mart and the like, migrated to overseas sweatshops where there are few environmental protections, and fewer social supports, and often totalitarian governments. Capitalism thrives under dictatorships.

Auto companies used their profits to buy out unions, send jobs overseas. Product development not only lagged, but was irresponsible, and anemic. They went bankrupt. Even though they were rescued, they may not recover.

Corporations, in their quest for profits, aggressively fought unions. Wages fell. CEOs helped themselves to obscene compensation packages even as their companies verged on insolvency. Pension funds were raided. Taxpayers paid for the failures. Since unions are traditional Democratic supporters, it is predictable Republican activity to oppose them. A partisan, corporate supremecist, Supreme Court facilitated.

Income distribution changed shrinking the middle class, rewarding the already wealthy, and continues to increase poverty. We have lemon socialism. That is, socialism for the rich.

Consumers are no longer protected by usury laws. Predatory lending companies never expected their loans to be paid off. Bankruptcy laws were strengthened by Republicans for corporations. Students can no longer claim bankruptcy. The CFPB was rendered toothless by Trump appointees.

Result: the system collapsed. and taxpayers are paying to shore it up. (Not fix it.) Republicans think that the market left to itself will do the right thing. It won't. The middle class having lost much of their assets and in heavy debt may find themselves serfs if they are lucky enough to find work...but many will find themselves surplus labor.

"Markets enable people to pursue their private interests through free exchange with others, but markets are not designed to take care of common interests such as the preservation of peace, the protection of the environment or the maintenance of the market mechanism itself. Such common interests require political institutions...." The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power: Page 196 George Soros.

The Economy

It should not be necessary to say this: The economy is the servant of the people, not their master. It needs to be tamed so that it does not spin out of control. What can control it is regulation. Anathema to Republicans, but a necessity. A mixed economy, balanced public and private, is best. We need a dialog determining division of responsibility between public and private.

The current crash is no accident. The Glass-Steagle Act was a jewel of the New Deal legislation. It divided banks into savings banks (which were government insured), and investment banks (which were free to take risk, but were not insured). This law was considered quaint. How did that work out ?

Economic statistics are designed to be misleading. Inflation numbers are minimized so that Social Security increases will be low, unemployment statistics understate the reality, and worst is we lump all expenditures as if they were all beneficial. A natural disaster like Katrina gives a large boost to GNP. So do nuclear weapons.

David Korten's book, Agenda For A New Economy, makes a convincing case that we cannot and should not continue with business as usual. He writes:

"Wall street interests have defined not only the structure of our economy but also the indicators by which we assess its performance. Focused on financial indicators, we accept that the economy is sound even when it is killing us. Real-wealth indicators of the health and well-being of our children, families, communities, and natural systems reveal terminal systemic failure. Since we get what we measure, we should measure what we want."

Why this crisis might be our best chance to build a new economy.

Corporate Media

To support the 'conservative' agenda, corporate media and the Republican's message celebrates ignorance.

With pretty much all of the media sending the same message, you are conditioned to believe that the market is always right and it is the best guide to our direction. Nothing could be further from the truth. The market, when it is allowed free reign will benefit the wealthy, who have the resources to engage with it. The market is amoral, so it will do what it pleases whether it be selling drugs to children or providing weapons to criminals. Wages are suppressed, most of the people fall into debt servitude and the interest trickles up. Capitalism thrives under dictatorship and we are gravitating to a strong-man head of state. Profits go to the insiders, and the debt goes to the taxpayers. Such is the dynamic of a banana republic. It is corrupt.

Political power rises to the top as well: For the connected, profitable contracts follow, tax burden lifted. Congress makes decisions based on money, they are not what most of the people would choose. US government does not respond to the people.

Willful Ignorance

Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and other leading Republicans are not scholars. They don't listen to scholars, and they label them as 'liberals'. They believe the ghost stories told by Christian supremacists. What they have mastered is Orwellian speak. They may call themselves 'conservative', but they are not in any real sense of the word.

When 'conservatives' sneer at Harvard and other Universities, they are rejecting the judgment of responsible accademics who are informed, scholarly, and educated.

Faith based decision making, is not based on any evidence and is not just counterproductive, but can be disastrous. It should not surprise anyone that terrorist violence is often motivated by religion.

From that grows the Republican War on Science.

Extreme religion cannot support quality education. When it promotes or motivates undemocratic politics or incites people to violence, it should at least lose its tax exempt status.

Observe that the best educated communities are more affluent, more prosperous, liberal and do not vote Republican. Religion is highly correlated with poverty, lack of education, and rejection of science.

Divisiveness

Racism, Religion, are divisive. The Republicans play them often. See Immigration.

There is talk that the current immigration flap has been deliberately raised by Republicans to block action on climate change.

Undermine the Constitution

Republicans don't much trouble themselves with the Constitution...except possibly for the second Amendment.

They need to re-read the Preamble to the Constitution:

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United State of America "

There are some good intentions and some appropriate mechanisms in the Constitution for dealing with the kind of problems that we now have. The notion of Checks and Balances requires that the executive branch must be open to oversight. For the Bush years it was not. Trump rejected it. The press, with few exceptions, pretty much ignored this simple fact. Canadian media is not allowed to lie, and based on his performance, Murdoch is not allowed to do business there.

We should beware concentration of power. Republicans advocated an all powerful Presidency and on this they are extremely misguided. Unfortunately we often have Presidents who are not particularly wise, In any event in large organizations where decisions are made by a single individual can be very wrong. (Example: It would be a good idea to support Senator Feingold's initiative to see that Senate seats are filled by elections...not by Governor's appointment. Looks like an obvious improvement to me.) When a single individual is ruling, the end of the empire is near.

Much of the Bill of Rights has been shredded. You have no fourth amendment rights at the airport. When we last visited Washington, DC I decided to visit the National Archive where you can see the original Constitution in its resting place. At the entrance, the security guard told me to empty my pockets, place my carry-on in the basket, and to walk through the metal detector. I told her what I thought, turned around, and walked away.

Economic stratification sheds doubt whether we have much of a democracy any more.

Corporate Responsibility

Many corporations are not good citizens. They tolerate environmental damage, worker rights suppression, workplace safety compromises, toxic products, biopiracy, advertising exploitation. They own the media: they are important determiners of culture, they can strongly influence our political outcomes, and they have made technology advances in broadcasting into a useless distraction that carries little or no social value. They are willing to move offshore if it is profitable to do so...and it is.

There exist in the world many countries where labor unions cannot be organized, where wages are at bare subsistence, where there are no environmental laws, where workplace safety is unimportant. In short, a free market paradise. US workers cannot compete on that basis, so their wages decline, job migration increases, and many people find themselves surplus. Being politically powerless, they are also victims of a disappearing social safety net.

Right wing corporations manufacture our voting machines and keep the mechanism inscrutable because the software is a trade secret. The public does not know whether elections have any integrity or not. We can easily see a consistent pattern of very bad leadership though.

As with the Presidency, Republicans favor extreme Corporate concentration. Concentration of power is dangerous in any form, but the public is not really informed of that because media is strictly on the corporate message. McCain was clearly for big media, not the public.

Concentration works well for Corporations. It destroys the competition and, as we see all too frequently now, it makes companies too big to fail. Taxpayers become responsible for their losses, but the profits are theirs. This is the Republican way: Socialism for the rich. There is no escaping that CEO compensation is often obscene, and it is but a symptom of widespread corporate governance dysfunction. There is no pretense of democracy in corporate America.

Media make it clear that the market decides. That private management is always better than public. That government failure is inevitable, and certainly not the responsibility of Republicans. These are the starting premises for media lies. We have seen that extreme deregulation results in corruption.

Free markets do not operate in conditions of oligopoly. Since anti-trust laws are rusty, consolidation proceeds inexorably toward market domination in practically every industry. When it proceeds too far, the market crashes. That's the long history, and, since we haven't learned that lesson, it WILL happen again. Each time it is a little worse.

Big Red Scare

Question: Is the private sector always the best choice for an industry ?

Answer: No. Examples are many (prisons, military like Blackwater), but lets start with health care.

Here's an eye-opening letter to the editor of The Economist, Jan 22, 2009 issue:

"SIR – Michael Moore’s claim that Cuba has a better health-care system than the United States is not as “ridiculous” as you think (“Health screen”, January 10th). The United States was ranked 37th in the latest report on health care from the World Health Organization, whereas Cuba ranked 39th. I suspect there is little difference between being placed 37th and 39th. However, when productivity is factored in Cuba’s health-care system does indeed seem to be more effective than America’s. America spends 15% of GDP on health care (which works out at $6,700 per person in 2006 dollars) while Cuba spends 8% ($360 per person). Most businesses would consider themselves better than their competitors if they delivered an equivalent product or service at one-twentieth the cost. Kenneth McLeod, Chair, Department of bioengineering, Binghamton University" Https://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12970732

People here in the US don't hear such things because there is a Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare (3/6/2009)

More than 60 lawmakers co-sponsored H.R. 676, the single-payer bill in Congress, but media never talks about it. Given the high level of popular support the policy enjoys, that's all the more reason it should be front and center in the public debate about the future of healthcare.

The Republicans on talk radio, when they are not considering rebellion, call this socialism. Bear in mind that they are dispensing cool-aid for the corporate elite and the last thing that they would tolerate is a thoughtful discussion of optimal division of responsibilities between the public and private sectors.

Media is the problem. Problem solving will be difficult until it is fixed.

People who listen to and rely on US media will often respond that a single payer system is Socialism. They are ready to go to war to prevent such a thing, but it means that insurance companies will continue to run US health care and it will continue to be another way to scam the public.

When Ronald Reagan was in office, a politicized 'intelligence' informed him that the Russians were ten feet tall, and that justified an unprecedented military buildup. The military industrial complex has succeeded in placing facilities in every important Congressional district, and what they have actually created is a massive jobs program and each Congressman has to become a representative for the defense contractor(s) in his district. Result: The US spends more on the military than every other country combined. Although war profiteering is publicly visible, there has been no public accounting. What a change from WW II when some of our most distinguished executives worked for a dollar a year. Republicans don't worry much about the public good.

Unlimited resources for the military ultimately flows to the politically well connected, while the massive debt falls on taxpayers. This fact is hidden in various ways but you will notice that the war in Iraq (like the war in Vietnam) was not on the books. Stiglitz estimates Iraq will cost in excess of three trillion dollars. That's another reason why social programs starve.

Blame the victim

Why the Right Attacked Unions, Acorn, and Planned Parenthood (3/3/2011)

It is a curious fact that while joblessness and homelessness has increased lately, the welfare rolls have declined. Republicans blame the victims: years ago, welfare mothers were to blame, so welfare was 'reformed' so that they could go to work (the family values people don't worry that they left home to do it.) Now it's immigrants who are to blame.

These, like race, are divisive wedge issues, but they have worked well for Republicans in the past.

Republicans consistently oppose measures to help people: as a result the US is hostile to union organizing, there is little or no provisions for old age insurance except for Social Security (and they tried to loot that also), healthcare is much more expensive than elsewhere in the world but it does not cover all of us and there is nothing to stop insurance companies from cherry-picking the healthiest and denying coverage for any one who might have a problem. Such a system is an oxymoron. But here's the bottom line: Republicans want to cut government...but that means any expense that might actually benefit people. Cutting government expense for them never means cuts for the military. Probably the best way to loot the public is to help prepare for war. That's why Republicans tend to be warmongers. It helps if they can scare the public. (see media) As the neocons opined: A new Pearl Harbor would do it.

Dirty Tricks

There is too much of this to try to detail here. Google 'Republican Dirty Tricks' or try this link.

Exploit the Third World

The US does not do its agreed upon share of Foreign aid, nor does it pay its UN dues. It is a world class arms supplier though. If you look at it, you will see that it is building an empire. The Supreme Court or the press never questioned whether remaking the Middle East as Bush intended was consistent with the Constitution.

Because, up till now, the US has provided the world's reserve currency, it can tax the rest of the world without really asking.

Although colonialism is no longer practical, there are other more effective ways to achieve control in other countries. The IMF, the WTO, can implement structural adjustment programs that mandate the privatization of public facilities which allows multi national corporations free access. Investment capital can come and go freely, but labor cannot. If it becomes impossible to make a living, people then become migrants. Keeping poor countries in debt is better than colonialism for keeping them in political control. John Perkins writes in depth about this.

Bibliography

"There are many other ways in which the government structures the market to redistribute income upward. Read my non-copyright protected book, The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer to get more of the picture." Dean Baker (read it on-line.)