Message for Republicans
You are worried about the deficit
because it has become very large.
Even though the deficit is a main complaint, country club
Republicans favorite sport is evading taxes. Their accountants and lawyers rely
on that to make their living, but as in other corrupt countries, that is a large
part of the problem with deficits. A stiff graduated tax would solve many
problems: It would take care of those obscene bonuses that bankers gave
themselves after the taxpayer bailouts, it would damp down hedge fund
speculation, and it would make means-testing Social Security unnecessary. When
Ike was President the top marginal tax rate was around 90%, highly respected
executives worked for a dollar a year. But things have changed since you took the Grover Norquist pledge. As many economists have warned, austerity is a bad idea when
the economy is weak. Republicans have effectively been working to see
that the economy fails. The better to win elections.
Instead of trying to cut Social Security, give up the tax reductions for
the wealthy. We have reached a new gilded age, and you are exacerbating the
pathological problems that go with extreme income inequality. It speaks volumes
about your character that you always have plenty of money for war, but never for
your own people. That is a true symptom of a failed state.
Stop opposing changes to healthcare. As you yourself have reminded us,
our system is not a good enough to take care of everybody. It is probably the
most expensive in the world, the outcomes are not very good, and pretty much
everyone agrees that costs are going to spiral out of control. It is despicable to substitute vouchers for Medicare. To really save money, stop invading foreign countries. Many Republicans (including our very own Senator Lieberman) think it is a great idea to invade Iran. Foregoing that alone could be money enough to balance the budget. It is difficult to break the impulse to endless war, but if you stop you will no longer need the world’s largest military. Anyway, if the only enemies you can find are poor people living in caves, that hardly justifies the kind of expense you enjoy. I know, you will find more enemies. (You could also save another $125 billion by not expanding the war in Afghanistan. After 10 years, how is that going ?) Although you want to block the new arms reduction treaty with Russia, you could save another $80 Billion dollars by not buying more nuclear weapons. Stop the 'Star Wars' program also. The world would be a little safer, but that doesn’t seem to interest you. Just remember your history lessons: empires always fail and civil liberties for their people disappear.
The ‘war on drugs’ has made the US a leader in incarcerations in the
world. Apparently you learned nothing from the lessons of Prohibition. Just as
in Arizona the prison lobby wanted arrests of aliens, the ‘war on drugs’ is an
excuse for asset forfeiture, war on Latin American countries, and disgusting
political greed. Decriminalize drugs and free up some prisons. That would save a
lot.
There is more than the budget problem: Republicans have
condoned torture, renditions, wiretapped, revoked Constitutional rights
(especially at airports) ,polluted media, and created a toxic political dialog.
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