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Time for a Change #3

Commentator Inspired Comments

Dave Thomas

Many of my following comments are inspired by commentaries found in the weekly newspaper, Liberal Opinion. The inspiring commentators are named in parentheses.

Foreign Aid for Developed Countries

The United States has long contributed a lesser percentage of our gross national product than most developed countries. By running budget and trade deficits which add to the amount of money we must pay in interest to foreign holders of U.S. bonds and profits paid to foreign companies who buy American ones, we have created a new form of foreign aid. Unfortunately most of this new foreign aid goes to Japan, China and European countries, which are developed or rapidly developing.

Looked at differently, Japan, China and European countries are providing foreign aid loans to us. Instead of spending this aid on development, we are using these loans to provide tax cuts for the rich, subsidies for wealthy industries, pork to buy votes, and the Iraq war, including corrupt Halliburton contracts. Also corrupt Katrina cleanup contracts. (Jay Bookman)

Why are Tax Breaks for the Wealthy our Highest Priority?

We have tax breaks for our wealthy and powerful industries, while congress cuts Medicaid, subsidized housing, Head Start, tuition aid, and park maintenance, and provides insufficient armor for our military in Iraq and levees in New Orleans and California, and does nothing to counter the increasing proportion of people without health insurance. Why? The wealthy and powerful fund legions of lobbyists and make large campaign donations. The rest of us don’t. (Holly Sklar)

Even the Playing Field

Until we get public campaign funding and free media time, we liberals need to increase our donations. Don’t just respond to appeals from groups and candidates. Decide which ones will make a difference and donate to them.

Battered Congress Syndrome

The Bush administration refuses to inform the congress about its many secret activities, arguing that secrecy is necessary for Bush to receive forthright advice or to avoid informing terrorists about our attempts to prevent their terrorism and capture them. He also issues addendums to Congressional legislation, stating that he won’t comply if he believes it counter to his mandate to protect the American people.

Carried far enough, these Bush practices eliminate the need for Congress and upend our Constitutional balance of power. Yet Congress has scarcely protested. Is our country no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Those of us who support this Congress which submits to this battering are enablers of Bush’s battering. If the Democrats win control of congress, it will finally resist this battering, with investigations to counter secrecy and stop Bush from violating laws. Let’s stop enabling Bush. Let’s elect Democrats. (Rosa Brooks)

Pre-9/11 Thinking

I suspect most of us send more emails than we make phone calls. The Bush administrations data-mining of phone calls will probably mostly reveal patterns of chattering among teenagers. Any terrorism they plot is probably against each other or maybe their parents and teachers.

So what’s next? Monitoring emails? These may mostly reveal businesses plotting to terrorize their competitors.

Conservative Conspiracy Theories

Conservatives have long held conspiracy theories. Remember the atheistic, international communist conspiracy to destroy traditional American ways. The real causes of changes were increasing science and technology, globalization and larger private and public enterprises. Because no evidence could be found for a coordinated effort to produce these changes, they were called a secret international atheistic communist conspiracy.

For some time, conservatives have been referring to liberal treason, liberal media bias, and global warming theories as conspiracies. Since they don’t have evidence to support their claims, they refer to them as secret conspiracies. Liberals are less likely to note conservative conspiracies without presenting evidence. (Paul Krugman)

Our Enron Government

Enron thrived on promising profits based upon fraudulent accounting. Similarly, the Bush administration promises that tax cuts will produce budgetary surpluses instead of massive deficits, that our economy is doing fine even though most of us are benefiting little and becoming much more financially insecure, that Republicans are champions of small government when our government has grown faster under Bush than any time since Lynden Johnson’s administration. As both liberals and conservatives see through this fraud, the Bush administration is collapsing like Enron did. (Marie Cocco)

Our current growth of employment, wage and salaries, gross domestic product, consumption and investment is much less than occurred in most recoveries. (Holly Sklar)

Delayed Costs of War

Hanford cleanup costs sores to 11.3 billion. High rates of mental illness and suicide among returning Iraq veterans, adding 100’s of billions to projected costs of veteran’s benefits. Another example of deceptive accounting is ignoring these projected costs of war. (Bob Herbert)

To estimate your personal costs of billions of government spending, divide the one billion by 300 million (the size of our population) which yields 3.3, then multiply the number of billions. For example $80 billion spent on the Iraq war costs each adult and child in the United States 80 x 3.3 = $26.4. If you have a family of four, your share is 4 x 26 = $104.

Alternative estimates can be based upon per household, per wage earner or per tax payer share of costs. I use the per capita 3.3 multiplier for reports of billions of expenditures to quickly decide if I would rather spend that money on something with a similar cost.

What Puget Sound Targets Would Terrorists Attack?

How much is Homeland Security spending for security personnel and sniffing dogs to guard against someone blowing up our ferries? Any competent terrorist would surely find better targets. How about our two Lake Washington bridges? That would harm our Puget Sound economy far more than destroying several ferries.

Should English Be Made Our Official Language?

They say the United States is an English-speaking country. We also speak hundreds of other languages. English is only the most common. All children who grow up in here learn to speak English. So do many who arrive older. So what’s the problem that is addressed by making English official? This is the kind of ridiculous unneeded unrealistic ideological measure that some politicians love to propose.

Democrats are Getting their Act Together.

Democratic disorganization is exaggerated by GOP propaganda disseminated through the so-called liberal press. In spite of their congressional minority status, Democrats have successfully blocked some Republican proposals (privatizing social security), toned down others, and exposed Republican deception, incompetence and corruption, leading to the extreme lowering of Republican popularity. Although they haven’t supported Jack Murtha’s call for a withdrawal from Iraq or Russ Feingold’s call for censoring Bush, they are beginning to find and focus upon proposals about which they agree. Michael Tomasky has proposed that Democrats focus upon realizing the common good (enhancing freedoms and opportunities for everyone) instead of promoting the special interests of their supporters. (Gene Lyons)

Silly Mike McGavick

I recently received a fund raising letter from Republican Senate candidate Mike McGavick, in which he presents proposals for addressing his four priority issues.

National Security: fight terrorists in Iraq instead of Tacoma
Soaring Federal Deficit: stop Senator Cantwell from raising taxes
Securing Our Borders: more fences, technology and border patrol
Health Care Crisis: eliminate employer, insurer and government decisions

Compare these proposals with Democratic Party proposals:

Honest Leadership and Open Government
Real Security, confronting our real challenges
Energy Independence
Affordable Quality Health Care
Educational Excellence and Economic Prosperity
Retirement Security

We need some liberal Tim Eyemans to stimulate liberals to vote

Tim Eyeman is promoting an initiative to reverse our recently passed anti-gay discrimination law. This would stimulate conservatives to vote. Maybe we should place create some initiatives to stimulate liberals to vote. Perhaps an initiative for our state government to begin data mining all of our communications. Or to tax our public radio and television.

Drunk drivers to Quantomino

Terrorists killed 3000 people on 7/11. Every year, 15,000 people die in accidents involving drunk drivers. Maybe we should send drunk drivers to Quantomino, with no access to attorneys. We could torture them until they reveal their enablers.

Counter 5000 Conservative Churches with 5000 Liberal Neighborhood Groups

The nationwide network of Christian Conservative churches are a major asset for Republican political campaigns. The networks of labor unions and teachers provide much less effective support for Democratic political campaigns. Could a national network of liberals groups in every neighborhood provide a similar campaign asset for Democrats.

Small business owners are the new worker interest group. Support them.

We have long supported labor union members. I understand that more American households now contain a small business owner than contain a labor union member. Small businesses also stimulate innovative economic growth. We should actively support them, hoping to get their support in return. For example, we should shift taxes from FICA to Vat and should substitute public financing of health insurance for business financing, helping particularly the small business, making them more competitive and able to hire more employees, thus increasing employment. When we propose measures to make jobs more flexible so employees can care for their families, we should be avoid burdening small businesses.

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A Letter to the Editor

Hi Dave, I thought that I would give my thoughts on the Immigration issue. While I'm not happy that many people are coming to the USA illegally, I'm also sympathetic to most of these people. Many of these people come here to obtain some kind employment. So I was outraged when some ultra-conservatives in Congress said that illegal immigrants should be treated as felons - even if their only offense was simply being here. My response to that is that U.S. employees who knowingly hire illegals ought to face felony charges. In fact, the U.S. already has laws in the books against hiring illegals. So why isn't the Bush Justice Department enforcing these laws by cracking down on such employers?!

Okay, I'm probably oversimplifying the issue. But I believe there should be some form of amnesty for the millions who are already here. Of course, of the few who have committed crimes, including drug smuggling, those people should be deported back to where they came from. But the only "crime" that most of these people have commited is trying to find better employment opportunities in the U.S.

Here's another thought - if some employers are saying that Americans won't fill the vacant jobs, then perhaps the pay scale needs to be upgraded so that more Americans would have a living wage, and there would be more Americans interested in these jobs.

Please feel free to share this with other Lake Hills Liberals members. Have a good night. Dave James