Congressman Dennis Kucinich packed his 60 second opportunity to speak to the House of Representatives with some great insights. We need a president who would advocate this POV.
Text of Kucinich’s Comments
“Here is what we should do to avoid default: increase the debt ceiling with no strings attached.
“Here is how to get out of debt: End the wars — save one trillion over ten years. Repeal tax cuts to the wealthy: Save another trillion.
“Medicare for All: End the four hundred billion yearly subsidies for health insurance industry.
“Renegotiate trade agreements with workers rights, human rights, and environmental quality principles: save millions of jobs and billions of dollars.
“The Fed creates money out of nothing and gives it to banks. Why should our country go into debt, borrowing from banks when we have the constitutional power to create money and invest in jobs?
“We can have another New Deal where we put millions to work rebuilding our bridges and transportation system.
“We can have a Works Green Administration where NASA is the incubator of jobs designing and engineering wind and solar micro technologies for private sector manufacturing, distribution, installation and maintenance in millions of homes, saving money, energy and protecting the environment.
“We are the United States of America, the greatest country on earth. We envision wealth. We don’t default. We create wealth. We don’t default. We build wealth. We don’t default.”
Some of Kucinich’s proposals are ones that reasonable people could discuss in a rational manner, like ending two wars. However, the idea that taxes should be raised in a double-dip recession seems folly to me, although I realize it has great appeal to the class envy crowd.
The idea that the US. could print money to solve the problem shows such economic ignorance that it is staggering.
So far, the dream of lots of green jobs has not materialized.
Aw Rick, it’s not class envy. It’s a cold-eyed examination of what works. The tax rates under Clinton were higher and the economy grew so fast that Greenspan worried it would “overheat”, a comment that strangely drew no economic-warning deniers.
Now sure; there are more factors to a sound economy than tax rates. But historically, US presidents and Ohio governors who balanced a budget by strategic tax rate hikes have seen increases in prosperity.
Revenues are especially important as our national infrastructure starts to fail. Forget green jobs; we could cut unemployment by several percent if we’d just hurry up with necessary repairs to roads and upgrades to the power grid.
At least could we agree that corporate entitlements that allow GE to pay no taxes and get the megacorp version of an earned income credit–Exxon Mobil et al to pay less taxes and rake in subsidies while making highest profits EVER–and the top 400 citizens to pay a total tax averaging 27% of income (while the likes of you and I pay 40%)–
Is all evidence that our taxes are unfair, and that proper adjustments would require de facto tax increases for some?
…but printing money is a tax. And by creating money out of thin air, the Obama Cult is financing the government thru inflation. This inflation is the true tax, for it diminishes the wealth of all that hold that currency. And this tax by inflation, as the headline writers of newspapers are fond of writing, “hits women and minorities the hardest.” Did it ever occur to the Obama Cult that the remedy may be shrinking government and spending less? The Old Bandito doesn’t want to sound too radical….
The Obama “cult” (can you not come up with a more insulting term?) did not run up the national debt; the Bush “cult” did. If you’d like to tax your memory, twelve years ago we had a balanced budget and even a surplus (on paper), and instead of paying down the debt the GOP=controlled government decided to give it away–mostly to the wealthy, who decidedly did NOT use it to create jobs.
Are you against requiring all entities (individuals and corporations) to pay identical tax rates based on reasonable and consistently applied criteria? If there was no TIF, General Electric would be paying the same property taxes as you and I–and our property taxes would go down b/c you and I would not be subsidizing selected business activity.
And if GE and the rest claim they need the incentives–then they’re not free market capitalists, are they?
…wasn’t trying to insult anyone, dear truddick. The Old Bandito was callin’ em’ as he sees’ em’ with homeplate umpire honesty and accuracy. The Obama Cult had its’ genesis before the election, with the media deluge of what great genius and vision Obama possessed. Then it was the historical blahblahblah. And claims that he was a uniter, and would counter global warming, and other endeavors that only a cultist could repeat with a straight face. And when Obama took his chainsaw to the economy, his apologists’ only reply is he shoulda’ used two chainsaws and it coulda’ been worse. Today, with the economy in tatters with no signs of improvement, an increasingly large number of Americans see a inept Chief Exec stumblin’ down Main Street in his birtday suit. Only his partisans see him proudly walking down Pennsylvania Avenue in a Brioni suit and Berluti shoes. Nice try truddick in trying to bait the Old Bandito into defending either George Bush, our current tax system or GE. Ain’t gonna defend a big-spending, big-government Republican, a broken down tax system that needs a complete overhaul nor a multinational that, if taxed, would only pass that cost to consumers…
truddick, you state: “The Obama “cult” (can you not come up with a more insulting term?) did not run up the national debt; the Bush “cult” did.” They both did.