Friday, December 7, 2012

One Citizen's thoughts on The Fiscal Cliff Impasse.




One citizen’s thoughts about the current Fiscal Cliff impasse between congress and the White House
So, the John Boehner led, GOP controlled House of Representatives is holding 98 of Americans hostage once again, while holding out for a tax cut for their real employers or constituents: – the rich.
Not a surprise to most people, given that Mr. Boehner and his cohorts have never hidden the fact that they work only for the few rich who have bought them, and not for all Americans.
So what is their excuse for this latest grandstanding and threat to push Americans and our economy off the fiscal cliff? The same age old ruse about tax breaks for the rich resulting in jobs and prosperity for the rest of us. Makes you laugh, doesn’t it?
It should make you laugh, or scoff – whichever tickles your fancy the more – because the rich have had their tax breaks for over a decade, twelve years to be precise, and we all know how many jobs that has created -  none, nil, zilch, pick your poison. In fact, what has happened is that the rich have all gotten so much richer while the rest of us have lost our jobs and homes, and gotten way poorer and deeper into debt.
Think about it for a moment – assuming you’re one of the people who still believe in the tax break for the rich crap. Funny isn’t it, that there are still people who believe that? Sadly that’s true and some of such people are watching this video, so just think about it for a moment. If the tax cuts for the rich they keep calling for is all that it’s made out to be, why is our economy still in shambles after we’ve had them for twelve years, and counting? That’s a simple enough question to ask and reason about.
If you were having a problem and I came to you with what I say is a solution that will end your problem forth with. So you ask me what my solution is and I tell you something you have been doing for over twelve years in trying to solve that problem, which you have proof has actually made the problem worse instead of solve it, would you listen to me? We have had tax breaks for the rich for the past twelve years and the only result we’ve seen is a very shitty economy  with millions of jobs lost; the very opposite of what they’re promising it would do. Sure they now dress it up with more obfuscation about closing loopholes – none of which they care to identify – I must add.
It was some wise person who said that “it’s only a fool who keeps doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result.” Tax breaks for the rich has only resulted in the worst recession our economy has experienced since the great depression so I think the wise thing to do would be to change direction and do something different.
We don’t have to do something that has never been done before, so it’s not as if we will be moving into uncharted territories here. We have a precedent to follow, of a time, not too long ago, when our rich paid a little higher tax rates and we had a booming economy. We can go back to the tax rates of the Clinton Presidency, a time during which everybody agrees, our economy was doing very well.
That is what President Obama and the Democrats are advocating. That is what the President ran and won re-election on, which means that a majority of Americans agree with it, and still agree with it if current polling on the issue is anything to go by. That fact brings even more scrutiny to the actions of Mr. Boehner and his fellow Republicans when they stand in the way of President Obama trying to stop him from carrying out the mandate given him by the majority of Americans.
I think that every American who voted to put a Republican in congress should ask that congressman or woman this pertinent question; why do you insist on working only for the rich to the detriment of the middle class? The answer you get should help you determine your action when next they come up for re-election. Think about it, and thanks for watching.

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Saturday, December 1, 2012

That Republican Math And Science Green Card Vote




Ostensibly, in a bid to help solve America’s Math and Science problem, The Republican Party controlled United States House of Representatives has just voted in favor of giving green cards to foreign Math and Science majors studying for post graduate degrees in U.S. universities.
Now, while this may be a possible step in the right direction in trying to solve this country’s Math and Science problem, it also exposes the stupidity and myopia of America’s leadership. I say this because what this move ultimately does, apart from deny many eligible Diversity Visa candidates from Africa and Eastern Europe their chances of emigrating to America, is deny millions of America’s youth jobs that they could have had if the same leaders passing this stop gap measure had been competent enough to do the right thing with our education system.

We are in this position of even having to consider sourcing our Math and Science majors from outside the country because our pre-university education system is a mess, and not because American students are not capable.

The failure falls squarely on the shoulders of our leadership which makes this move more annoying and insulting to the American student, if nothing else. It’s insulting because it presumes that the American student is not intelligent enough to do well in Math and Science but we all know that is not true. We all know that the problem is the rotten education system our inept government has left our students.

Our elected people in congress should be ashamed of themselves for this sort of irresponsible behavior of trying to take advantage of other countries’ education systems instead of making our own system better so as to give our students the opportunity to solve our Math and Science problem. This is a lazy person’s attitude to problem solving that is absolutely unbecoming of the congress of the United States of America and should be roundly condemned by all Americans.

Our congress should be looking for ways to encourage our citizens to solve all our problems and not looking to import ready- made problem solvers from abroad. That is failure. That is not what we expect from leaders of the greatest nation on earth.