Who Wants To Be A Millionaire!

If you've been following our posts riffing off Glen Yeadon's The Nazi Hydra in America, you may have gotten the idea that I think every millionaire in the country should have been lined up against a wall and shot. That would be the wrong idea. I certainly feel economic predators and corporate Nazi collaborators should have been brought to justice and I have been outspoken about far too many millionaires-- with their unique perspective and interests-- in Congress and the media. But there are plenty of worthy, patriotic millionaires... as evidenced in the short clip above, marking today's 10 anniversary of the Bush tax cuts.

Their message-- "rich people are not the cause of a robust economy; they're the result of a robust economy"-- was very different from Tim Pawlenty's ballyhooed big economic speech that came out at the same time. Pawlenty thinks his path to the Republican vice-presidential nomination is by calling for draconian changes if not an end to Social Security and Medicare. In short, Pawlenty, like all the Republicans, is demanding

• A massive new tax cut for the wealthy

• A massive tax cut (more than 50% reduction in the rate) for corporations-- including Big Oil (He's also called the idea of ending subsidies "ludicrous")

• The elimination of the estate tax and taxes on capital gains and dividend income

• A balanced budget amendment and spending cap at 18% of GDP-- translation: severe cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and everything else except the Military-Industrial Complex

In his not-ready for prime time speech, Pawlenty said "There are some obvious targets to cut. We can start by applying what I call 'the Google test.' If you can find a good or service on the Internet, then the federal government probably doesn't need to offer the same good or service. Eddie Vale of Protect Your Care scratched his head in wonder.

I can Google ‘seniors’ and ‘health care’ does that mean Pawlenty would completely end Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? I can Google ‘veterans’ and ‘hospital’ does that mean Pawlenty would dismantle the VA system? I can Google ‘pharmacy’ does that mean no senior citizen or child would ever get assistance with their medicines from Pawlenty? These may seem like idiotically stupid questions, but, are necessary since Pawlenty is going to give a speech to demonstrate his qualifications to be leader of the free world by basing his policy agenda off what he can find on the internet.

“It’s also pretty sad and pathetic how quickly the regular blue collar guy veneer has fallen off as he rushes to cry crocodile tears over class warfare while taking away health care from seniors and kids to pay for tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and big oil.

Author and labor attorney Jonathan Tasini marked the anniversary of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires by asking what we've learned from their utter failure to create jobs or improve the economy. Not much.

We seem to learn very little. Or, perhaps, it's better to say that our elected representatives seem to learn very little-- partly, albeit, because of the corruption of the electoral process that seems to force even those who have half a brain to automatically spew out the words "tax cuts" along with "economic recovery," "government regulations" and "small business" as if there was even a connection between any of those phrases to building a health economy.

Example: in 2009, the president proposed, and the Congress passed, a stimulus bill that was supposed to drag the economy out of the crisis sparked by the financial crimes on Wall Street. The problem: the stimulus was too small-- $787 billion-- and a third of the bill was...tax cuts!!! The most inefficient way to create jobs. And, IMHO, it's the reasons the stimulus did not have the impact it could have had.

So, now, the president and Democrats are caught in a real pickle: they face a disastrous jobs picture but they seem reluctant to push for new government stimulus because they feel on the defensive defending the 2009 "failed" stimulus. Well, that's what you get for believing in tax cuts as some economic miracle-producer ("failed" is in quotes because actually if you ask governors and mayors about the stimulus you would find a lot of them grateful for the hundreds of thousands of jobs that were saved thanks to the stimulus).

And we don't learn.

People run around wanting to cut taxes for "small businesses" and eliminate the estate tax--even though this is just a cover that, "would allow the rich to continue to enjoy most of the tax cuts they received under President Bush while doing nothing to create or protect jobs."

The "compromise" tax deal in 2010 tilted to the wealthy.

Then, there is the truly dumb idea of giving corporations yet another tax break by letting them bring back profits stashed overseas virtually for free.

And wrapped around all this craziness is the entire phony debate about a debt and deficit "crisis"--phony because the only crisis that exists is the lack of jobs in the country, a crisis brought on by a massive robbery of our nation's wealth, in large part, due to the obsession over giving ever-larger tax cuts to people who do not deserve to get them (and a decision by many of those same people to pay themselves obscene CEO salaries).

It goes on and on and on. A robbery that has gone on for thirty years shows no sign of abating.

Thirty years? Why leave out the 1920s and '30s, the years the last 30 were based on? They were the Big Business heyday hacks like Pawlenty and Romney want to get us back to.