Last updated on April 13th, 2012 at 09:05 am
Throughout history, the one aspect that allowed mankind to progress beyond the Stone Age was their willingness to try new techniques and approaches to further and enrich their existence, and to avoid reverting back to failures that retarded progress and at times retarded life. Indeed, if humans had perpetually returned to former tried-and-true failures, civilization would have never progressed beyond tribal existence and humans would be living in caves if they survived at all. Politicians often propose novel approaches to solve a country’s problems, but when their techniques fail, a sign of intelligence is reverting back to policies or agendas that were successful. Conservatives resist change at all costs because it is not within their retarded mentalities to think past their previous failures, and as a matter of course Republicans always revert to policies that enrich the wealthy regardless the amount of devastation they cause. The economic approach Willard Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan are proposing portends more economic hardship for the majority of Americans and, as typical conservatives, are reverting to well-documented failures for the sole purpose of enriching the wealthy and their corporations.
After eight years of the strongest, most-adaptable, and technologically advanced economy on the face of the Earth under the Clinton Administration, Bush-Republicans reverted to Reagan’s trickle-down economic theory and promptly passed a $1.35 trillion tax cut that heavily favored Bush’s wealthy political base. It was an ill-advised reversion to supply-side economics, but especially after the Clinton administration when more than 22 million jobs were created, median income increased, poverty declined, business investment and startups were strong, the stock market was booming, and capital markets were sound according to an analysis by the CIA. The progress America made was in part because regulatory agencies’ budgets increased, taxes increased on the wealthy, and Clinton’s earned income tax credit lifted millions of working poor Americans out of poverty; Bush-Republicans rejected those policies because they benefited all Americans and not just the wealthy.
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The results of the Bush-Republican policies are historical failures that decimated America’s economy, and President Obama has steadily improved it and added more jobs in three years than Bush did in eight. Despite the President and Democrats attempts to correct the tax cuts for the wealthy inequities, Republicans like Romney and Ryan are promoting a more severe return to Bush policies and accusing President Obama of throwing a “verbal tantrum†and using “over-the-top rhetoric†for criticizing Ryan’s Path to Prosperity budget. The President does not throw verbal tantrums, but he did assail the Republican plan because it unfairly burdened the poor, seniors, middle and working-class Americans while rewarding the wealthy with huge tax cuts.
Ryan said he thought the President was using a “a rhetorical broadside to distract from the fact the president isn’t proposing solutions,” and he particularly criticized the so-called “Buffett Rule†that raises tax rates on investment income to match the rates on regular income. Ryan, like Romney, could not resist reverting to Republicans’ favorite catch-phrase and noted that the Buffett Rule would “represent a huge tax increase on job creators.”  Former economy-destroyer George W. Bush even joined Republicans in decrying tax increases on the wealthy and said, “if you raise taxes on the so-called rich, you’re really raising taxes on the job creators†and that “we believe that the best policy is that which creates a robust private sector.†However, Bush, Ryan, Romney, and the rest of the country know that reducing taxes on the wealthy does not create a robust private sector or this country would not have suffered the worst economic tragedy since the Great Depression. And yet, Republicans are staking their political lives that Americans will forget the damage they caused with tax cuts for the rich as the only approach to growing the economy and creating jobs.
It is difficult to say for certain that Republicans are hell-bent on destroying the economy to benefit the wealthy, but that is the historical reality of their policies. It is understandable why Romney craves lower taxes for the wealthy because he is the beneficiary of the current system and is intent on keeping it in place and, if possible, cutting his taxes even more. Romney’s response to the President’s endorsement of the Buffett Rule was, “he has already raised taxes on millions of Americans, but he won’t stop there. We want to lower tax rates across the board in order to jumpstart this bad Obama economy.†This is another Romney lie because taxes are at their lowest rates in 60 years, and the President’s policies saved the wrecked economy Republicans created with tax cuts for the rich and deregulation that allowed Wall Street and investment bankers to send America into the Great Recession. Romney also said the President “wants to raise taxes on millions more by taxing small businesses and job creators,†but President Obama has lobbied heavily for more incentives and tax breaks for small businesses, and the nonsense about “job creators†demonstrates the severe retardation of a man who reverts to policies that did not create jobs.
Paul Ryan’s remark that the President was throwing a “verbal tantrum†is ridiculous on its face and fails to recognize that President Obama is denouncing unfair assaults on the poor and middle class so the so-called job creators can reap more wealth. Ryan and Romney’s economic plan gives enormous tax cuts to the wealthy and increases an already bloated defense budget while cutting safety nets that millions of Americans depend on for food, shelter, and healthcare. The President was right to criticize Republicans’ economic plan for myriad reasons, but none is more prescient than America has tried the trickle-down economic theory and it has never worked and there is no reason to believe it will work in the future.
If Republicans are too mentally retarded to come up with novel ideas to grow the economy and insist on reverting to the past, they can regress to the Eisenhower or Clinton administrations that were economically prosperous for every citizen including the wealthy. It is unbelievable that they think Americans will not remember that Bush-Republican policies of eight years ago nearly destroyed the country, and yet they are campaigning heavily on repeating those mistakes again. One can almost understand greedy men like Willard Romney pursuing policies to enrich himself, but it is appalling that he, Ryan, and the rest of the Republicans are actively promoting an agenda that is certain to devastate the poor and eliminate the middle-class just to profit 1% of the population. But that is the reality and based on their history, Republicans will repeat Bush policies if they get the opportunity and it calls into question their morals and alleged love for America. However, their love for the wealthy and sheer pleasure at harming the poor informs that they have no morals and no love for America.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
