Sorry General, their number is not so negligible today
—————————————————————————————————————————————–
How else to explain the “Tax Reform Act of 2017”?
If the tax scam becomes law, those cuts to Medicare and Medicaid will be just the start. Rubio has made clear that Republican politicians will use the lost revenue from the tax scam as an excuse to end Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as we know them.
This is just one more battle — albeit a major one — in an ongoing war. Republican elites and their donors have been trying to dismantle these programs since they were enacted. As far back as 1961, Ronald Reagan (then pitchman/host of television’s General Electric Theater) gained political prominence by opposing the creation of Medicare, claiming that it would lead to “socialist dictatorship.” Decades earlier, Republican presidential contender Alf Landon ran for president promising to repeal and replace FDR’s brand new Social Security program.
Today’s Republicans are still fighting the battle. After the GOP gave their last giant tax giveaway to the wealthy, President George W. Bush attempted to privatize Social Security. He pointed to budget deficits created by his tax giveaway and claimed that our nation “couldn’t afford” Social Security — even though it doesn’t contribute a single penny to the deficit.
Just as Rubio recently revealed the true motivations and goals of the tax scam, back in 2005 a top Bush Administration staffer wrote a confidential memo explaining the real reason Republicans were pushing Social Security privatization. The memo, which was fortuitously leaked, stated, “For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win — and in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country.”
The truth is that Republican donors have always hated Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They simply want to be richer, the rest of the country be damned. In the past, the American people have thwarted every effort in this longstanding, ongoing war.
ROBBER BARONS” ARE BACK, DOING WHAT THEY DO BEST. Congress, as in 1887, aided and abetted as ordered by today’s equivalent of the malefactors below.
Imagine a President who had respect for citizens of the Republic, explaining issues of the day!
President Roosevelt’s Fireside Chat, March 12, 1933, “On Banks” (excerpt)
We had a bad banking situation. Some of our bankers had shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people’s funds. They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans. This was, of course, not true in the vast majority of our banks, but it was true in enough of them to shock the people for a time into a sense of insecurity and to put them into a frame of mind where they did not differentiate, but seemed to assume that the acts of a comparative few had tainted them all. It was the Government’s job to straighten out this situation and do it as quickly as possible. And the job is being performed.
I do not promise you that every bank will be reopened or that individual losses will not be suffered, but there will be no losses that possibly could be avoided; and there would have been more and greater losses had we continued to drift. I can even promise you salvation for some at least of the sorely pressed banks. We shall be engaged not merely in reopening sound banks but in the creation of sound banks through reorganization.
It has been wonderful to me to catch the note of confidence from all over the country. I can never be sufficiently grateful to the people for the loyal support they have given me in their acceptance of the judgment that has dictated our course, even though all our processes may not have seemed clear to them.
After all, there is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people. Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system; it is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail.
Wisdom from Frederick Douglass
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” Frederick Douglass,abolitionist and statesman, Speech, April 1886
KILROY'S WORLD (AT 85) 
Recent Comments