Republicans Can't Create Jobs

Republicans campaigned on job creation, but since the election, they have done virtually nothing about creating jobs.  Republicans are good at making promises.  They are bad to fulfilling those promises. 

Do you want jobs?  Then elect democrats as shown in this graphic that I picked up over at ataxingmatter.

She Must Be A Republican

The Republican War On Children

Are these the people we want running our country?  The republicans have declared all out war on the children of the world.  Here are the highlights from an article posted in The Pragmatic Progressive Forum.

• According to USAID, 70,000 children around the world will die if Republicans make the cuts it wants to make. Approximately 30,000 kids would die from cuts in malaria control programs, 24,000 from lack of immunizations, and 16,000 due to unsafe birthing practices.
  
• Republicans are currently attempting to eliminate the ban on insurance companies that keeps them from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. That puts 19.4 million children at risk of possible harm or even death.
  
• If Republicans have their way, kids will no longer be able to remain on their parents’ insurance plans until the age of 26 and pregnant women as well as breast and prostate cancer patients could be thrown off the insurance rolls.
  
• They are also targeting welfare, unemployment benefits, and food stamps. Nearly half of all US children depend on food stamps during childhood.  Without food stamps, WIC, unemployment benefits, and welfare in general, millions of children across the country are at risk of starving to death.
  
• In addition to attacking the health and nutrition of children, they are also seeking to destroy their minds and their childhoods as well. Republicans in many states, especially in Missouri and Maine, are introducing bills that will repeal child labor laws.
  
• Republicans are essentially making it easier for pedophiles to rape children. In Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, former governor and potential Republican candidate for President, pardoned a child molester while he was in office, so that molester’s wife could open a child day care center in THEIR home.
  
• The GOP is also waging war against the public school system. In their effort abolish public education in favor of privately run schools, Republicans are trying to slash funding that is used for desks, books, technology, and other materials that contribute to learning. That’s all in addition to their scheme to rewrite textbooks in order to indoctrinate children to the conservative philosophy.
  
• Republicans in Michigan and other red states are pushing for laws that will only allow foster children to buy second hand clothing.  Thousands of foster children are being denied permanent homes because of Republican opposition to same sex marriage.
  
• Republicans also want to shatter our children’s dreams and aspirations too. Many Republicans have stated that President Obama is an illegitimate President, because he is an illegitimate child.

Are these the people who should be running our country?

Are We As Stupid As The Republicans Think We Are?

Cut taxes, reduce spending.  That's what we continually hear from republicans.  In fact, they seem to be trying to outdo one another.  Who can cut taxes the most?  Who can reduce benefits to the American people the most?  Social Security?  Medicare?  Medicaid?  Education?  Who needs them?  If you can't afford it, tough shit...so say the republicans.

And on top of all of this, we have Tim Pawlenty proposing tax cuts three times the size of the Bush tax cuts.  Tax cuts that will cost $7.8 trillion...and explode the deficit. 

But he says his economic plan with create an economic growth of 5% per year for 10 years.  Never mind that it has never been done before.  We have never had a 10 year period of economic growth of that magnitude. 

We have had a couple of short periods of economic growth of about 5%, one under Reagan and one under Clinton.  So we just need to repeat what they did but for a longer period of time.

But wait!  Those high growth periods, the highest growth periods in the last 30 years, occurred after TAX INCREASES.

Federal income taxes are at historic lows now.  Republicans want to reduce them further.  They say reducing taxes will result in 5% growth for 10 years.  But the only times in the last 30 years where our economy has achieved 5% or greater growth is after a TAX INCREASE, and they were tax increases on top of taxes which were higher than they are now!

How stupid do the republicans think we are?

Study: 44 million could lose Medicaid coverage under GOP plan

 According to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"Ryan has touted his budget plan as a way to preserve Medicaid by offering states more flexibility to wring savings from their programs."

The republican way of preserving a plan is to kill off all the people who participate in it!

 

How Republicans Argue

Are These REALLY Bad Ideas?

How To Turn The Economy Around In One Year...

1.  Make banks loosen credit.

2.  Make corporations bring jobs back to the US.

And do it without spending tax dollars!

Deficit Reduction Solution

Want to get rid of most of the deficit in a real hurry?  It is simple.  Get out of Afghanistan.  Get out of Iraq.  Eliminate the Bush tax cuts.  Do those three things and most of the deficit disappears as shown in the two figures below.  Getting rid of only the Bush tax cuts stops the deficit from increasing as a percent of GDP.

Hat Tip to Chris Gerrib for the link.

What 30 Years of Reaganomics Has Done For You

In general, no matter what we do, the economy continues to grow.  We have our recessions, but over the long term, the economy, as measured by GDP, continues to increase as shown in the figure below.

From here.

It shows about a 2.1% annual growth over the last 60 years.  Republicans and Democrats have both contributed to this growth, one better than the other at times, but in general it just keeps growing with a few bumps along the way.

Since we all contribute to the growth, I think we all should benefit from the growth.  From 1950 to 1980, the GDP roughly doubled.  The next figure shows how much our income grew during this period.

 Not too bad.  Income growth is about the same as GDP growth.   The people in the 99 to 99.99 income percentile didn't do as well as the others, but their income is pretty high anyway so they probably did not suffer too much.

Then along came Reagan.  He essentially said, taxes are too high.  It is stifling the economy and stealing money away from those who create jobs and wealth.  We need to cut taxes and shrink government.  Get it out of peoples' way.

Well, we already know what happened to the economy when he did that.  It kept plodding along with about a 2.1% annual growth.  At least he didn't hurt it, but he didn't help it much either.  Over the next 28 years, 1980 to 2008, the GDP roughly doubled again...but what happened to incomes?  Well, let's take a look.  The next figure adds the time period 1980 to 2008 to the figure above.

 WOW!!!

Talk about INCOME REDISTRIBUTION!!!

The lower 90% of all Americans saw their income increase an average of 1%.  ONE FUCKING PERCENT!  Even the people in the 90 - 95 percentile and the 95 to 99 percentile did worse from 1980 to 2008 than they did between 1950 and 1980.  Let me say that again.  99 PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE SAW THEIR INCOME INCREASE MORE BETWEEN 1950 AND 1980 THAN  IT DID BETWEEN 1980 AND 2008.

Who made all the money from the increase in the economy?  Remember, the economy continued to grow at an average of 2.1% per year.  Why, it was the top 1 percent, the one percent that the republicans cater to.  In fact, the top 0.01 percent saw their income increase 403%.

So, let's recap.  99 percent of the people saw their income increase significantly less between 1980 and 2008 than they did between 1950 and 1980 thanks to republican economic policies started by Reagan.  The bottom 90% of people saw their income increase by only ONE PERCENT, while the top ONE HUNDREDTH OF ONE PERCENT saw their income increase 403 percent.  That is a 40,300 percent greater increase than the bottom 90% of the people.

40,200 percent greater increase than the bottom 90% of the people

 And the republicans want to give them more tax cuts.  Are they out of their fucking minds???


I'd like to give a hat tip to Pat Cunningham over at Applesauce from providing the link to 9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About Taxes.  This was number 1.  There are 8 more interesting things.  Go read them if you have time.

It Takes A Democrat To Finish What A Republican Starts!