Who is to Blame?

Our democracy is in a state of crisis. Where does the problem lie? Here is a listing of the players starting with #10, the least to blame, and ending with #1, the most to blame.

10. The Liberal Media. I didn't know there was any, until I started listening to Democracy Now. It stirred memories from my childhood in the 60s, when we had real liberals, with whom it was difficult to argue: Hubert Humphrey, Bobby Kennedy, LBJ.

9. Large Corporations and Big Business. Corporate money dominates our political system, but yet I am going to say that this is not the fault of the large Corporations. Our businessmen and women have the duty to make a profit for their company. If they do not, they go bankrupt and everybody involved is hurt. The nation as a whole is hurt. Business is, of course, much more than a game. However, it can be compared in that businesses compete to win according to rules. Their duty is to follow the rules, but it is not their place to make those rules. If blocking in the back is a legal part of the game, then any serious competitor will block in the back. Todays rules are such that large businesses have to invest in politics. Walmart had no full-time representative in Washington until 1999. That all changed when they decided they would like to go in to the banking business and were blocked by congress under the influence of the banking industry lobby. Almost immediately, Walmart's Political Action Committee became one of the largest PACs in America (read Robert Reich, Supercapitalism, chapter 4). Who can blame them?

8. The Mainstream Media, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, NPR. I think this is what the right refers to as the liberal media? I'm not sure.

Once there were large newspapers, and everybody argued over what the newspaper said. Most people disagreed in one way or another with the newspapers, but at least everybody was arguing over the same things. Then there was ABC, NBC, and CBS, Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, and that other guy. Here again, everybody knew that television wasn't giving the whole story, but everybody was arguing over the same thing. Today, everybody listens to whoever they agree with and don't even know what other people have to say. But this isn't really the fault of the news media. Or is it?

The mainstream media attempts to present all sides, and as a result they don't present any side. This is because of the gulf that has developed between the left and the right, as the right-wing has moved progressively more to the right over the last 20 years. We're moving to a system where every political party has its own media, which I have seen work quite well in Europe. The problem is that there is no media for American liberals, and their points of view are not being articulated nationally.

7. The Democratic party. The democratic party used to be a liberal party: help for the elderly, the children, the working class, the sick, the environment. Today it is the wimp party. The Democratic Party fought for Social Security, health care for all, the working class, equality, the minimum wage, and government intervention in the economy in order to avoid recessions. Today, we have a president liberal at heart, who has repudiated liberalism in public. His health care plan was written to appease large corporations, his energy program is based on tax incentives for large corporations, and instead of talking about the 8 million who lost their jobs in 2008-2009, he is focused on getting re-elected by raising 2 billion dollars from large corporations. He has apparently abandoned the small donors that won him the election last time. I'm not sure whether it is good politics, but it is surely bad for the Democratic Party and it is bad for the United States of America.

6. The Right-Wing Media. The right-wing media is part and parcel of the current Republican party. It has taken the lead in making politics a yearly, year-around form of entertainment. Its goal is to win elections for candidates supporting their right-wing ideology, and to make money for themselves while at it. It substitutes indoctrination for information. They are the marketing arm of the party. They are a threat to democracy, and liberals who don't realize this are fast asleep.

xx. The political parties. Let's be clear about one thing. It's not true that they are the same. They have never been more different. Let's look at them separately.

5. The Republican party. The Republican Party has become something quite new in American history. It sees itself as the instrument of a larger anti-government movement defined by think tanks such as the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation and disseminated by Fox News and right-wing radio. Membership in the Republican Party requires adherence to the details of Republican Party strategy. When Newt Gingrich criticized the Medicare provisions of his party's budget proposal, he was immediately chastised by the right-wing media and pushed to renounce his statements. The party has forced near 100% party unity in congress over the last two years. The Democrats have voted with a high degree of unity, but this is only by crafting bills to appeal to the far right of the Democratic Party (e.g. Obamacare)

The Party functions in a corporate manner with a product being first produced and then marketed. The production and marketing teams are brilliant in terms of their ability to sell the merchandise, but for the consumer, the American conservative, I think the product is poor. It doesn't take the country where the conservative American wants it to go.

A Democrat should be in favor of an active government engaged in ensuring the well-being of the citizens. A Republican should be in favor of a limited government which safeguards private initiative. What we have is a government which stifles both private initiative and effective government action, whether it be Democratic or Republican.

This presidential election period is going to be very interesting. Huntsman and Romney, for different reasons, are not in conformity with the right-wing propaganda machine. It may be that one of them will get the nomination. That would make me feel better about the American citizen.

4. Conservatives. Limited government as an ideological orientation, doesn't concern me. But the right-wing propaganda machine is not committed to effectual government. Only strong government can make the citizen free from government interference. If politics is taken over by profit-based media and funded by powerful big business interests, then government will serve those causes. Our government needs reform. The Republican party can only further true conservative values by becoming a party of true reform.

3. The wealthy class. If big business, per se, is not to blame, I feel quite the opposite about the wealthy class which has been created by big business. The role of big money in our system is insulting and is what, to a large degree, fuels this blog. While there are many exceptions, the general pattern is that our wealthiest citizens are driven by greed. Today, the top 1% of Americans are making close to 25% of total income in the country. You would think they would be thankful and generous, and all they think about is how to squeeze more billions out of the system. Take social security. Some time in the next 50 years, social security is going to need to increase revenue or cut benefits. This problem can be solved either by 1) working class Americans taking a bit less than they've been promised, or by 2) making people at the wealthy end of the scale pay a tiny bit more. To the wealthy, this is unacceptable, which is why you periodically hear talk of some sort of a crisis. The wealthy are maneuvering to avoid helping out those who have worked all their lives in their mines, in their factories, on family farms and in their offices. In the long term, their disregard for the welfare of all will lead to their own downfall.

2. Liberals. Liberals have been sleep-walking since the 60s. No major liberal program has been legislated since the 60s and liberals have stood by while the news has become dominated by forces bent on undoing the liberal pillars of our society. Today, they have little means of getting their message out. It's true that it is hard to be passionate when the liberal you elected president is selling out. Or maybe Obama's wimpishness is just typical of all liberals. (Read Sally Kohn's article entitled: "Liberals Pride Themselves on Being Tolerant. Are They Really Just Suckers."http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/liberals-pride-themselves-on-being-tolerant-are-they-really-just-suckers/2011/04/13/AFhsTZjD_story.html

1. The American citizen. Not many years ago, maybe 20 years ago, (I'm getting old!), I remember thinking that the American citizen was quite remarkable in his ability to sort through all the nonsense of competing claims and to make decisions based on independent deliberation. Today, I am disheartened. I don't see it happening. It is a very difficult time for the American citizen. Where do you get the truth?

But I do have a couple of thoughts. a) The notion that politics is a sport and that you are rooting for one side to win has to be rejected. Its not just about winning. You have to get the facts right in the same way you do for any other major life decision. b) You need to know and trust the morality of the salesman pitching a certain policy. He should be interested in all points of view, not just selling one because it is profitable to him. If the salesman of an idea makes money from pitching that idea, is funded by private interests, if he lives in Washington year-round, if he has made large sums of money in the politics business and if he won't tell you whether any of the above things are true, then you should not be investing in his product.

Sally Kohn on What is Wrong With Our Economy

I just discovered the writing of Sally Kohn, founder of the Liberal think tank: the Movement Vision Lab.

When I went to read one of her articles on line, a picture of a smiling face was presented with the question: "Do you own an oil company?" Why would that make me giggle? (I shouldn't laugh, because it sounded like it was mocking people with modest lifestyles who vote Republican.) Democracy Now a few weeks ago played this activist folk song entitled something like: "God Help Us, the President Is An Oil Man."

As for what is wrong with the economy, you can read Sally Kohn's op-ed piece in USA Today, May 24: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-05-24-Dont-believe-national-debt-hype_n.htm#

A few highlights.

1) 8 million people lost their jobs during the last year of the Bush administration and the first few months of the Obama administration. No substantial progress has been made at putting these people back to work.

2) It is tragically misplaced to even contemplate tax cuts for large American business.

Why? Large American Industry is sitting on record levels of capital, which is not being invested to create jobs. Why? Because the American consumer is broke and is not buying anything. American corporations are using their tax-break money to invest in infrastructure, or just saving it for the time when their customers will start spending again.

Conclusion. Tax cuts need to be directed at the consumer. If the consumer is empowered to spend more, industry will be able to do what they already want to do: expand.

3) It is tragically misplaced to be reducing government spending at this time.

Why? Because cutting government spending directly reduces consumer spending. Not to mention that the government is itself a very important consumer.

4) It is tragically misplaced to be obsessed with the deficit and to see a Democratic president obsessing over the deficit with all these people unemployed.

Why? First of all, the biggest cause of the deficit (other than the Bush tax cuts) is that 8 million people stopped paying taxes three years ago, and started depending on the government programs set up to give them temporary support, thereby causing the government to spend more.

Why? Because our deficit, while a big, long-term problem, is not a major problem in the short-term. Sally Kohn provides some perspective. The American government has a debt-to-income ratio of 1-to-1. That means that what we owe is equal to what we take in during one year. The debt-to-income ratio of IBM is 2-1, Dupont 3-1, Boeing 4-1, Caterpillar 14-1. (I won't mention JP Morgan Chase which is at 50-1, because they are too big to fail.)

CONCLUSIONS:

1) Taxes need to be cut immediately on the American consumer. This is in the interest of American business large and small.

2) Republican economic policy is driven by an ideological obsession, hatred for government, which is counter to the interests of American business.

Another outstanding Sally Kohn article is from April 15, entitled: "Liberals Pride Themselves on Being Tolerant. Are They Really Just Suckers."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/liberals-pride-themselves-on-being-tolerant-are-they-really-just-suckers/2011/04/13/AFhsTZjD_story.html

Of course, I think this is a great article because it seems to say just what I am thinking. In fact, a future blog ruminating in my mind is entitled: "Why Liberals Repeatedly get their Butts Kicked In Debates With Right-Wingers."

Tea Party in Action in Missouri

In April, two University of Missouri professors, Judy Ancel and Don Giljum, were asked to resign in response to a right-wing smear campaign depicting them as liberal radicals and advocates of violence. Giljum, an adjunct professor who had worked for 27 years as business agent for the International Operating Engineers Union, was fired by the union one week before his retirement. The course being taught by the professors was the history of the American labor movement and the specific lesson attacked by the right-wingers was the historical causes of violence in confrontations between labor and management. The truth was that both professors had been very explicit in their condemnation of violence.

This is not an isolated incident. It has become common practice of the radical right-wing to concoct proof for some of their most far-fetched positions. In this case, the slander was directed at the labor movement and was timed to support an attempt in the state legislature to diminish the legal rights of labor, as has already been done in Wisconsin and Ohio. The people involved in concocting the Missouri video were the same people who slandered ACORN, leading to a weird bill about to be passed in Ohio making it difficult for poor people to vote. And remember the video of Shirley Sherrod, temporarily fired by Obama for sounding like a racist? That was made to support the comments of race-baiter Glenn Beck that black people hate America. NPR and Planned Parenthood have also been targeted by these undercover videos.

Here's the story from Missouri. In April, the website BigGovernment.com, run by right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart, posted footage of the labor relations class being taught by Ancel and Giljum. The courses were video-taped by the university so that the two professors could work together with students at the two campuses. On the Big Government video, the professors make a number of statements appearing to back the use of violence in the struggle for labor rights. Judy Ancel of the University of Missouri-Kansas City is presented saying: "Violence is a tactic, and it's to be used when it's appropriate." Don Giljum is quoted saying: "We've had a very violent history, with violent protests in certain instances, strategically played out, and for certain purposes that industrial sabotage doesn't have its place. I think it certainly does."

In fact, the video had been spliced and edited to twist their words. When you watch the videotaped class, you learn that Ancel was actually quoting another person. The following words by Giljum were edited out: "I'm not sure that, as a tactic today, the type of violence or reaction to the violence we had back then would be called for here. I think it would do more harm than good."

The truth has come out, at least enough for the two professors to have their jobs back. But that doesn't mean the right wing won't continue to repeat the same lies. The notion of a university world infested with left-wing activists and allied with an immensely powerful and devious labor world is very important to their ends.

Here are the names of the people involved in this slanderous operation. A student at the St. Louis campus, Philip Christofanelli, was the founder of an organization called Young Americans for Liberty and is affiliated with the Tea Party. It is believed that Christofanelli passed the video on to James O'Keefe, the maker of the undercover videos targeting ACORN, NPR and Planned Parenthood. The spliced and edited video was then posted on BigGovernment.com, the website of Andrew Breitbart, who is currently facing a lawsuit from Shirley Sherrod who he slandered and whose career he ruined.

On April 18, Breitbart had appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, declaring, "We are going to take on education next, go after the teachers and the union organizers." It appears that Ancel and Giljum were the first targets of that attack.

Breitbart's website went so far as to provide contact information for Ancel and Giljum who received a flurry of threatening e-mails. Giljum received at least two death threats over the phone.

From Breitbart's website, the slander was passed on by Right-wing talk show host and co-founder of the the St. Louis Tea Party, Dana Loesch, who drew Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder into helping her exploit the situation. Here is what Kinder says on Loesch's radio program:

KINDER: What would be the reaction from the mainstream media, lame stream media, if we had a Tea Party leader out there-

LOESCH: Oh, right.

KINDER: -advocating violence-

LOESCH: Right.

KINDER: -and preaching violence to impressionable young minds? They sit around matter-of-factly- you can hear this on the two videos that are up on Big Government.com., you can see it-matter of factly discussing violent overthrow of the capitalist order or the existing order, the workers taking to the streets and committing violent acts of industrial sabotage. And the speaker, Don Giljum, is the business agent for the International Operating Engineers Union that works at Ameren UE. This is a matter of grave seriousness."

From the right-wing media, the slander was picked up and repeated by the St. Louis Post and a Columbia, Missouri paper.

Finally, the university is barraged with upset citizens, death threats are directed at the victims of the slander, who find their jobs threatened, and in the case of Giljum, he ends his job of 27 years at his labor union by being fired.

There are some bright spots. The university made a forceful defense of their professors and re-hired them. The students in the class responded very actively, defending their professors, denying the lies and also decrying the fact that they also were being slandered. Also, the slander does not seem to have hit any national media outlet.

For further details, you can click the links below:

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/5/18/andrew_breitbarts_electronic_brownshirts

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/17/getting_wise_to_breitbarts_lies_missouri

Friends and Family: Calmer Version

Friends and Relatives,

I have begun writing a weekly blog. Our nation is facing a serious media crisis, manifested in the fact that centrist political positions, my political positions, are not being heard. The airways are dominated by right-wing rhetoric and their talking points mock the very existence of opposing points of view. It's time for centrists and liberals to talk back. My blog is a humble attempt to do that. I have a good life, but I feel morally obligated to express my deep concern with the present direction of our democracy. Politics is not just entertainment. Politics is not just about winning. Politics is also about what kind of a place the United States will be in 50 years, after I'm gone.

So I expect to just be a lone voice in the wilderness, but I do hope you'll check my blog periodically to tune in to some of the intense anger and discouragement that centrists and liberals are feeling at what's happening to our country. Believe me, we are every bit as upset as the Tea Party, even if we have received no funding to match the millions given to the Tea Party by big oil.

If you want me to e-mail my blog entries to you let me know. That would be very easy to do.

Don

The Truth about the Tea Party

A recent article in the New Yorker, August 30, 2010, by Jane Mayer, entitled: Covert Operations: The Billionaire Brothers who are Waging a War against Obama, documents the pivotal role played in the rise of the Tea Party by the right-wing political organization called Citizens for Prosperity. This organization was created and is funded by two of the world's richest men: Charles and David Koch (pronounced "coke"), owners of the oil-refinery conglomerate: Koch Industries. The combined wealth of the two brothers ranks behind only that of David Gates and Warren Buffet. They were the founders in the 1970s of the right-wing Cato Institute and have funded scores of right-wing causes over the years. Please read the New Yorker article on the Koch Brothers and the Tea Party at: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

The key role played by the immensely wealthy, right-wing Koch brothers finally makes the whole episode of the rise of the Tea Party make sense. It explains how the government deficit created by 10 years of Bush tax cuts and a financial crisis caused by the greed of Wall Street, was blamed on a Democratic administration left to pick up the pieces. It explains how anger at our government's failure to regulate the industry was redirected toward the governments attempt to assist the victims.

From the beginning, the rise of the Tea Party was strange. I understood the anger, I was angry myself. To hell the deficit, we were told, if trillions of federal tax dollars weren't immediately pumped in to the banking system, the entire world would be plunged into another great depression. The American people were quite united about one thing. These banks by all rules of fairness should just be allowed to go out of business and everybody connected to their fraudulent mis-management should be in the street like the greedy speculators who lost everything in 1929. Derivatives, repackaged mortgages, ponzie schemes, junk bonds, things too complicated for the public to understand had led to immense fortunes. These people deserved to pay the price for their failed schemes. But hey, two presidential administrations came forward to say that these banks were too big to fail, so we went along with it.

Fast forward to 2012. How are the Wall Street mega-banks doing? Great. Stock market? All the way back. How about the 8 million people who lost their jobs from 2008-2010? Still unemployed. There has been no recovery for the working class. Employment is exactly where it was in the depths of the crash. (Yes, you hear how we create jobs every month, but it has only been enough to make up for the young people coming in to the labor force.) In Ohio, I read today that 4 out of 10 school children are on the free lunch program due to the financial difficulties of their families. And how about reforming the big banks? At least we can say they were broken up so that this would not happen again, right? But no. They are still there. They never once stopped paying the mega-bonuses, and now they are looking at smaller, more local banks as targets for future mergers.

All this left me mad as hell. Deeply disappointed in both political parties. Feeling powerless at the impotence of democracy in the face of immense wealth. Here again, I think my feelings were shared by the overwhelming majority of the American people.

I first became aware of the Tea Party sometime in 2009. Finally, someone was expressing my anger, I thought. But then it started to get really weird. These people had no concern for the bailout of the wealthy banks. They had no concern for the 8 million people who had lost their jobs through Wall Street greed. No concern that the Wall Street crisis had left us with homes worth half what they were. Indeed, one of their main objects of attack was the stimulus program, a modest, totally inadequate attempt to help the victims.

Today, the Tea Party is pushing the agenda of the Right-Wing propaganda machine the Kochs helped create. The Tea Party claims to be concerned with the deficit. But this is only the means to get at what really drives them. Nobody truly concerned with the deficit, would be talking about cutting taxes by 2.9 trillion dollars. What drives the Tea Party is hatred of government. This means, first of all, hatred of the programs of the New Deal: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and hundreds of lesser programs ensuring children are educated and our people can maintain steady employment. But this also explains the meanness of the Tea Party. The goal of their propaganda is to make you think that our political system is a joke and that all our elected officials are morons. This is why they are completely brazen about lying and repeating lies. Their goal is to make us think that politics is all about lies. Everybody in politics lies, right? When ordinary citizens naively pass on insulting stories about our congressmen, senators and president, they are contributing to the Tea Party agenda (or should I say the the agenda of Charles and David Koch). The right-wing propaganda machine wants to make hatred of government a national sport.

Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

The following is my summary of a report I heard today, May 23, on Democracy Now, a liberal 100% listener-supported news program hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. I get it whenever I can by downloading their podcast at: http://www.democracynow.org/. They can be heard on over 900 stations, but that's not a lot when you consider that they are spread across the United States.

You won't hear this kind of news unless you look for it. The country needs you to start looking for it. If you just sit back and wait, you'll be fed information by those whose interest in politics is to ensure they can become ever more wealthy. The richer people get, the more obsessed they become with wealth.

Massey Energy is a leader in mountaintop removal coal mining in the states of West Virginia, and Kentucky. The process begins with the detonation of an explosion the size of a Hiroshima bomb, which blasts open the top 400 feet of a mountain. This opens up the coal reserves to exploitation. The process is completed by filling the hole back in, as much as possible, and the excess materials, including unwanted toxins, are dumped into the valley below. Originally, they were required to fill the area in with topsoil, but one of the early accomplishments of the George W. Bush administration, was the ruling that they could just fill in the damaged area with the rubble and waste from the mining operation.

You can imagine what this does to the environment. The rivers are polluted and sometimes simply disappear into cracks in the ground caused by the explosion. Entire small towns are purchased ahead of time, and boarded up. Some 500 mountains have been destroyed over the last 10 years. The total acreage destroyed is estimated at 1.4 million acres, the size of Delaware.

Of course, we all know the necessity of this, right. First of all, West-Virginians depend on the good-paying jobs provided by the coal industry. Our national economy depends on the cheap electricity coal provides. As for pollution, we are told how the Environmental Protection Agency has run amuck with its ridiculous and trivial regulations. Unfortunately, this is all propaganda and the true story is an example of how big industry has taken control of our country.

Let's start with the jobs. The mountaintops are being blown off to save labor. With this technique, they can get away with hiring 70% fewer miners. Good-paying jobs for West Virginians? Think again. While the CEO of Massey Energy makes 30 million a year, West Virginia is ranked 49th in the nation in terms of poverty. Massey Energy led the way ten years ago in breaking the United Mineworkers Union and slashing wages. One of the results of this union-busting strategy is that Massey today prefers to hire people from out of state, running ads in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the Atlanta Constitution and in USA Today.

Regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency? Think again. Massey practices a policy of systematic obstruction and disregard for all environmental regulations. They have been cited 60,000 times for violating the Clean Water Act for a total of 1.8 billion dollars in fines. The West Virginia EPA, however, has never collected a penny. The federal EPA agreed that the fines should be reduced to 20 million. This from a company worth 7.1 billion dollars.

And there's the tax base, right? All that mining must be a real boondoggle for the local governments. Think again. The estimated annual tax revenue for blowing up a mountain is $30,000/year. The construction of a wind farm on the same mountaintop would provide 1.5 million annually in tax revenue, and this would continue indefinitely.

Behind this is a story of big money corrupting our political system. It has been estimated that the coal energy has invested a billion and a half dollars over the last 10 years to elect the right politicians and to influence the political process. The CEO of Massey Energy once spent 3 million dollars to ensure the defeat of a judge who had ruled against another coal company. When an appeal from Massey was being heard the same CEO was photographed on vacation on the French Riviera with a second judge hearing the case. And yes, surprise, Massey Energy won the appeal.

With the election in 2010 of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, they also have a senator they can count on to see things their way.

Friends and Relatives. Please start looking for this type of information. Our democracy and our future are in peril.

Does the Republican Budget Plan Really end Medicare?

Word has it that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is going to run an ad stating that the Republican budget plan, known as the Ryan plan, calls for the elimination of Medicare. Here's the scoop:

Ryan's plan calls for replacing Medicare with vouchers for seniors to buy their own insurance. There are a couple of problems with this. First of all, private insurance today costs 11% more than Medicare does. So right from the beginning, seniors are going to have to kick in from their savings. Secondly, it does not account for the rise of health care costs, which are projected to increase, and to increase dramatically if Obamacare is eliminated. The Congressional Budget Office (non-partisan) estimates that by 2030, the voucher will cover only between 35 and 40% of the cost of private health insurance. So after spending your life paying payroll taxes, yuo'll receive a check for 40% of the cost of health insurance. Actually, this will only apply to those who today are under 55. So don't worry about it, right?

Unfortunately, the rest of this bill, isn't any better.

Congressman Ryan proposes reducing deficits by 4 trillion over 12 years.

To do this, Ryan starts in the usual Republican way, by giving away 2.9 trillion to corporations and the wealthy. He reduces the income tax rates for millionaires, eliminates the capital gains tax, and eliminates the tax on estates over a million dollars. There is nothing in there for you.

He's going to finance that with various budget cuts, but he doesn't say how. He only says that spending on everything aside from health and Social Security can be cut in half. I don't know about your state, but in mine teachers, policeman and firemen are being laid-off even as we speak.

Then there are pure fantasies about the wonderful effects of how cutting taxes on the wealthy leads to prosperity for all. Ryan predicts that by 2015, unemployement will be back to the peak level of the 1990s, and by 2021 it will be the best we've had in 50 years! The 8 million who lost their jobs in 2007-2008, will all have their jobs back back plus a couple million more. Never mind that, last I saw, unemployment was still rising. With everybody working, tax revenues will actually go up by almost $600 billion. (Please note that this is the same House of Representatives that fights Global Warming by voting that it doesn't exist. Cut taxes on the wealthy and dreams come true!)

Then there's Medicaid. I guess you can always save money by reducing support for the poor. Ryan's plan is to stop paying for Medicaid directly and, instead, to give block grants to the states. That means that when health care costs go up, that will no longer be his problem. Leave it to the states to decide how to gut social programs.

Two thoughts to conclude:

1) This country can afford to pay for the programs it wants. We are still one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

2) We have 14 million unemployed people. That is the real problem. Put them to work and our deficit issues will be easy to solve. In this, Ryan is right. But giving trillions of dollars to wealthy people is not going to put these people back to work.