Lower Taxes On The Rich Don’t Lead To Job Growth

Wednesday, June 29, 2011 by Think Progress

by Pat Garofalo 

 

WASHINGTON - Congressional Republicans — during both last year’s debate over the pending expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the current negotiations regarding raising the nation’s debt ceiling — refused to consider tax increases on even the very richest Americans. In fact, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) blew up debt ceiling negotiations last week due to his insistence that those making more than $500,000 annually be shielded from any tax increase.

If you ranked each year since 1950 by overall job growth, the top five years would all boast marginal tax rates at 70 percent or higher. The top 10 years would share marginal tax rates at 50 percent or higher. The GOP justification for its position — even with income inequality at its worst level since the 1920s — is that raising taxes on the rich will destroy jobs. “What some are suggesting is that we take this money from people who would invest in our economy and create jobs and give it to the government. The fact is you can’t tax the very people that we expect to invest in the economy and create jobs,” said Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH).

However, history doesn’t back up the GOP’s claim. In fact, as Center for American Progress Director of Tax and Budget Policy Michael Linden found, “in the past 60 years, job growth has actually been greater in years when the top income tax rate was much higher than it is now”:

For instance, in years when the top marginal rate was more than 90 percent, the average annual growth in total payroll employment was 2 percent. In years when the top marginal rate was 35 percent or less — which it is now — employment grew by an average of just 0.4 percent.
And there’s no cherry-picking here. Pick any threshold. When the marginal tax rate was 50 percent or above, annual employment growth averaged 2.3 percent, and when the rate was under 50, growth was half that.

In fact, if you ranked each year since 1950 by overall job growth, the top five years would all boast marginal tax rates at 70 percent or higher. The top 10 years would share marginal tax rates at 50 percent or higher. The two worst years, on the other hand, were 2008 and 2009, when the top marginal tax rate was 35 percent. In the 13 years that the top marginal tax rate has been at its current level or lower, only one year even cracks the top 20 in overall job creation.

 

 

Contrary to Republican claims, lower taxes on the rich don’t lead to higher economic growth either.

Obama: "It's Only Fair" to Ask Rich to Give Up Tax Breaks

(Typically, Obama's method has been challenge the Republicans with a statement that is in line with his base, then compromise on it to the point that it has very little in common with his original statement by the time it is acted upon. So, we'll see if he completely compromises--or sells out--on this issue. I'm not optimistic about it.--jef)

+++++++++++++++++

Wednesday, June 29, 2011 by The Nation

by John Nichols 

 

Rejecting Republican demands for massive cuts in federal programs while maintaining tax breaks for the wealthy as not "sustainable," President Obama used a press conference Wednesday to argue that serious negotiations about balancing the budget and addressing deficits and debt must include plans to end tax breaks for “millionaires and billionaires, oil companies and corporate jet owners."

"Some compromises will be necessary. But any compromises on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will hand the Republicans, the insurance industry and Wall Street the keys to the U.S. Treasury that they have for so-long coveted." 

Making the case that new tax revenue will be needed—in combination with cuts—to achieve even a measure of balance in budgeting, Obama said, "You can't reduce the deficit without having some revenue in the mix. And the revenue we're talking about... is coming out of folks who are doing extraordinarily well."

The president presented an extended and substantial argument that fair taxation of the wealthy is reasonable and needed. Rejecting the notion that there is anything "radical" about demandig that the wealthiest Americans share the sacrifice that is being demanded of working Americans, the president explained: “If you are a wealthy C.E.O. or hedge fund manager in America right now, your taxes are lower than they have ever been. They are lower than they have been since the 1950s. And they can afford it. You can still ride on your corporate jet. You’re just going to have to pay a little more.”

Obama's position with regard to taxing millionaires and billionaires is the proper one—economically and politically. And he deserves credit for stating it as bluntly as he did Wednesday.

He also deserves some credit for detailing the dangers inherent in the Republican proposal to place all of the budget for balancing the budget on the backs of working families at a time when so many are unemployed or underemployed.

At the same time, however, Obama's continued talk of compromising with Republicans should raise concerns.

It is neither good policy nor good politics, for instance, to presume that Republican acceptence of a few tax increases for the wealthy should go hand-in-hand with Democratic acceptence of cuts in entitlement programs.

The president's remarks come in the context of an increasingly intense partisan debate about raising the so-called "debt ceiling." Historically, Congress has approved adjustments in plans for borrowing money based on the expansion of the population and the role of the federal government in economically-demanding times.

This year, Republicans in the House and Senate are holding the process hostage in hopes of forcing the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress to join them in embracing politically-unpopular schemes (outlined by House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan) to steer Medicare and Medicaid money away from patient care and toward for-profit insurance companies that donate generously to GOP campaigns.

Any White House compromise on the Medicare and Medicaid fronts—even in return for GOP acceptance of tax hikes for corporations and the wealthy—would tear the social-safety net and provide a massive new bailout for the insurance industry. Similarly, any compromise on Social Security privatization would be such a boon to Wall Street speculators—another sources of campaign money—that Republicans might accept it.
But such a compromise would be unacceptable for America.

So Obama's strong stance on tax breaks is to be celebrated. It is the right one. But his talk of compromise and negotiation ought to be viewed cautiously. Some compromises will be necessary, but any compromises on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will hand the Republicans, the insurance industry and Wall Street the keys to the U.S. Treasury that they have for so-long coveted.

How Corporations Buy Access to Power

By BooMan, BooMan Tribune
Posted on June 29, 2011

I think you can imagine how a major bank/investment firm like Goldman Sachs can gain access to power. They obviously can make or withhold campaign contributions. They can throw money into political action committees that go after politicians who want to mess with them. They also can offer politicians lucrative six or seven figure jobs should they ever fail to win reelection or want to retire from public service. They can use their pull to get their employees hired by the government.

They can hire their regulators. There are many ways that rich Wall Street bankers can assure that Washington DC will let them do pretty much anything they want to do, even if it's harmful to the country. But, sometimes, they don't need to do anything.

Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) raised hell last year to stop the federal government from investigating Goldman Sachs regarding allegations that the company defrauded investors. In April 2010, shortly after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a civil suit against Goldman Sachs, Issa sent a letter to SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro demanding to know if there was “any sort of prearrangement, coordination, direction from, or advance notice” between the SEC and the Obama administration or congressional Democrats over the timing of the lawsuit.

Issa’s investigation of the SEC’s investigation into Goldman Sachs stole the headlines and reinforced Goldman Sach’s claim that they had done nothing wrong. Explaining his defense of Goldman Sachs, Issa said he was representing the views of ordinary Americans who are worried about the “growth of government and the growth of government wanting to become more complex, with more agencies and more control over our lives.”

However, recent personal finance disclosures reviewed by ThinkProgress paint a different picture of Issa’s motivations. According to documents filed recently with the House Clerk, Issa went on a buying spree of high yield Goldman Sachs bonds at the same time he was running defense for the investment bank in Congress. From February to December of 2010, Issa bought 12 Goldman Sachs High Yield Fund Class A bonds, each worth up to $50,000 (view page 10 the disclosure here). Many of the bonds were purchased in the months after he filed his letter to the SEC. The $600,000 in new Goldman Sachs investments added to Issa’s already multimillion dollar stake in the company, valued from $5.1 to $15.5 million.

I'm not going to harp on Rep. Darrell Issa. He's merely one of the more obvious examples of politicians who use their insider knowledge and power to enrich themselves. Any political system is going to have more than a handful of characters like Darrell Issa. It's human nature.

This problem extends well into the Democratic Party as well (see, for example, Evan Bayh). The problem we have in this country is that, unlike in Greece, the people are not inclined to threaten to string Darrell Issa and his Goldman Sachs benefactors up by the balls. The lack of any credible counter-pressure allows our politicians to rip us off on a daily basis. In fact, people are getting ripped off in Greece despite their more active protestations. This is the way the world is structured.

Money talks, and the rest can usually be safely treated as bullshit. The Supreme Court has been on a rampage over the last two years in solidifying this situation by gutting all efforts to rein in the influence of corporate money on our governments.

At this point, progressivism is under assault and is being weakened steadily. It's enough to discourage almost anyone. But there is a backlash growing. We have to nurture that backlash.

Fukushima: World's Worst Industrial Disaster Reveals How Nation States Are Powerless to Protect Us from Advanced Technology

The nuclear crisis brings key questions about our system of social organization to the fore, and the answers may influence what the world looks like in the future.

By Victor Kotsev, Asia Times

Posted on June 29, 2011

The day after the disastrous level-nine earthquake that triggered the tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear crisis, March 12, an Israeli expert on air quality and poisoning, Professor Menachem Luria, told Israeli Channel 2: "From what we can gather, this disaster is even more dangerous than Chernobyl."

At the time, his was a minority opinion in the scientific community; very few believed that a nuclear accident as bad as the 1986 meltdown in Ukraine would occur again. "I think that's basically impossible," said James Stubbins, an expert at the University of Illinois, and many others agreed.

Yet, as we are now slowly coming to realize, Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl. In a revealing recent feature article published by al-Jazeera, Dahr Jamail conveys the comments of Arnold Gundersen, a senior former nuclear industry executive in the United States.

"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Gundersen asserts. "We have 20 nuclear cores exposed, the fuel pools have several cores each, that is 20 times the potential to be released than Chernobyl ... The data I'm seeing shows that we are finding hot spots further away than we had from Chernobyl, and the amount of radiation in many of them was the amount that caused areas to be declared no-man's-land for Chernobyl. We are seeing square kilometers being found 60 to 70 kilometers away from the reactor. You can't clean all this up." [1]

The Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the operator of the crippled plant, now grudgingly acknowledge that their timeline for bringing the situation under control, by the end of the year, "may be" unrealistic. They also acknowledge that Fukushima has "probably" released more radiation than Chernobyl. Both have come under strong criticism in the past for withholding information and releasing overly optimistic estimates.

Yet even scientists working at the plant apparently have trouble comprehending the severity of the crisis. Last week, they attempted to install a filtration system to decontaminate and recycle the vast amounts of highly radioactive water accumulated as a result of the continuous efforts to cool the reactors. Fukushima is running dangerously low on storage capacities for the used water. However, the system jammed after just five hours of operation.

"The company said that the sprawling system, which is designed to siphon oil, radioactive materials and salt from the water used to cool the reactors, was shut down because of readings that indicated one of the filters had filled up with radioactive cesium," The New York Times writes. "The rapid depletion of a filter that was supposed to have lasted several weeks suggested the presence of far greater radioactive material than anticipated." [2]

According to another New York Times report, the Japanese government was initially in complete disarray over the crisis, issuing contradictory orders and finding itself unable to make use of available resources. Coordination with Tepco, which was in a state of panic itself, faltered. The plant manager likely prevented a greater calamity by disobeying an order to stop using sea water to cool the reactors.

"We found ourselves in a downward spiral, which hurt relations with the United States," a close aide to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan told The New York Times. "We lost credibility with America, and Tepco lost credibility with us." [3]

Reportedly, American pressure for more information and concerted action eventually helped jerk the Japanese authorities from their shock. This narrative carries the seeds of another narrative which most of us would very much like to believe: a story of international cooperation and the coming together of the world's finest technological achievements to combat a natural disaster.

Yet American officials were also caught unprepared. Most continue to deny outright that the radioactive pollution will have a palpable effect on the United States. Recent reports, however, indicate that infant mortality rates in eight major cities in the northwestern United States, where the fallout was greatest, jumped 35% in the four weeks following the accident. This is consistent with the biological effects of radiation. [4]

Previous reports have indicated the presence of radioactive particles in rainwater as far east as Massachusetts, and in milk and other products throughout the country. The American authorities, as indeed most authorities in the world, appear to be in denial. Many important reports continue to be classified, and there is a sense that governments are lying to their people for lack of a better response.

In all likelihood, the scope of the disaster continues to evade us. There is little doubt that "the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind" will force us to learn painful lessons, and that we are only just beginning to grapple with its meaning.

Some of the consequences are fairly mundane, if hard to pinpoint very precisely yet, in that they are economic and technical. The nuclear industry will be doing some major soul-searching, and seems set for a period of decline; numerous countries are already reconsidering their reliance on nuclear plants. The global economy will face reshuffles, as will the global energy market.

It has the potential, however, to go much deeper than that, shaking the very foundations of our sense of collective security. Certainly if some of the worst-case predictions materialize, and a sizeable part of Japan turns into a nuclear desert, we'll face urgent questions about where we are heading as a species; this may happen even in a more optimistic scenario.

It is possible, for example, that people's trust in the state system will be shaken, and on many levels. This is not to say that the predominant current form of political and social organization will disappear, at least in the near future. But it has been under stress for quite some time now, and this disaster seems capable of bringing the existing stresses into public attention; so far they have been mostly confined to academic discourse.

A few leading anthropologists and political theorists have concluded that the current state system (whose origins arguably lie in the distant 1648 when the treaty of Westphalia was signed) is obsolete, and that it is incapable of adjusting to the ever more fluid borders and rapid rates of communication that come with globalization. Their argument is that new types of organizations, some criminal while others representing legitimate economic, political, and other interests, will rise up to challenge the national state; we have started to see some of this in the proliferation of multinational corporations, international political organizations, and international crime networks of the last decades.

But while these former developments draw on the positive aspects of globalization - the availability of new resources to which new types of structures are better adapted - there is also a darker side. It is visible in Fukushima. The new possibilities have led to the manufacture of technology that is too powerful to control; its effects cannot be confined to national borders - and what better example than Japan of the fact that, to paraphrase John Donne, no society is an island nowadays.

Add to this that increased global interdependence comes with increased global vulnerability to crises in distant parts of the world, and we have a situation where our sense of security is not guaranteed any more.

The concept of the state, in a sense, offers a counter-balance to all these powerful and often blind forces, a regulatory mechanism that we like to believe works well and in the public interest.

This is part of why the scale of the Fukushima disaster is so hard to grasp, both for experts and for lay people. In the face of the increased vulnerability of modern societies, we desperately need something that gives us a sense of security. What better safeguards than progress, technology, and order, exemplified by the spectacular ability of nation states, separately and in concert, to mobilize unprecedented resources to achieve an urgent goal? And where a more safe expectation for all these forces to produce the desired effect than in Japan, one of the top industrialized world economies and a paradigm of social cohesion and discipline?

In many ways, Fukushima is the perfect paradigm for the failure of our source of security at its finest. The confusion and panic of the government and industry officials in the wake of the disaster should humble us all. So should our face to face encounter with our limitations, and the contrast with how we like to imagine ourselves.

In some of our most popular science-fiction narratives, the best astronauts of the leading world powers destroy asteroids that threaten the Earth with nuclear weapons (Armageddon grossed over half a billion dollars, attesting to our eagerness to consume the images; suffice it to mention that early on in the Fukushima crisis, some observers suggested nuking the reactors). [5] Yet in reality, we can't deal with a sizeable pile of radioactive waste, even long after the chain reaction has stopped.

Gundersen's conclusions speak loudly: "Somehow, robotically, they will have to go in there and manage to put it in a container and store it for infinity, and that technology doesn't exist. Nobody knows how to pick up the molten core from the floor, there is no solution available now for picking that up from the floor."

So do those of Dr Sawada, another scientist interviewed by Dahr Jamail: "Until we know how to safely dispose of the radioactive materials generated by nuclear plants, we should postpone these activities so as not to cause further harm to future generations."

Fukushima is worse than what we are being told. There is no doubt about that. How bad exactly it is may not become clear for years. Debates about its meaning are likely to stretch much longer. The crisis brings some fundamental questions about our system of social organization to the fore, and the answers may influence what the world looks like in the future.

As Fukushima Spews, Los Alamos Burns and Vermont Rages ...

We've Almost Lost Nebraska
By HARVEY WASSERMAN

Humankind is now threatened by the simultaneous implosion, explosion, incineration, courtroom contempt and drowning of its most lethal industry.

We know only two things for certain: worse is yet to come, and those in charge are lying about it---at least to the extent of what they actually know, which is nowhere near enough.

Indeed, the assurances from the nuke power industry continue to flow like the floodwaters now swamping the Missouri Valley heartland.

But major breakthroughs have come from a Pennsylvania Senator and New York's Governor on issues of evacuation and shut-down. And a public campaign for an end to loan guarantees could put an end to the US industry once and for all.

FUKUSHIMA: The bad news continues to bleed from Japan with no end in sight. The "light at the end of the tunnel" is an out-of-control radioactive freight train, headed to the core of an endangered planet.

Widespread internal radioactive contamination among Japanese citizens around Fukushima has now been confirmed. Two whales caught some 650 kilometers from the melting reactors have shown intense radiation.

Plutonium, the deadliest substance known to our species, has been found dangerously far from the site.

Tokyo Electric and the Japanese government have admitted to three 100% meltdowns but can't confirm with any reliability the current state of those cores. There's reason to believe one or more have progressed to "melt-throughs" in which they burn through the thick stainless steel pressure vessel and onto the containment floor.

The molten cores may be covered with water. But whether they can melt further through the containments and into the ground remains unclear.

Possibilities may include a "China Syndrome" scenario in which one or more still-molten cores does melt through the containment and hits ground water. That could lead to a steam explosion that could blow still larger clouds of radioactive steam, water and debris into the atmosphere and ocean.

At least three explosions have occurred, one of which may have involved criticality.

There is no doubt at least two containments were breached very early in the disaster. Unit Four is cracked and sinking. The status of its used radioactive fuel pool, which has clearly caught fire, is uncertain. Also unclear is the ability of the owners to sustain the stability of Units Five and Six, which were shut when the quake/tsunami hit.

That stability depends on continued power to run cooling systems, which could disappear amidst seismic aftershocks many believe are inevitable. A very substantial quake hit after the tremors that led to Indonesia's devastating tsunami, and few doubt it could happen again---soon---at Fukushima.

All the above is dependent on reports controlled primarily by Tokyo Electric and the Japanese government. There is every reason to believe the situation is worse than it seems, and that those in charge don't really know the full of the extent of the damage or how to cope with it.

Just five years ago a quake shut seven reactors at Kashiwazaki. The entire nation of Japan sits on a wide range of fault lines. Tsunami is a Japanese word

Radiation from Fukushima has long since been detected throughout the northern hemisphere, with health effects that will be debated forever.

Some fifty reactors still operate in Japan. According to some, the Japanese public has the legal right to shut them all.

Let us pray they do. Yesterday.

LOS ALAMOS: A massive wildfire has swept at least to the outskirts of the national laboratory that was at the core of the program that built the Atomic Bomb.

The first explosion irradiated a nearby valley on July 16, 1945. Then came the two that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There are significant quantities of stored radioactive material in and around Los Alamos. How much there is, where it is, how badly it is threatened, how much (if any) has already been engulfed in flames remains to be seen. Evacuations are underway.

Official reassurances are not reliable.

Nor are estimates of the potential for radioactive fallout to spread throughout North America and beyond.

VERMONT YANKEE: Entergy, owner of the one reactor in Vermont, has sued to shred a solemn public contract.

The one thing certain here is the company's contempt for the sanctity of its own word.

Years ago Entergy sought official permits at VY. It promised in return that the state could choose to shut the reactor on March 21, 2012, which it's now done.

In recent years VY has spewed tritium into groundwater and the Connecticut River, in some cases from underground pipes whose existence the company denied. A cooling tower has collapsed.

But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended the reactor's license and asked the federal Justice Department to intervene on behalf of the utility.

The request trashes any credibility retained by the NRC. The Commission was established in the mid 1970s to be a disinterested party on which the public could rely. For it to now take a partisan stand on behalf of a reactor owner it's bound to regulate thoroughly contaminates the core of its existence.

Entergy has sued so it can buy some $65 million in radioactive fuel the people of Vermont do not want burned on their land.

This will go to the US Supreme Court, where the future legal sanctity of any and all public contracts signed by any corporation, nuclear or otherwise, may be determined.

NEBRASKA: The flooding Missouri River continues to threaten at least two heartland reactors.

Late reports indicate Cooper may still be running, with public assurances it could be shut very quickly. What might happen if the operators are a little bit late has not been explained.

Nor is there much to go on about the impacts of flooded cores and fuel cooling ponds on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers or the eco-systems along the way to a Gulf of Mexico still reeling from BP's toxic dose.

But an almost surreal set of circumstances surrounds the true nature of design specifications and protections in place (or not) at Ft. Calhoun.

They may be best summarized by what happened to a "flood berm" meant to protect Ft. Calhoun. This huge rubberized water-filled sausage was sixteen feet at the base and eight feet high.

But CNN has quoted a company representative as saying a some sort of equipment "came in contact" with the berm and punctured it.

Not to worry: the "same level of protection is in place" as had been prior to the installation of the berm.

In other words, the device was installed to protect the reactor. Then somebody punctured it. But things are as they were before so they must not have needed that berm in the first place. Got it?

It's as yet unclear whether flood waters will continue to rise at these two reactors, whether the operators can protect them, and what will happen if they can't.

The corporate media is carrying virtually zero coverage of any of the above stories. All are subject to rapid, dangerous changes about which we may have little reliable information.

But we do know for sure that US Senator Robert Casey, Jr. (D-PA) now wants to see more deeply into one of the key holes in the nuclear façade: evacuation.

After Three Mile Island's 1979 partial melt-down, new federal legislation allegedly gave states more power over how to get people out of the path of a melting nuke.

But after an as-yet unopened Perry reactor was damaged by a 1986 earthquake, Ohio's then-Governor Richard Celeste sued to keep Perry shut pending a state evacuation study.

The NRC refused and won in federal court. Perry opened. Ohio's official study then said evacuation was virtually impossible.

A quarter-century later, Casey wants to see what it might now take to move downwinders out of harm's way from a TMI, Perry, Chernobyl, Fukushima, Vermont Yankee, Cooper, Ft. Calhoun…..you name it.

Casey's being joined by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose demands for the shut-down of Indian Point, 35 miles north of Manhattan, have left its owners "shaken."

Cuomo and Casey might do well to join governors of states like Vermont, Massachusetts, California and others in testing the law on evacuation planning. Populations have vastly increased at virtually all US reactor sites since TMI. And the ugly realities that define the so-called "Peaceful Atom" are still making themselves all too apparent.

Whether the US will now turn with Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Israel and others away from atomic power and toward a green-powered Earth is up to us. The Solartopian technologies of wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, ocean thermal, bio-fuels, increased efficiency and conservation are now demonstrably cheaper, safer, cleaner, more reliable, more job-producing and quicker to install than anything atomic energy can promise.

A $36 billion loan guarantee give-away still mars the proposed 2012 federal budget. Constant pressure on Congress and the White House can kill that, and any other proposed funding for still more of these nightmares.

The stream of reactor disasters spewing from this dying industry is certain to escalate. The toll rises with each leak at Fukushima, every flame at Los Alamos, each legal brief at Vermont Yankee, every foot of Nebraska floodwater.

The need to stop the madness grows more desperate every day.

A World Overwhelmed by Western Hypocrisy

In America, Lawlessness is Now Complete
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Western institutions have become caricatures of hypocrisy.

The International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank are violating their charters in order to bail out French, German, and Dutch private banks. The IMF is only empowered to make balance of payments loans, but is lending to the Greek government for prohibited budgetary reasons in order that the Greek government can pay the banks. The ECB is prohibited from bailing out member country governments, but is doing so anyway in order that the banks can be paid. The German parliament approved the bailout, which violates provisions of the European Treaty and Germany’s own Basic Law. The case is in the German Constitutional Court, a fact unreported in the US media.

US president George W. Bush’s designated lawyer ruled that the president has “unitary powers” that elevate him above statutory US law, treaties, and international law. According to this lawyer’s legal decisions, the “unitary executive” can violate with impunity the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which prevents spying on Americans without warrants obtained from the FISA Court. Bush’s man also ruled that Bush could violate with impunity the statutory US laws against torture as well as the Geneva Conventions. In other words, the fictional “unitary powers” make the president into a Caesar.

Constitutional protections, such as habeas corpus, which prohibit government from holding people indefinitely without presenting charges and evidence to a court, and which prohibit government from denying detained people due process of law and access to an attorney, were thrown out the window by the US Department of Justice, and the federal courts went along with most of it.

As did Congress, “the people’s representatives”. Congress even enacted the Military Tribunals Commissions Act of 2006, signed by the White House Brownshirt on October 17.

This act allows anyone alleged to be an “unlawful enemy combatant” to be sentenced to death on the basis of secret and hearsay evidence not presented in the kangaroo military court placed out of reach of US federal courts. The crazed nazis in Congress who supported this total destruction of Anglo-American law masqueraded as “patriots in the war against terrorism.”

The act designates anyone accused by the US, without evidence being presented, as being part of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, or “associated forces” to be an “unlawful enemy combatant,” which strips the person of the protection of law.

The Taliban consists of indigenous Afghan peoples, who, prior to the US military intervention, were fighting to unify the country. The Taliban are Islamist, and the US government fears another Islamist government, like the one in Iran that was blowback from US intervention in Iran’s internal affairs. The “freedom and democracy” Americans overthrew an elected Iranian leader and imposed a tyrant. American-Iranian relations have never recovered from the tyranny that Washington imposed on Iranians.

Washington is opposed to any government whose leaders cannot be purchased to perform as Washington’s puppets. This is why George W. Bush’s regime invaded Afghanistan, why Washington overthrew Saddam Hussein, and why Washington wants to overthrow Libya, Syria, and Iran.

Barack Obama inherited the Afghan war, which has lasted longer than World War II with no victory in sight. Instead of keeping with his election promises and ending the fruitless war, Obama intensified it with a “surge,”

The war is now ten years old, and the Taliban control more of the country than does the US and its NATO puppets. Frustrated by their failure, the Americans and their NATO puppets increasingly murder women, children, village elders, Afghan police, and aid workers.

A video taken by a US helicopter gunship, leaked to Wikileaks and released, shows American forces, as if they were playing video games, slaughtering civilians, including camera men for a prominent news service, as they are walking down a peaceful street. A father with small children, who stopped to help the dying victims of American soldiers’ fun and games, was also blown away, as were his children. The American voices on the video blame the children’s demise on the father for bringing kids into a “war zone.” It was no war zone, just a quiet city street with civilians walking along.

The video documents American crimes against humanity as powerfully as any evidence used against the Nazis in the aftermath of World War II at the Nuremberg Trials.

Perhaps the height of lawlessness was attained when the Obama regime announced that it had a list of American citizens who would be assassinated without due process of law.

One would think that if law any longer had any meaning in Western civilization, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, indeed, the entire Bush/Cheney regime, as well as Tony Blair and Bush’s other co-conspirators, would be standing before the International Criminal Court.

Yet it is Gadaffi for whom the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants. Western powers are using the International Criminal Court, which is supposed to serve justice, for self-interested reasons that are unjust.

What is Gadaffi’s crime? His crime is that he is attempting to prevent Libya from being overthrown by a US-supported, and perhaps organized, armed uprising in Eastern Libya that is being used to evict China from its oil investments in Eastern Libya.

Libya is the first armed revolt in the so-called “Arab Spring.” Reports have made it clear that there is nothing “democratic” about the revolt.

The West managed to push a “no-fly” resolution through its puppet organization, the United Nations. The resolution was limited to neutralizing Gadaffi’s air force. However, Washington, and its French puppet, Sarkozy, quickly made an “expansive interpretation” of the UN resolution and turned it into authorization to become directly involved in the war.

Gadaffi has resisted the armed rebellion against the state of Libya, which is the normal response of a government to rebellion. The US would respond the same as would the UK and France. But by trying to prevent the overthrow of his country and his country from becoming another American puppet state, Gadaffi has been indicted. The International Criminal Court knows that it cannot indict the real perpetrators of crimes against humanity--Bush, Blair, Obama, and Sarkozy--but the court needs cases and accepts the victims that the West succeeds in demonizing.

In our times, everyone who resists or even criticizes the US is a criminal. For example, Washington considers Julian Assange and Bradley Manning to be criminals, because they made information available that exposed crimes committed by the US government. Anyone who even disagrees with Washington, is considered to be a “threat,” and Obama can have such “threats” assassinated or arrested as a “terrorist suspect” or as someone “providing aid and comfort to terrorists.” American conservatives and liberals, who once supported the US Constitution, are all in favor of shredding the Constitution in the interest of being “safe from terrorists.” They even accept such intrusions as porno-scans and sexual groping in order to be “safe” on air flights.

The collapse of law is across the board. The Supreme Court decided that it is “free speech” for America to be ruled by corporations, not by law and certainly not by the people. On June 27, the US Supreme Court advanced the fascist state that the “conservative” court is creating with the ruling that Arizona cannot publicly fund election candidates in order to level the playing field currently unbalanced by corporate money. The “conservative” US Supreme Court considers public funding of candidates to be unconstitutional, but not the “free speech” funding by business interests who purchase the government in order to rule the country. The US Supreme Court has become a corporate functionary and legitimizes rule by corporations. Mussolini called this rule, imposed on Americans by the US Supreme Court, fascism.

The Supreme Court also ruled on June 27 that California violated the US Constitution by banning the sale of violent video games to kids, despite evidence that the violent games trained the young to violent behavior. It is fine with the Supreme Court for soldiers, whose lives are on the line, to be prohibited under penalty of law from drinking beer before they are 21, but the idiot Court supports inculcating kids to be murderers, as long as it is in the interest of corporate profits, in the name of “free speech.”

Amazing, isn’t it, that a court so concerned with ‘free speech” has not protected American war protesters from unconstitutional searches and arrests, or protected protesters from being attacked by police or herded into fenced-in areas distant from the object of protest.

As the second decade of the 21st century opens, those who oppose US hegemony and the evil that emanates from Washington risk being declared to be “terrorists.” If they are American citizens, they can be assassinated. If they are foreign leaders, their country can be invaded. When captured, they can be executed, like Saddam Hussein, or sent off to the ICC, like the hapless Serbs, who tried to defend their country from being dismantled by the Americans.

And the American sheeple think that they have “freedom and democracy.”

Washington relies on fear to cover up its crimes. A majority of Americans now fear and hate Muslims, peoples about whom Americans know nothing but the racist propaganda which encourages Americans to believe that Muslims are hiding under their beds in order to murder them in their sleep.

The neoconservatives, of course, are the purveyors of fear. The more fearful the sheeple, the more they seek safety in the neocon police state and the more they overlook Washington’s crimes of aggression against Muslims.

Safety uber alles. That has become the motto of a once free and independent American people, who once were admired but today are despised.

In America lawlessness is now complete. Women can have abortions, but if they have stillbirths, they are arrested for murder.

Americans are such a terrified and abused people that a 95-year old woman dying from leukemia traveling to a last reunion with family members was forced to remove her adult diaper in order to clear airport security. Only a population totally cowed would permit such abuses of human dignity.

In a June 27 interview on National Public Radio, Ban Ki-moon, Washington’s South Korean puppet installed as the Secretary General of the United Nations, was unable to answer why the UN and the US tolerate the slaughter of unarmed civilians in Bahrain, but support the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Gadaffi for defending Libya against armed rebellion. Gadaffi has killed far fewer people than the US, UK, or the Saudis in Bahrain. Indeed, NATO and the Americans have killed more Libyans than has Gadaffi. The difference is that the US has a naval base in Bahrain, but not in Libya.

There is nothing left of the American character. Only a people who have lost their soul could tolerate the evil that emanates from Washington.

The Rich are Different

They Make More Money ... And Lemonade
By MICHAEL WINSHIP

Washington, DC, is a Potemkin village of alabaster and marble where the perpetually stalled and broken escalators of the city's subway system are a perfect metaphor for the government's inability to generate positive, upward movement. Yet with all the calumnies that are committed on an hourly basis behind the facade of our nation's capitol, what had local media there outraged a few days ago? Lemonade.

Seems a TV news cameraman caught a county inspector in an affluent Washington suburb trying to shut down a kid's lemonade stand just outside the Congressional Country Club during the recent US Open. And if that wasn't bad enough, he slapped the enterprising tikes -- who were raising money to fight pediatric cancer -- with a $500 fine.

As the June 18 Washington Post reported, for a while it seemed "the all-American rite of passage might instead become a master class in government overreach," yet public anger was so immediate and vociferous the fine was quickly revoked and the youngsters permitted to reopen down a side street a few yards away.

But these weren't your garden variety, neighborhood moppets, selling drinks from Mom's Tupperware pitcher on a card table near the sidewalk. For one thing, according to the Post, "There was a tent for shade, five plastic coolers, and a couple of industrial steel ones packed with ice and cans of Coke and Diet Coke. For the fundraiser, the kids' parents had also secured cases of bottled lemonade wholesale..."

For another, among those helping out and defending their boys and girls were the former head of Lockheed Martin and the Red Cross and members of the Marriott family. "When something's right you stand up for your beliefs," Carrie Marriott, wife of the hotel heir, said. "That's what America's about. It's about free enterprise. It's about taking an idea, making it happen, and making it successful."

Coincidentally, the very next day, the Post reported that total compensation was up an average of more than 20 percent last year for the Washington area's highest paid executives. Among them, Ms. Marriott's father-in-law, J. Willard Marriott, Jr., who in 2010 earned nearly $10 million. The report was part of the newspaper's investigation of so-called "breakaway wealth" among the nation's richest.

"The evolution of executive grandeur -- from very comfortable to jet setting -- reflects one of the primary reasons that the gap between those with the highest incomes and everyone else is widening," according to the Post. "For years, statistics have depicted growing income disparity in the United States, and it has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. In 2008, the last year for which data are available, for example, the top 0.1 percent of earners took in more than 10 percent of the personal income in the United States, including capital gains, and the top 1 percent took in more than 20 percent...

"Other recent research, moreover, indicates that executive compensation at the nation's largest firms has roughly quadrupled in real terms since the 1970s, even as pay for 90 percent of America has stalled."

The reasons? "Defenders of executive pay argue, among other things, that the rising compensation is deserved because firms are larger today. Moreover, this group says, more packages today are based on stock and options, which pay more when the chief executive is successful.

"Critics, on other hand, argue that executive salaries have jumped because corporate boards were simply too generous, or more broadly, because greed became more socially acceptable."

The enormity of this increase in executive compensation is reinforced by a new study that examines the proxy statements and financial filings of the companies that make up the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Issued by the independent research firm R.G. Associates and titled "S. & P. 500 Executive Pay: Bigger Than... Whatever You Think It is," the report finds that among the 483 companies they were able to analyze, the pay of 2591 executives was up 13.9 percent in 2010. Total, before taxes: $14.3 billion, almost equal to the GDP of Tajikistan, population: more than seven million.

At 158 of the companies, more was paid to those in charge than was shelled out for outside audit fees. And 32 of them paid more in top salaries than they paid in corporate income taxes.

As it turns out, this is not a uniquely American phenomenon. Despite the ongoing, international financial malaise, the British newspaper The Guardian notes that, "The globe's richest have now recouped the losses they suffered after the 2008 banking crisis. They are richer than ever, and there are more of them -- nearly 11 million -- than before the recession struck."

The annual wealth report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini finds that the assets of these so-called "high net worth individuals" reached $42.7 trillion in 2010, a rise of nearly ten percent from the previous year at a time when, as The Guardian observed, "austerity budgets were implemented by many governments in the developed world."

More than half of the world's richest live in Japan, Germany and here in the United States. The annual "Executive Excess" survey from the progressive Institute for Policy Studies last September found that back in the seventies, only a handful of top American executives earned more than thirty times what their workers made. In 2009, "CEO's of major US corporations averaged 263 times the average compensation of American workers." And a USA Today analysis earlier this year found that while median CEO pay jumped 27% last year, workers in private industry saw their salaries grow by just 2.1%.

So how are many of those corporations addressing this gross inequity? By trying to cover it up.

Last year's Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation requires publicly traded companies to report the median of annual total compensation for workers, the total compensation of the CEO, and the ratio between the two. Big business has lobbied loudly against the reporting requirement, and on Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee voted 33-21 to repeal it.

The bill to repeal is sponsored by rookie Congresswoman Nan Hayworth (R-NY), whose official biography cites "reducing regulatory burdens on businesses" as one of her top priorities. Among her leading 2010 campaign contributors: leveraged buyout specialists Vestar Capital Partners, distressed debt investors Elliott Management and financial services giant Credit Suisse. Not to mention the anti-taxation Club for Growth.

Ernest Hemingway claimed that when F. Scott Fitzgerald once said to him, "The rich are different from you and me," he archly replied, "Yes, they have more money." Whether it's true or not, the Hemingway in the story got it wrong. The rich not only have more money, they have more power, more clout -- and more to hide.

Is America Coming to Its Senses?

The Ebbing of War Fever
By ANDREW BACEVICH

At periodic intervals, the American body politic has shown a marked susceptibility to messianic fevers. Whenever an especially acute attack occurs, a sort of delirium ensues, manifesting itself in delusions of grandeur and demented behavior. 

By the time the condition passes and a semblance of health is restored, recollection of what occurred during the illness tends to be hazy. What happened? How'd we get here? Most Americans prefer not to know. No sense dwelling on what's behind us. Feeling much better now! Thanks!

Gripped by such a fever in 1898, Americans evinced an irrepressible impulse to liberate oppressed Cubans. By the time they'd returned to their senses, having acquired various parcels of real estate between Puerto Rico and the Philippines, no one could quite explain what had happened or why. (The Cubans meanwhile had merely exchanged one set of overseers for another.)

In 1917, the fever suddenly returned. Amid wild ravings about waging a war to end war, Americans lurched off to France. This time the affliction passed quickly, although the course of treatment proved painful: confinement to the charnel house of the Western Front, followed by bitter medicine administered at Versailles.

The 1960s brought another bout (and so yet more disappointment). An overwhelming urge to pay any price, bear any burden landed Americans in Vietnam. The fall of Saigon in 1975 seemed, for a brief interval, to inoculate the body politic against any further recurrence. Yet the salutary effects of this "Vietnam syndrome" proved fleeting. By the time the Cold War ended, Americans were running another temperature, their self-regard reaching impressive new heights. Out of Washington came all sorts of embarrassing gibberish about permanent global supremacy and history's purpose finding fulfillment in the American way of life.

Give Me Fever

Then came 9/11 and the fever simply soared off the charts. The messiah-nation was really pissed and was going to fix things once and for all.

Nearly 10 years have passed since Washington set out to redeem the Greater Middle East. The crusades have not gone especially well. In fact, in the pursuit of its saving mission, the American messiah has pretty much worn itself out.

Today, the post-9/11 fever finally shows signs of abating. The evidence is partial and preliminary. The sickness has by no means passed. Oddly, it lingers most strongly in the Obama White House, of all places, where a keenness to express American ideals by dropping bombs seems strangely undiminished.

Yet despite the urges of some in the Obama administration, after nearly a decade of self-destructive flailing about, American recovery has become a distinct possibility. Here's some of the evidence:

In Washington, it's no longer considered a sin to question American omnipotence. Take the case of Robert Gates. Along with restoring a modicum of competence and accountability to the Pentagon, the Gates legacy is likely to be found in his willingness -- however belated -- to acknowledge the limits of American power.

That the United States should avoid wars except when absolutely necessary no longer connotes incipient isolationism. It is once again a sign of common sense, with Gates a leading promoter. Modesty is becoming respectable.

The Gates Doctrine

No one can charge Gates with being an isolationist or a national security wimp. Neither is he a "declinist." So when he says anyone proposing another major land war in the Greater Middle East should "have his head examined" -- citing the authority of Douglas MacArthur, no less -- people take notice. Or more recently there was this: "I've got a military that's exhausted," Gates remarked, in one of those statements of the obvious too seldom heard from on high. "Let's just finish the wars we're in and keep focused on that instead of signing up for other wars of choice." Someone should etch that into the outer walls of the Pentagon's E-ring.

A half-dozen years ago, "wars of choice" were all the rage in Washington. No more. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Or consider the officer corps. There is no "military mind," but there are plenty of minds in the military and some numbers of them are changing.

Evidence suggests that the officer corps itself is rethinking the role of military power. Consider, for example, "Mr. Y," author of A National Strategic Narrative, published this spring to considerable acclaim by the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. The actual authors of this report are two military professionals, one a navy captain, the other a Marine colonel.

What you won't find in this document are jingoism, braggadocio, chest-thumping, and calls for a bigger military budget. If there's an overarching theme, it's pragmatism. Rather than the United States imposing its will on the world, the authors want more attention paid to the investment needed to rebuild at home.

The world is too big and complicated for any one nation to call the shots, they insist. The effort to do so is self-defeating. "As Americans," Mr. Y writes, "we needn't seek the world's friendship or proselytize the virtues of our society. Neither do we seek to bully, intimidate, cajole, or persuade others to accept our unique values or to share our national objectives. Rather, we will let others draw their own conclusions based upon our actions… We will pursue our national interests and let others pursue theirs..."

You might dismiss this as the idiosyncratic musing of two officers who have spent too much time having their brains baked in the Iraqi or Afghan sun. I don't. What convinces me otherwise is the positive email traffic that my own musings about the misuse and abuse of American power elicit weekly from serving officers. It's no scientific sample, but the captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels I hear from broadly agree with Mr. Y. They've had a bellyful of twenty-first-century American war and are open to a real debate over how to overhaul the nation's basic approach to national security.

Intelligence Where You Least Expect It

And finally, by gum, there is the United States Congress. Just when that body appeared to have entered a permanent vegetative state, a flickering of intelligent life has made its reappearance. Perhaps more remarkably still, the signs are evident on both sides of the aisle as Democrats and Republicans alike -- albeit for different reasons -- are raising serious questions about the nation's propensity for multiple, open-ended wars.

Some members cite concerns for the Constitution and the abuse of executive power. Others worry about the price tag. With Osama bin Laden out of the picture, still others insist that it's time to rethink strategic priorities. No doubt partisan calculation or personal ambition figures alongside matters of principle. They are, after all, politicians.

Given what polls indicate is a growing public unhappiness over the Afghan War, speaking out against that war these days doesn't exactly require political courage. Still, the possibility of our legislators reasserting a role in deciding whether or not a war actually serves the national interest -- rather than simply rubberstamping appropriations and slinking away -- now presents itself. God bless the United States Congress.

Granted, the case presented here falls well short of being conclusive. To judge by his announcement of a barely-more-than-symbolic troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Obama himself seems uncertain of where he stands. And clogging the corridors of power or the think tanks and lobbying arenas that surround them are plenty of folks still hankering to have a go at Syria or Iran.

At the first signs of self-restraint, you can always count on the likes of Senator John McCain or the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal to decry (in McCain's words) an "isolationist-withdrawal-lack-of-knowledge-of-history attitude" hell-bent on pulling up the drawbridge and having Americans turn their backs on the world. In such quarters, fever is a permanent condition and it's always 104 and rising. Yet it is a measure of just how quickly things are changing that McCain himself, once deemed a source of straight talk, now comes across as a mere crank.

In this way, nearly a decade after our most recent descent into madness, does the possibility of recovery finally beckon.

When Sports Loses Its Soul

A League of Fans
By RALPH NADER

Why do many serious readers of newspapers go first to the Sports section? Maybe because they want to read about teams playing fun games by sports journalists and columnists, who have more freedom to use imaginative words and phrases than others in their craft.

The trouble is that ever-more organized and commercialized sports are squeezing the fun out of the games. I'm not just referring to struggles between multimillionaire players against billionaire owners--as in the current NFL lockout and the looming NBA imbroglio. I am referring to what our League of Fans Sports Policy Director, Ken Reed, calls the "win-at-all-costs (WAAC) and profit-at-all-costs (PAAC) mentalities, policies and decisions that are resulting in a variety of abuses from the pros all the way to Little League." When WAAC and PAAC run amok--and what's best for the players, the fans and the game are shoved aside--"sport begins to lose its soul."

In his first of ten "League of Fans" reports, Reed makes the case against this "soul sickness" in a 27 page Sports Manifesto (www.leagueoffans.org). The range of endemic and often worsening problems is startling for how often they have been exposed without anything significantly being done about them.

Here is a list of Reed's choices for civic action:

• Academic corruption in college and high school athletic programs.

• Rampant commercialization from the pros to our little leagues.

• Publicly-financed stadiums for wealthy owners.

• The perversity of forcing loyal fans to purchase personal seat licenses (PSLs) in pro and college football just to have the right to buy season tickets.

• The sports cartel in Division I football known as the Bowl Championship Series (BCS)--which limits revenues and opportunities (e.g., a legitimate chance at a national championship) for the conferences and schools left on the outside.

• Work stoppages in the professional sports leagues in which fans have no voice.

• Exorbitant ticket and concession prices at taxpayer-funded stadiums (where most, if not all, ticket, concession, merchandise and parking revenues typically go to the franchise owners). In addition, there are also television blackouts from these taxpayer-financed stadiums.

• A focus on elite athletic teams in high schools and middle schools at the expense of diminishing intramural programs and physical education classes for all students.

• The practice of requiring college athletes to pay their own medical bills, even though they were injured while playing for their university.

• Disparities in opportunities for females, disabled individuals, and people of color despite Title IX and other civil rights advances.

• The proliferation of youth club sports organizations that have a financial vs. an educational mission.

• The specialization and professionalization of young athletes at earlier and earlier ages.

• The increasing use of performance-enhancing drugs at all ages, by both males and females.

• The erosion of the core ideals, values and ethics of sports, resulting in escalating incidents of poor sportsmanship.

• An increase in sports injuries, most alarmingly concussions.

• A shocking increase in obesity, accompanied by a decline in physical fitness--especially among our youth.

• Dehumanizing coaches at all levels, most disturbingly, at the youth level.

As a college varsity player, a coach, marketer, teacher and author, Reed is in touch with many worried and upset sports lovers. They include parents, current and retired players, leading analysts, academics, educators, physicians, reporters and civil rights advocates. League of Fans, which I started, wants to build a strong and growing reform movement not just to curb the "excesses of the monied interests," to use a Jeffersonian phrase, but to open up opportunities for more participatory sports right down to the neighborhood levels. We have too few players and too many spectators--a reality that sports journalism should pay more attention to regularly.

There is a problem afflicting sports journalism and its comparatively immense space and time devoted to professional sports. It goes beyond a largely indifferent attitude toward this imbalance between spectators and participatory sports. Even though the concerns of many sports-lovers are based on the occasional investigatory reports or columns documenting abuses, when people acting as citizens try to do something about them, their efforts receive little, if any media coverage.

So what's the point to these exposes other than to make readers and viewers angry, cynical or frustrated, if when the readers use this information to follow up and sound the alarm to do something, the sports media looks the other way and gives the space to some athlete who is pouting or showing up late for practice?

Sports journalism has to introspect a little about a larger view of newsworthiness. Otherwise they continue to uncritically cover the big league sports business that, with few exceptions, knows few restraints to its greed and insensitivity toward fans whom they are increasingly turning off.

Let's Talk About Rick Perry: Former Democrat and Al Gore Campaign Chairman

(From last years race for Texas governor:)

Debra Medina claims Rick Perry was a Democrat and Al Gore's campaign manager
Politifact on Thursday, January 14th, 2010

GOP gubernatorial hopeful Debra Medina, a Wharton businesswoman, started a question to Gov. Rick Perry during Thursday night's GOP gubernatorial debate by pointing out he hasn't always been a Republican.

Medina said: "Governor, you were a Democrat, having worked for Al Gore as his campaign manager..."

The Gore-y chapter of Perry's political life hasn't come up in a while.

We decided to explore Medina's two-part claim.

Perry didn't — and couldn't — dispute Medina's reminder that he was once a Democrat. Perry, whose father was repeatedly elected as a Democrat to the Haskell County Commission, won his first election, to the Texas House in 1984, as a Democrat. He won re-election in 1986 and 1988 before switching parties to challenge Democratic Agricultural Commissioner Jim Hightower in 1990 — a race that Perry won in an upset.

In the debate, Perry didn't answer Medina's charge that he was Gore's campaign manager.

In fact, according to news accounts and Perry's campaign, Perry served as Gore's Texas campaign chairman in 1988. 

+++++++++++

There was a mass exodus from the Democratic Party in Texas in the 1980s, among them Senator Phil Gramm, Congressman Kent Hance, and Governor Rick Perry.

++++++++++

(Perry broke the law as Texas governor by blocking an investigation into an excution:)

Texas Governor Rick Perry’s CrimeBy: Glenn W. Smith Friday October 2, 2009



When Gov. Rick Perry obstructed an investigation into the 2004 execution of a man, Cameron Todd Willingham, that experts say was innocent, he committed a crime against all of us. State executions are carried out in our names, collectively and individually. Subverting the truth in such a matter is a betrayal of the public trust that is difficult to describe or comprehend. Willingham was convicted of the arson deaths of his three daughters.

Now experts say the evidence was deeply flawed.

But Perry may have also committed a crime against the U.S., and I’m not talking about his secession threats. He may have violated federal law, U.S.C. 18.1001. This is no trivial matter. An innocent man was executed. Federal laws and guidelines are in place to keep that from happening. Perry may well have violated those laws and guidelines, for which there are criminal penalties.

CNN commentator and political strategist Paul Begala wrote me with the following observation about my post earlier yesterday:

Let’s see if I get this straight: Perry and the teabaggers don’t trust the government to write an insurance policy, but they do trust the government to lock a man in a cage for years, to strap that man down on a gurney, and fill his veins with poison – in the case of poor Mr. Willingham, for a crime he did not commit. I know a lot of principled conservatives who oppose the death penalty, based on their distrust of government. Perry, of course, is neither truly principled nor truly conservative. He is a small man, a moral coward, and a political opportunist of the worst sort. Thank you for calling this to my attention.

There oughta be a law against hypocrisy such as Perry’s. It turns out there might be. Follow us on the jump for details on the statutes and guidelines Perry may have violated.

§ 1001. Statements or entries generally

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully— (1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact; (2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or (3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry; shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A, 109B, 110, or 117, or section 1591, then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years.

Doesn’t the language seem like it was written with Rick Perry in mind: “falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact”? But there’s even more to it than that.

Texas receives millions of dollars in crime-fighting money from the Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grants Program of the U.S. Justice Department. To receive that money, Texas had to create the Texas Forensic Science Commission. The applying and receiving agencies, including the governor, certify that an independent, external agency exists that will investigate “negligence or misconduct substantially affecting the integrity of forensic results.”

Now, read this special note attached to the Justice Department’s application guidelines, because they specifically invoke U.S.C. 18.1001 cited above:

Note: In making this certification, the certifying official is certifying that these requirements are satisfied not only with respect to the applicant itself but also with respect to each entity that will receive a portion of the grant amount. Certifying officials are advised that: (1) a false statement in the certification or in the grant application that it supports may be subject to criminal prosecution, including under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, and (2) Office of Justice Programs grants, including certifications provided in connection with such grants, are subject to review by the Office of Justice Programs and/or by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General.

In other words, the United States Justice Department tells its Coverdell Grant recipients that they’d better have an independent forensics agency of the highest integrity, and they’d better not falsify, conceal, or cover up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact.

If firing three members of the commission and bringing to a screaming halt an investigation and hearing about the execution of an innocent man is not a trick to cover up material facts, nothing is.

 ++++++++++

(And finally, Perry's biggest campaign "boosters" are the big pharma corp, Merck & Co. To see how he "repaid" them , read below:)

June 4, 2011
Rick Perry's Gardasil Problem 
By Tom Bevan

Last Wednesday, Perry conceded to Fox News' Greta van Susteren that he was "tempted" by a run for the White House. Two days later, in response to a question about a 2012 bid, Perry told the Austin American-Statesman, "I'm going to think about it."

But if Rick Perry does step under the bright lights, there's at least one question that has the potential to hinder his pursuit of the GOP nomination: Why in early 2007 did he sign an executive order mandating that 11- and 12-year-old girls in Texas be given the vaccine Gardasil?

Gardasil was developed to prevent the human papillomavirus (HPV), the most commonly transmitted sexual disease in the United States. In June 2006, the Food and Drug Administration approved the drug, which is made by the pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co.

The treatment was initially hailed as a breakthrough in protecting against four strains of HPV that are responsible for some cervical cancer cases and 90 percent of genital warts.

In January 2007, Gardasil was put on the "recommended" immunization schedule issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control. Merck immediately mounted a massive lobbying effort of state legislatures around the country to get Gardasil added to their respective lists of state-mandated vaccines.

But in Texas, Gov. Perry chose to bypass the legislature and on Feb. 2, 2007, he issued an executive order making Texas the first state in the country requiring all sixth-grade girls to receive the three-shot vaccination series (which cost about $120 per shot). The move generated a fierce public debate. Conservatives slammed Perry for promoting what they saw as an intrusion by the state into private health decisions of parents and their children. Some also complained that the mandate would encourage promiscuity among teenagers.

Many doctors, including Bill Hinchey, the president of the Texas Medical Association at the time, questioned the wisdom of rushing to mandate a drug that had been on the market for less than a year. Hinchey told the Houston Chronicle, "There are issues, such as liability and cost, that need to be vetted first."

The controversy over Perry's decision deepened as it came to light that his former chief of staff was a lobbyist for Merck and that his chief of staff's mother-in-law, Rep. Dianne White Delisi, was the state director of an advocacy group bankrolled by Merck to push legislatures across the country to put forward bills mandating the Gardasil vaccine for preteen girls.

Roughly 60 state lawmakers called on Perry to rescind the order. He refused. Just six weeks after Perry put pen to paper, the Texas House rebuked him on March 14, 2007, passing HB 1098, overturning his executive order by a vote of 119-21. The Senate followed suit the following month by a vote of 30-1.

Realizing both chambers had large enough majorities to override a veto, Perry opted to let the bill become law without his signature.

The sponsor of HB 1098, Republican state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, blasted Perry for "using cancer victims as his backdrop for an issue that he has grossly misjudged. Just because you don't want to offer up 165,000 11-year-old girls to be Merck's study group doesn't mean you don't care about women's health, doesn't mean you don't care about young girls," Bonnen added.

And, in fact, two years later the National Vaccine Information Center issued a report raising serious questions over the harmful side effects of the drug. A few months after that, an editorial on Gardasil in the Journal of the American Medical Association declared that "serious questions regarding the overall effectiveness of the vaccine" needed to be answered and that more long-term studies were called for.

If Perry runs for president, the fight over his decision will be waged anew in places like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

++++++++

(The irony shouldn't be lost on anyone that a guy who 2 years ago wanted Texas to secede from the USA now wants to be president of the USA. If it weren't for the reality that he is considered a GOP frontrunner, it would be funny. 

Gov. Rick Perry is a corrupt governor and a politician who does the bidding of the highest bidder once he's elected. In a time when Republicans are more concerned about cutting spending and taxes at the same time (which cannot be done in a reasonable manner) while fighting wars in 5 countries, Perry is yet another product of the GOP that benefits the rich at the extreme cost to the poor. Perry's Texas is a mirage for job creation when you consider that 165,000 lost good paying jobs were replaced by 200,000 minimum wage jobs. He and other Texas Republicans call that progress. And we thought GW Bush was dumb.

By the way, if you bring home the troops and end the wars, allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, and end the unconstitutional domestic spying program, the savings put us at a budget surplus by 2016. If Republicans were really interested in controlling the deficit, they would do it. That's why it isn't about the deficit for them at all. Dick Cheney said "deficits don't matter," and that's the true line of the GOP. It's all about tax cuts and military spending for them and when you vote for them, you vote for that. period.--jef)

Bernie Sanders to Obama: 'Do Not Yield to Outrageous Republican Demands' on Taxes, Cuts, Deficit Policy

 Monday, June 27, 2011 by The Nation

by John Nichols

 

Bernie Sanders went to the floor of the Senate last December to deliver the most important congressional address of 2010, a nine-hour long, filibuster-style condemnation of economic policies that favored the rich while burdening working Americans. The independent senator from Vermont electrified the nation with a call for economic justice that challenged Obama administration compromises with Republicans on issues of tax policy and declared: "There is a war going on in this country, and I am not referring to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. I am talking about a war being waged by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country against the working families of the United States of America, against the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country."

Now, as Republicans pressure the president to embrace an approach to deficit reduction that will further widen the gap between rich and working Americans —with tax breaks for the wealthy and the slashing of benefits for the what remains of the middle class —Sanders is preparing to return to the Senate floor Monday for another epic challenge to the failed economic policies of Wall Street and its political amen corner.

The senator has scheduled a major Senate address for 4 p.m. EST Monday, when he plans to expound for at least an hour and a half on the urgency of rejecting "the Republican approach that demands savage cuts in desperately-needed programs for working families, the elderly, the sick, our children and the poor, while not asking the wealthiest among us to contribute one penny." As a member of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders has argued that at least half of any deficit-reduction package must rely on new revenue by eliminating tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and the most profitable corporations. This "shared sacrifice" agenda must be the bottom line for President Obama and Senate Democrats as they wrangle with congressional Republicans over when and how to extend the debt ceiling.

"This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. Decisions are being made about the national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American for decades to come," argues Sanders says in a new letter to Obama that urges the president to hold firm for economic fairness.

The letter, which Sanders is asking Americans to sign, reads:

"Dear Mr. President,

"This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. Decisions are being made about the national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American for decades to come. As we address the issue of deficit reduction we must not ignore the painful economic reality of today - which is that the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well while the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing. In fact, the United States today has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth.

"Everyone understands that over the long-term we have got to reduce the deficit - a deficit that was caused mainly by Wall Street greed, tax breaks for the rich, two wars, and a prescription drug program written by the drug and insurance companies. It is absolutely imperative, however, that as we go forward with deficit reduction we completely reject the Republican approach that demands savage cuts in desperately-needed programs for working families, the elderly, the sick, our children and the poor, while not asking the wealthiest among us to contribute one penny.

"Mr. President, please listen to the overwhelming majority of the American people who believe that deficit reduction must be about shared sacrifice. The wealthiest Americans and the most profitable corporations in this country must pay their fair share. At least 50 percent of any deficit reduction package must come from revenue raised by ending tax breaks for the wealthy and eliminating tax loopholes that benefit large, profitable corporations and Wall Street financial institutions. A sensible deficit reduction package must also include significant cuts to unnecessary and wasteful Pentagon spending.

"Please do not yield to outrageous Republican demands that would greatly increase suffering for the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society. Now is the time to stand with the tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to survive economically, not with the millionaires and billionaires who have never had it so good."

Sanders is featuring the details about Monday's speech, the letter the president and the fight for shared sacrifice —as opposed to more-of-the-same economics —on his Senate website and his campaign website, where he asks: "When Does the Greed Stop?

++++++++++++++

Monday, June 27, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
Bernie Sanders Takes to Senate Floor, Demands 'Shared Sacrifice'
Prepared Remarks by Senator Bernie Sanders

The following are the prepared remarks of US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), delivered (video) on the floor of the US Senate on Monday June 27, 2011:

Mr. President, this is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. In the coming days and weeks, decisions will be made about our national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American in this country for decades to come.

At a time when the richest people and the largest corporations in our country are doing phenomenally well, and, in many cases, have never had it so good, while the middle class is disappearing and poverty is increasing, it is absolutely imperative that a deficit reduction package not include the disastrous cuts in programs for working families, the elderly, the sick, the children and the poor that the Republicans in Congress, dominated by the extreme right wing, are demanding.

In my view, the President of the United States of America needs to stand with the American people and say to the Republican leadership that enough is enough. No, we will not balance the budget on the backs of working families, the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor, who have already sacrificed enough in terms of lost jobs, lost wages, lost homes, and lost pensions. Yes, we will demand that millionaires and billionaires and the largest corporations in America contribute to deficit reduction as a matter of shared sacrifice. Yes, we will reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending at the Pentagon. And, no we will not be blackmailed once again by the Republican leadership in Washington, who are threatening to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States government for the first time in our nation’s history unless they get everything they want.

Instead of yielding to the incessant, extreme Republican demands, as the President did during last December’s tax cut agreement and this year’s spending negotiations, the President has got to get out of the beltway and rally the American people who already believe that deficit reduction must be about shared sacrifice.

It is time for the President to stand with the millions who have lost their jobs, homes, and life savings, instead of the millionaires, who in many cases, have never had it so good.

Unless the American people by the millions tell the President not to yield one inch to Republican demands to destroy Medicare and Medicaid, while continuing to provide tax breaks to the wealthy and the powerful, I am afraid that is exactly what will happen.

So, I am asking the American people who may be listening today that if you believe that deficit reduction should be about shared sacrifice, if you believe that it is time for the wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share, if you believe that we need to reduce unnecessary defense spending, and if you believe that the middle class has already sacrificed enough due to the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, the President needs to hear your voice, and he needs to hear it now.

Go to my website: sanders.senate.gov and send a letter to the President letting him know that enough is enough! Shared sacrifice means that it’s time for the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations in America to pay their fair share and contribute to deficit reduction.

Mr. President, as you know, this country faces enormous challenges.

The reality is that the middle class in America today is collapsing and poverty is increasing.

When we talk about the economy, we have got to be aware that the official government statistics are often misleading. For example, while the official unemployment rate is now 9.1%, that number does not include the large numbers of people who have given up looking for work and people who want to work full-time but are working part time.

And, when you take all of those factors into account, the real unemployment rate is nearly 16%.

Further Mr. President, what we also must understand is that tens of millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. The reality is that over the last 10 years, median family income has declined by over $2,500.

As a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, which caused this terrible recession, millions more have lost their homes, their pensions, and their retirement savings.

Unless we reverse our current economic course our children will have, for the first time in modern American history, a lower standard of living than their parents.

Mr. President, we throw out a lot of numbers around here. But, I think it is important to understand that behind every grim economic statistic are real Americans who cannot find a decent paying job, and are struggling to feed their families, put a roof over their heads or to just stay afloat.

Last year, I asked my constituents in Vermont to share their personal stories with me -- explaining how the recession, which started more than three years ago, has impacted their lives. In a matter of weeks, more than 400 Vermonters responded and I also heard from people throughout the country who are struggling through this terrible recession.

Their messages are clear. People are finding it hard to get jobs or are now working for lower wages than they used to earn. Older workers have depleted their life savings and are worried about what will happen to them when they retire. Young adults in their 20s and 30s are not earning enough to pay down college debt. People of all ages, all walks of life, from each corner of Vermont -- have shared their stories with my office.

Let me just read a few of these letters:

The first is from a 51 year old woman from West Berlin, Vermont who wrote "Dear Mr. Sanders, Don't really know what to say, I could cry. My significant other was out of work for a year, now he works in another state. I've been out of work since April. Our mortgage company wants the house because we can't make the payments. I can't find a job to save my soul that will pay enough to make a difference. How bad does it have to get! My mother went through the Great Depression and here we go again. I figure that I'm going to lose everything soon! I'm a well educated person who can't see through the fog."

A gentlemen in his mid-50's from Orange County, Vermont wrote: "After being unemployed three times since 1999 due to global trade agreements, I now find myself managing a hazardous waste transfer facility that pays about 25% less than what I was making in 1999. My wife's children have moved back in, unemployed. And we are saving very little for retirement. If things don't improve soon we will likely have to work until we die. We consider ourselves lucky that we are employed. Our children's friends tend to show up around meal time. They are skinny. We feed them. This is no recession, it's a modern day depression."

A woman in her late 40s from Westminster, Vermont wrote: "I am a single mom in Vermont, nearly 50. I patch together a full time job making $12 an hour and various painting jobs and still can't afford to get myself out of debt, or make necessary repairs on my home. No other jobs in sight, I apply all the time to no avail. Food and gas bills go up and up, but not my income. I have no retirement at all, can't afford to move, feeling stuck, tired, and hopeless."

And a 26 year old young man from Barre, Vermont wrote: "In 2002, I received a scholarship to Saint Bonaventure University, the first in my family to attend college. Upon graduation in 2006, I was admitted to the Dickinson School of Law at Penn State University, and graduated in 2009 with $150,000 of student debt. In Western New York I could find nothing better than a $10 an hour position stuffing envelopes … I live in a small studio apartment in Barre without cable or internet … I have told my family I don't want them to visit because I am ashamed of my surroundings … My family always told me that an education was the ticket to success, but all my education seems to have done in this landscape is make it impossible to pull myself out of debt and begin a successful career."

Mr. President, just over the last two weeks, nearly 500 people from Vermont and throughout the U.S. have written me about their experiences with trying - often in vain - to find affordable dental care. One wrote: “I can't afford health insurance so dental work is definitely out. I agree [that] … we are so backward in this country, even though studies have linked bad dental care to heart problems and cancer.”

Mr. President, when the Republicans are talking about trillions of dollars in savage cuts this is what they are talking about. They're talking about throwing millions and millions of people off of Medicaid. Let me tell you what that means.

Earlier this year Arizona passed budget cuts that took patients off its transplant list. As a result people who were kicked off the list have died. Not because they couldn't find a donor but because the state decided it could no longer afford to pay for their transplants. To make matters worse Arizona’s Governor has gone further, asking the federal government for a waiver to kick off another 250,000 from its Medicaid program.

They're talking about making it impossible for working class families to send their kids to college. They're talking about cuts in nutrition programs which will increase the amount of hunger in America, which is already at an all time high. According to a 2009 study, there are over 5 million seniors who face the threat of hunger, almost 3 million seniors who are at risk of going hungry, and almost 1 million seniors who do go hungry because they cannot afford to buy food. The Republicans in Congress would make this situation much, much worse.

Mr. President, this is a lot of pain that the Republicans are tossing out while they want to protect their rich and powerful friends. In my view, the president has got to stand tall, take the case to the American people, and hold the Republicans responsible if the debt ceiling is not raised and the repercussions of that.

That, Mr. President, is what's going on in the real world. People fighting to keep their homes from falling into foreclosure; struggling with credit card debt; marriages have been postponed; lives have been derailed; and retirement savings have been raided to pay for college tuition, to keep their businesses afloat, or simply to keep gas in their car and pay their bills. That is what is going on in the real world.

And, Mr. President, while the middle class disappears and poverty is increasing, there is another reality and that is that the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider. The United States now has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth.

Today, the top one percent earns over 20 percent of all income in this country, which is more than the bottom 50 percent earns. Over a recent 25 year period, 80 percent of all new income went to the top one percent. In terms of the distribution of wealth, as hard as it may be to believe, the richest 400 Americans own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class continues to disappear. That is what is going on in this country in the year 2011, and we have all got to understand that.

Mr. President, everybody knows this country faces a major deficit crisis and we have a national debt of over $14 trillion. What has not been widely discussed, however, is how we got into this situation in the first place. A huge deficit and huge national debt did not happen by accident. It did not happen overnight. It happened, in fact, as a result of a number of policy decisions made over the last decade and votes that were cast right here on the floor of the Senate and in the House.

Let's never forget, as we talk about the deficit situation, that in January of 2001, when President Clinton left office, this country had an annual federal budget surplus of $236 billion with projected budget surpluses as far as the eye could see. That was when Clinton left office.

What has happened in the ensuing years? How did we go from huge projected surpluses into horrendous debt? The answer, frankly, is not complicated. The CBO has documented it. There was an interesting article on the front page of the Washington Post on April 30, talking about it as well. Here is what happened.

When we spend over $1 trillion on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and choose not to pay for those wars, we run up a deficit. When we provide over $700 billion in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country and choose not to pay for those tax breaks, we run up a deficit. When we pass a Medicare Part D prescription drug program written by the drug companies and the insurance companies that does not allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and ends up costing us far more than it should -- $400 billion over a 10-year period -- and we don't pay for that, we run up the deficit. When we double military spending since 1997, not including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we don't pay for that, we drive up the deficit.

Further, Mr. President, the deficit was also driven up by the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, which caused the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans lost their jobs and revenue was significantly reduced as a result.

Mr. President, the end result of all of these unpaid-for policies and actions – year after year of the deficits I just described – is a staggering amount of debt. When President Bush left office, President Obama inherited an annual deficit of $1.3 trillion with deficits as far as the eye could see, and the national debt more than doubled from when President Bush took office.

The reality is Mr. President, if we did not go to war in Iraq, if we did not pass huge tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, who didn’t need them, if we did not pass a prescription drug program with no cost control written by the drug and insurance companies, and if we did not deregulate Wall Street, we would not be in the fiscal mess that we find ourselves in today. It really is that simple.

In other words, the only reason we have to increase our nation's debt ceiling today is that we are forced to pay the bills that the Republican leadership in Congress and President Bush racked up.

Now, Mr. President, given the decline in the middle class, given the increase in poverty, and given the fact that the wealthy and large corporations have never had it so good, Americans may find it strange that the Republicans in Washington would use this opportunity to make savage cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition assistance, and other lifesaving programs, while pushing for even more tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations.

Unfortunately, it is not strange. It is part of their ideology. Republicans in Washington have never believed in Medicare, Medicaid, federal assistance in education, or providing any direct government assistance to those in need. They have always believed that tax breaks for the wealthy and the powerful would somehow miraculously trickle down to every American, despite all history and evidence to the contrary. So, in that sense, it is not strange at all that they would use the deficit crisis we are now in as an opportunity to balance the budget on the backs of working families, the elderly, the sick, the children and the poor, and work to dismantle every single successful government program that was ever created.

And, that's exactly what the Ryan Republican budget that was passed in the House of Representatives earlier this year - and supported by the vast majority Republicans here in the Senate just last month - would do. Here are just a few examples:

The Republican budget passed by the House this year would end Medicare as we know it within 10 years.

The non-partisan CBO estimates that under the Ryan proposal, in 2022, a private health care plan for a 65-year-old equivalent to Medicare coverage would cost about $20,500, yet the Republican budget would provide a voucher for only $8,000 of those premiums. Seniors would be on their own to pay the remaining $12,500 – a full 61% of the total. How many of the 20 million near-elderly Americans who are now ages 50-54 will be able to afford that? This approach would transfer control of Medicare to insurers and there would be no guaranteed benefits, essentially ending Medicare as we know it.

The Republican budget would force 4 million seniors in this country to pay $3,500 more, on average, for their prescription drugs by re-opening the Medicare Part D donut hole.

Under the Republican budget, nearly 2 million children would lose their health insurance over the next 5 years by cuts to the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

At a time when 50 million Americans have no health insurance, the Republican budget would cut Medicaid by over $770 billion, causing millions of Americans to lose their health insurance and cutting nursing home assistance in half - threatening the long-term care of some 10 million senior citizens.

The Republican budget would completely repeal the Affordable Health Care Act preventing an estimated 34 million uninsured Americans from getting the health insurance they need.

At a time when the cost of a college education is becoming out of reach for millions of Americans, the Republican budget would slash college Pell grants by about 60% next year alone - reducing the maximum award from $5,550 to about $2,100.

At a time when over 40 million Americans don't have enough money to feed themselves or their families, the Republican budget would kick up to 10 million Americans off Food Stamps, by slashing this program by more than $125 billion over the next decade.

At a time when our nation's infrastructure is crumbling, the Republican budget passed in the House and supported by all but a handful of Republicans here in the Senate would slash funding for our roads, bridges, rail lines, transit systems, and airports by nearly 40 percent next year alone.

Yet despite the fact that military spending has nearly tripled since 1997, the House Republican budget does nothing to reduce unnecessary defense spending. In fact, defense spending would go up by $26 billion next year alone under the Republican plan.

Interestingly enough, at a time when the rich are becoming richer, when the effective tax rates for the wealthiest people, at 18 percent, are about the lowest on record, at a time when the wealthiest people have received hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks, at a time when corporate profits are at an all-time high and major corporations making billions of dollars pay nothing in taxes, my Republican colleagues, in their approach toward deficit reduction, do not ask the wealthiest people or the largest corporations to contribute one penny more for deficit reduction.

In fact, the Republican budget would keep the good times rolling for those who are already doing phenomenally well – it provides over $1 trillion in tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires by permanently extending all of the Bush income tax cuts; reducing the estate tax for multi-millionaires and billionaires; and lowering the top individual and corporate income tax rate from 35 to 25 percent.

Mr. President, the Republican idea of moving toward a balanced budget is to go after the middle-class, working families, and low-income people, and to make sure the millionaires and billionaires and largest corporations in this country that are doing phenomenally well do not have to share in the sacrifices being made by everybody else. They will be protected. The Republican approach to deficit reduction in Washington is the Robin Hood philosophy in reverse: taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

And it’s not as if it’s good for our economy. Mark Zandi, the former economic advisor to John McCain when he was running for president, has estimated that the Republican budget plan will cost 1.7 million jobs by the year 2014, with 900,000 jobs lost next year alone.

The House Republican budget is breathtaking in its degree of cruelty.

But, don't take my word for it.

In a letter to Congressional leaders after the House GOP plan was introduced, nearly 200 economists and health care experts wrote, “turning Medicare into a voucher program would undermine essential protections for millions of vulnerable people. It would extinguish the most promising approaches to curb costs and to improve the American medical care system.”

Jeffrey Sachs, an economics professor at Columbia University, who was a key economic adviser to the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Health Organization, told MSNBC last April that the House Republican plan, “goes right out to destroy Medicaid within the next few years, slashing it drastically. And then on Medicare, it delays [cuts] for 10 years, and then [the House Republican plan] goes out to destroy it, to make sure that elderly people will not have a guaranteed access to health care. They will be getting some premium [support] but they`re going to have to put a lot of money out of pocket.”

Robert Greenstein, the President of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said last April that the House Republican budget “proposes a dramatic reverse-Robin-Hood approach that gets the lion’s share of its budget cuts from programs for low-income Americans — the politically and economically weakest group in America and the politically safest group for Ryan to target— even as it bestows extremely large tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans. Taken together, its proposals would produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history, while increasing poverty and inequality more than any measure in recent times and possibly in the nation’s history."

Ezra Klein, a columnist at the Washington Post wrote last April that “the budget Ryan released is not courageous or serious or significant. It’s a joke, and a bad one. For one thing, Ryan’s savings all come from cuts, and at least two-thirds of them come from programs serving the poor. The wealthy, meanwhile, would see their taxes lowered, and the Defense Department would escape unscathed. It is not courageous to attack the weak while supporting your party’s most inane and damaging fiscal orthodoxies. But the problem isn’t just that Ryan’s budget is morally questionable. It also wouldn’t work."

Harold Meyerson, a columnist for the Washington Post wrote on April 5th that "If it does nothing else, the budget that the House Republicans unveiled provides the first real Republican program for the 21st century, and it is this: Repeal the 20th century … Ryan achieves the bulk of his savings through sharp reductions in projected spending on Medicare and Medicaid … Ryan’s budget would also reduce projected spending on discretionary domestic programs — education, transportation, food safety and the like — to well below levels of inflation … The cover under which Ryan and other Republicans operate is their concern for the deficit and national debt. But Ryan blows that cover by proposing to reduce the top income tax rate to just 25 percent. He imposes the burden for reducing our debt not on the bankers who forced our government to spend trillions averting a collapse but on seniors and the poor."

Mr. Meyerson, concludes by saying this: "There’s talk that we have a president who’s a Democrat — the party that created the American social contract of the 20th century. Initially, he focused on reshaping and extending that contract into the 21st. Now that the Republicans want to repeal it all, he’s nowhere to be found. Has anybody seen him? Does he still exist?"

Mr. President, the deficit has been caused by unpaid-for wars, tax breaks for the rich, the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, the bailout of Wall Street, a declining economy, and less revenue coming in. The Republican “solution” in Washington is to balance the budget on the backs of the sick, the elderly, the children and the poor, to cut back on environmental protection, to cut back on transportation, while providing even more tax breaks to the wealthy and well connected. That is unacceptable and that is what we have got to stop.

Mr. President, it’s not just rich individuals who are making out like bandits. As hard as it may be to believe, some of the largest, most profitable corporations in this country are not only avoiding paying any federal income taxes whatsoever, but they are actually receiving tax rebates from the IRS. And, the Republican response to this reality is to provide even more tax breaks to these corporate freeloaders. That may make sense to someone. It does not make sense to me.

Earlier this year, my office published a top ten list of the worst corporate tax avoiders in this country. I would like to take this opportunity to read this list. These are just a few of the corporations that the Republicans want to protect, while they are trying to deny millions of Americans health insurance, a college education, and nutrition assistance. Here are the top ten corporate freeloaders in America today:

1) Exxon Mobil. In 2009, Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits. Not only did Exxon avoid paying any federal income taxes that year, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.

2) Bank of America. Last year, Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS, even though it made $4.4 billion in profits and just a couple of years ago received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.

3) General Electric. Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.

4) Chevron. In 2009, Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS after it made $10 billion in profits.

5) Boeing. Last year, Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS.

6) Valero Energy. Last year, Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.

7) Goldman Sachs. In 2008, Goldman Sachs paid only 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

8) Citigroup. Last year, Citigroup made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes, even though it received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

9) ConocoPhillips. ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction during those years.

10) Carnival Cruise Lines. Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.

In other words, Mr. President, at a time when major corporations such as General Electric and ExxonMobil make billions of dollars in profit, and pay nothing in federal income taxes, the Republican plan is to provide them with even more tax breaks.

Mr. President, large corporations are sitting on a record-breaking $2 trillion in cash. The problem is not that corporations are taxed too much. The problem is that consumers don't have enough money to buy their products and the Republican agenda would make that far worse.

Corporate tax revenue last year was down by 27% compared to 2000, even though corporate profits are up 60 percent over the last decade.

Large corporations and the wealthy are avoiding $100 billion in taxes every year by setting up offshore tax shelters in places like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Bahamas. Ending that anti-American shell game could raise $1 trillion over 10 years toward deficit reduction.

In 2005, 1 out of 4 large corporations paid no income taxes at all even though they collected $1.1 trillion in revenue. The simple truth is that if we are going to reduce the deficit in a responsible way, we have got to make sure that profitable corporations pay their fair share.

Now, I understand that my Republican friends, and quite frankly some of my Democratic friends, will do everything they can to protect the wealthy and the powerful, even if it means destroying the lives of millions of Americans in the process.

But, what we need to understand, what the President needs to understand, is that poll after poll after poll shows that the Republican plan to make savage cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and education, while providing even more tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations, is way out of touch with what the American people want.

Let me just read to you a few of these polls.

According to a recent Boston Globe poll of likely voters in New Hampshire, perhaps the most anti-tax state in this country, 73% support raising taxes on people making over $250,000 a year; 78% oppose cutting Medicare; 71% oppose cutting Medicaid; and 76% oppose cutting Social Security.

Now, Mr. President, you may be saying to yourself well, that was just one poll, and it was only polling one state. Clearly, that must have been an aberration.

Wrong. National poll after national poll have almost mirrored what New Hampshire voters are saying.

A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found the following:

* 81 percent of the American people believe it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable to impose a surtax on millionaires to reduce the deficit.

* 74 percent of the American people believe it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable to eliminate tax credits for the oil and gas industry.

* 68 percent of the American people believe it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable to phase out the Bush tax cuts for families earning over $250,000 a year.

* 76 percent of the American people believe it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable to eliminate funding for weapons systems the Defense Department says are not necessary.

* 76 percent believe it is totally unacceptable or mostly unacceptable to cut Medicare to significantly reduce the budget deficit.

* 77 percent believe it is totally unacceptable or mostly unacceptable to cut Social Security to significantly reduce the deficit.

* 67 percent believe it is totally unacceptable or mostly unacceptable to cut Medicaid to significantly reduce the deficit.

* 77 percent believe it is totally unacceptable or mostly unacceptable to cut funding for K-12 education to significantly reduce the deficit.

* 56 percent believe it is totally unacceptable or mostly unacceptable to cut Head Start.

* 59 percent believe it is totally unacceptable or mostly unacceptable to cut college student loans.

* And, 65 percent believe it is totally unacceptable or mostly unacceptable to cut heating assistance to low income families.

And, while the leaders of the Tea Party movement in Washington are fighting to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid and getting the vast majority of Republicans in Congress to follow their marching orders, 70% of those who identify themselves with the Tea Party outside of the beltway oppose cutting Medicare and Medicaid to reduce the deficit, according to a recent McClatchy Poll.

Mr. President, here is the last poll I would like to highlight. It was done by the Washington Post and ABC News, and here is what it says:

* 72% of Americans support raising taxes on incomes over $250,000 to reduce the national debt – including 91% of Democrats; 68% of Independents; and 54% of Republicans.

Yet, Mr. President, there does not seem to be one Republican in Washington, DC, who would support raising taxes on the wealthiest two percent of Americans – those earning over $250,000 a year to reduce the deficit. Only in Washington is it considered a controversial idea to make the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share.

Instead of listening to millionaire and billionaire campaign contributors, it is time for our leaders in Washington to start listening to the overwhelming majority of Americans who want the wealthiest people in this country and the most profitable corporations in this country to contribute to deficit reduction. It is time for shared sacrifice. The middle class, the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor have already sacrificed enough in terms of lost jobs, lost wages, lost pensions, and lost homes. When are the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations going to be asked to pay their fair share? If not now, when?

And, the fact of the matter is, Mr. President, that moving towards deficit reduction in a way that's fair is not quite as complicated as the American people have been led to believe by the corporate media and right wing think tanks.

In fact, if you are not beholden to Wall Street, large corporations and wealthy campaign contributors, and you are not scared to death of the unlimited number of 30 second ads they may run against you, it is actually quite easy.

I know many people have different ideas about how we might move towards a balanced budget. I am not saying that I have all of the answers. But, let me just give a few examples of how we can reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion dollars over the next decade that asks the wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share and does not unfairly harm ordinary Americans.

First, if we simply repealed the Bush tax breaks for the top two percent, we could raise at least $700 billion over the next decade. The Republicans claim that repealing these tax breaks would increase unemployment. They are wrong. These tax breaks have been in place for over a decade and they have not led to a single net private sector job. In fact, under the eight years of President Bush, the private sector lost over 600,000 jobs and the deficit exploded. When President Clinton increased taxes on the top two percent, over 22 million jobs were created, and the revenue generated from this policy led to a $236 billion budget surplus.

Secondly, a 5.4 percent surtax on millionaires and billionaires would raise more than $383 billion over 10 years, according to the Joint Tax Committee. As I said earlier, a millionaire’s surtax has the support of 81 percent of the American people according to NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.

Third, Mr. President, the U.S. government is actually rewarding companies that move U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas through loopholes in the tax code known as deferral and foreign source income. This is unacceptable. During the last decade, the U.S. lost about 30% of its manufacturing jobs and over 50,000 factories have been shut down.

If we ended the absurdity of providing tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, the Joint Tax Committee has estimated that we could raise more than $582 billion in revenue over the next ten years. Right now we have a tax policy that says that if you shut down a manufacturing plant in America, and move to China, the IRS will give you a tax break. That may make sense to corporate CEOs. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Fourth, Mr. President, if we ended tax breaks and subsidies for big oil and gas companies, we could reduce the deficit by more than $40 billion over the next ten years. The five largest oil companies in the United States have earned about $1 trillion in profits over the past decade. Meanwhile, in recent years, some of the very largest oil companies in America like Exxon Mobil and Chevron, as I pointed out earlier, have paid absolutely nothing in Federal income taxes. In fact, some of them have actually gotten a rebate from the IRS. That has got to stop.

Fifth, Mr. President, if we prohibited abusive and illegal offshore tax shelters, we could reduce the deficit by up to $1 trillion over the next decade. Each and every year, the United States loses an estimated $100 billion in tax revenues due to offshore tax abuses by the wealthy and large corporations. The situation has become so absurd that one five-story office building in the Cayman Islands is now the “home” to more than 18,000 corporations. That is wrong. The wealthy and large corporations should not be allowed to avoid paying taxes by setting up tax shelters in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas or other tax haven countries.

Sixth, Mr. President, if we established a Wall Street speculation fee of less than one percent on the sale and purchase of credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures, we could reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion over the next decade. Both the economic crisis and the deficit crisis are a direct result of the greed and recklessness on Wall Street. Establishing a speculation fee would reduce gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy, and significantly reduce the deficit without harming average Americans.

There are a number of precedents for this. The U.S had a similar Wall Street speculation fee from 1914 to 1966. The Revenue Act of 1914 levied a 0.2% tax on all sales or transfers of stock. In 1932, Congress more than doubled that tax to help finance the government during the Great Depression. And today, England has a financial transaction tax of 0.25 percent, a penny on every $4 invested.

Number seven, Mr. President, if we taxed capital gains and dividends, the same way that we tax work, we could raise more than $730 billion over the next decade. Warren Buffet has often said that he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. And, today the effective tax rate of the richest 400 Americans, who earn an average of more than $280 million each year, is just 18 percent, lower than most nurses, teachers, firefighters, and police officers pay. The reason for this is that the wealthy obtain most of their income from capital gains and dividends, which is taxed at a much lower rate than work. Right now, the top marginal income tax for working is 35%, but the tax rate on corporate dividends and capital gains is only 15%. Taxing wealth and work at the same rate could raise more than $730 billion over a ten-year period – and it’s the right thing to do.

Number eight, if we established a progressive estate tax on inherited wealth of more than $3.5 million, we could raise more than $70 billion over 10 years. Last year, I introduced the Responsible Estate Tax Act that would reduce the deficit in a fair way while ensuring that 99.7 percent of Americans who lose a loved one would never have to pay a dime in federal estate taxes.

Number nine, we have got to reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending at the Pentagon, which now consumes over half of our discretionary budget. Since 1997, our defense budget has virtually tripled going from $254 billion to $700 billion.

Defense experts such as Lawrence Korb, an Assistant Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan, has estimated that we could achieve significant savings of around $100 billion a year at the Pentagon while still ensuring that the United States has the strongest and most powerful military in the world.

For example, as a result of four separate investigations that I requested, the GAO has found that the Pentagon has $36.9 billion in spare parts that it does not need and which are collecting dust in government warehouses. We have got to do a much better job than that.

And, much of the huge spending at the Pentagon is devoted to spending money on Cold War weapons programs to fight a Soviet Union that no longer exists. That has got to stop.

Further, we also must end the unnecessary War in Iraq and the War in Afghanistan as soon as possible. These wars have gone on long enough. Reducing Pentagon spending by at least $900 billion over 10 years is something that we can and must do.

Number 10, if we required Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry, we could save over $157 billion over 10 years. As a result of the Medicare Part D prescription drug legislation signed into law under President George W. Bush, Medicare is prohibited from negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices for seniors. This is wrong. Requiring Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices could save the federal government and seniors over $15 billion a year.

Number 11, if we enacted a robust public option or a Medicare-for-all health insurance program, we would be able to save more than $68 billion over the next decade and provide affordable health insurance coverage for millions of Americans.

Number 12, Mr. President, as almost everyone knows, China is manipulating its currency, giving it an unfair trade advantage over the United States and destroying decent paying manufacturing jobs in the process. If we imposed a currency manipulation fee on China and other low wage countries, the Economic Policy Institute has estimated that we could raise $500 billion over 10 years and create 1 million jobs in the process.

Finally, Mr. President, I think just about everyone agrees that there is waste, fraud, and abuse in every agency of the federal government. Rooting out this waste, fraud, and abuse could save about $200 billion over the next 10 years.

Mr. President, if we did all of these things we could easily reduce the deficit by well over $4 trillion over the next decade, if not much more. It would be done in a fair way, and it would not unnecessarily and needlessly ruin the lives of millions of Americans who are struggling desperately just to make ends meet.

Mr. President, the radical right wing agenda of more tax breaks for the wealthy paid for by the dismantling of Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition, and the environment may be popular in the country clubs and cocktail parties of the rich and powerful, but it is way out of touch with what the overwhelming majority of Americans want.

Mr. President, as you know, late last week, Congressman Eric Cantor, the Republican Majority Leader in the House and Senator Jon Kyl, the Republican Minority Whip in the House walked out of the budget negotiations being led by Vice President Joe Biden.

And, the reason they walked out was clear. They were not willing to close one single loophole in the tax code that allows the wealthy and large corporations to avoid paying taxes by stashing their money in the Cayman Islands. They were unwilling to stop tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, or close tax loopholes that give billionaires like Warren Buffet the ability to pay lower effective tax rates than their secretaries.

There is apparently no end as to how far the Republican leadership will go in Washington to protect their wealthy campaign contributors, even if it means allowing the federal debt limit to expire and causing another depression.

My sincere hope is that the President will use this Republican walkout as an opportunity to rally the American people and make it clear that he will never support Republican demands to move toward a balanced budget solely on the backs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor.

But, I don’t think that the President will do this unless the American people send him a message that enough is enough! The American people have got to write to the President and tell him not to balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in this country. Do not decimate Medicare, Medicaid, Pell Grants, education, and the environment to pay for more tax breaks for the rich and powerful. Stand up for the millions, who have seen their homes, jobs, and savings vanish, instead of the millionaires, who have never had it so good.

For those of you who are listening to this speech, if you believe that enough is enough, if you believe in shared sacrifice, if you believe that it is time for the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations to contribute to deficit reduction, go to my website: sanders.senate.gov. At this website, you will find a letter to the White House that you can sign - let me read what it says:

“Dear Mr. President,

This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. Decisions are being made about the national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American for decades to come. As we address the issue of deficit reduction we must not ignore the painful economic reality of today - which is that the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well while the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing. In fact, the United States today has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth.

Everyone understands that over the long-term we have got to reduce the deficit - a deficit that was caused mainly by Wall Street greed, tax breaks for the rich, two wars, and a prescription drug program written by the drug and insurance companies. It is absolutely imperative, however, that as we go forward with deficit reduction we completely reject the Republican approach that demands savage cuts in desperately-needed programs for working families, the elderly, the sick, our children and the poor, while not asking the wealthiest among us to contribute one penny.

Mr. President, please listen to the overwhelming majority of the American people who believe that deficit reduction must be about shared sacrifice. The wealthiest Americans and the most profitable corporations in this country must pay their fair share. At least 50 percent of any deficit reduction package must come from revenue raised by ending tax breaks for the wealthy and eliminating tax loopholes that benefit large, profitable corporations and Wall Street financial institutions. A sensible deficit reduction package must also include significant cuts to unnecessary and wasteful Pentagon spending.

Please do not yield to outrageous Republican demands that would greatly increase suffering for the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society. Now is the time to stand with the tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to survive economically, not with the millionaires and billionaires who have never had it so good.”

If you’re listening out there, and agree with what I am saying, but are wondering what you can do to make a difference, I would urge you to consider signing this letter. Staying silent and doing nothing is not an option. Your voice needs to be heard and you can make a difference.

Mr. President, we have seen this movie before. The Republicans, led by their extreme right wing, have been successful in getting their way because of their refusal to compromise and their willingness to hold the good credit and economic security of the American people hostage.

In December, the Republican leadership was prepared to hold the middle class tax cuts and unemployment benefits hostage in order to extend the Bush tax breaks for the top two percent. The Republicans won and as a result over $200 billion was added to the deficit over the next two years.

Specifically, the December tax cut agreement extended the Bush income tax rates for those earning more than $250,000; maintained lower tax rates on capital gains and dividends; and lowered the estate tax which only benefits the top 0.3 percent.

Let me remind, my colleagues who the biggest winners were from last December's tax cut agreement.

According to Citizens for Tax Justice, extending the Bush tax breaks for the top 2 percent has provided Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of News Corporation, with an estimated $1.3 million tax break.

Tom Donohue, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who has urged American corporations to ship jobs overseas, will receive an estimated $215,000 tax break from this deal.

Jamie Dimon, the head of JP Morgan Chase, whose bank received a bailout of over $160 billion from the Federal Reserve, will receive an estimated $1.1 million tax break from this deal.

Vikram Pandit, the CEO of Citigroup, a bank that got more than $2.5 trillion in near zero interest loans from the Fed, will receive an estimated $785,000 tax break by extending the Bush tax cuts.

Ken Lewis, the former CEO of Bank of America, a bank that got nearly a trillion dollars in low interest loans from the Fed, will receive an estimated $713,000 tax break.

The CEO of Wells Fargo (John Stumpf), whose bank got a $25 billion bailout, will receive an $813,000 tax break from this deal.

The CEO of Morgan Stanley (John Mack), whose bank got more than $2 trillion in low interest loans from the Fed, will receive a $926,000 tax break from this agreement.

The CEO of Aetna (Ronald Williams) will receive a tax break worth $875,000.

The CEO of Cigna (David Cordani) will receive a $350,000 tax break. And, on and on it goes.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class disappears. That is what is going on in this country today.

Then, Mr. President, In April, the Republicans in Congress were prepared to shut down the government, disrupt the economy, and deny paychecks to 800,000 federal workers if they couldn’t get their way in slashing programs for low and moderate income Americans. As a result, the President and this Congress agreed to virtually everything the Republicans wanted by enacting a budget that slashed $78 billion from the President’s request.

Let me give you just a few examples of what kinds of cuts were included in this year’s spending agreement:

At a time when college education has become unaffordable for many, Pell grants are now being reduced by an estimated $35 billion over 10 years.

At a time when 50 million Americans have no health insurance, at a time when we have a crisis in access to primary care, and at a time when 45,000 Americans die each and every year because they delay seeking care they cannot afford, the 2011 spending agreement cut $600 million from community health centers and $3.5 billion from the Children's Health Insurance Program.

At a time when we should be putting Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, federal funding for new high-speed rail projects was eliminated. In other words, the rich get richer, while the needs of ordinary Americans are attacked.

And, today, the Republican Leadership has made it clear that, unless they get their way on implementing a significant part of the Ryan budget in 2012, they are prepared to vote against raising the debt ceiling. If the debt ceiling is not extended, the United States will, for the first time in history, default on its debt and likely plunge the world’s financial markets into a major crisis. Yet that is just what the Republican leadership and its members are threatening to do. Shame on them.

Mr. President, in many ways, the Republicans in Washington have been acting like school yard bullies. And, as we know, bullying is a serious problem in our schools. Every educator worth his or her salt will tell you that when you’re dealing with a bully, you must not give into their tactics or tolerate their temper tantrums – you have to deal with them sternly and consistently. You cannot allow them to win by dictating the rules of the game and trampling over everyone else if they don’t get their way.

Mr. President, we have a serious deficit problem that must be solved, no one would deny it.

But the problem is not that we spend too much on the needs of the elderly and have to slash Social Security; the problem is that we have provided hundreds of billions in tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who don’t need them and in many cases don’t want them.

The problem is not that we spend too much money on financial aid for college and have to slash Pell Grants. The average college senior today is graduating with $24,000 in debt. The problem is that each and every year, large corporations and the wealthiest in our society are avoiding $100 billion in federal taxes through tax shelters in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and other places throughout the world.

The problem is not that we are spending too much on childcare. Childcare is increasingly becoming out of reach for too many American families. The problem is that about one out of four large and profitable corporations in this country do not pay any federal income taxes, and in many cases get a tax rebate from the IRS.

The problem is not that we spend too much money to reduce childhood poverty in this country. We have the highest childhood poverty rate in the industrialized world! The problem is that when all is said and done we will have spent $3 trillion on the unnecessary and misguided Iraq War.

Mr. President, the problem is that this deficit was caused by actions voted for by nearly all of my Republican friends: the wars, tax breaks for the rich, Medicare Part D, and the Wall Street Bailout. In the middle of a recession when the middle class and working families are already hurting, when poverty is increasing it is not only immoral, it is bad economics to balance the budget on working families and the most vulnerable people in this country.

When people are hurting, when they have lost their jobs, when their incomes are going down, you do not say to those people: We are throwing you off Medicaid. We are going to end Medicare as we know it, we are going to cut back on Federal aid to education so your kid cannot go to college. That is not what you say in a humane and fair society.

On the other hand, at the same time as the wealthiest people are becoming phenomenally wealthier, and when large corporations are making huge profits, and in many cases not paying any taxes at all, it is entirely appropriate – in fact, it is a moral imperative – to say to those people: Sorry, you are also American. You have got to participate in shared sacrifice. You have also got to help us reduce the deficit.

That is where we are right now. We are at a pivotal moment in the midst of a major debate, but it is not only on financial issues. It is very much a philosophical debate. It is a debate about which side you are on. Do you continue to give tax breaks to the very rich and make savage cuts for working families, for children, the elderly, the poor, the most vulnerable?

Mr. President, another thing that is rarely mentioned on the floor of the Senate is the $3 trillion Federal Reserve bailout, that was only fully made public after I inserted an amendment into the Dodd-Frank Act last year to require that it be made public.

As it turns out, while small business owners in the State of Vermont and throughout this country were being turned down for loans, not only did large financial institutions receive substantial help from the Fed, but also some of the largest corporations in this country also received help in terms of very low interest loans.

And, here is something we also learned: this bailout was not just about American banks and corporations but foreign banks and foreign corporations also received hundreds of billions of dollars from the Fed as well.

Then, on top of that, a number of the wealthiest individuals in this country also received a major bailout from the Fed. The "emergency response,'' which is what the Fed described their action as during the Wall Street collapse, appears to any objective observer to have been the clearest case that I can imagine of socialism for the very rich and rugged free market individualism for everybody else.

In other words, if you are a huge financial institution, like Goldman Sachs, whose recklessness and greed caused this great recession, no problem. You get almost $800 bilion in near zero interest rate loans from the Fed. If you are a major American corporation, such as General Electric or McDonald's or Caterpillar or Harley-Davidson or Verizon, no problem. You received a major handout from the U.S. Government.

But if you are a senior citizen living in a nursing home paid for by Medicaid, well, guess what, you are on your own.

If you are an elderly person who cannot afford to heat their homes in the winter when the temperature is 20 below zero, tough luck. We don't have any money for you. But, if you happen to be the state-owned Bank of Bavaria -- not Pennsylvania, not California, but Bavaria -- the Federal Reserve has enough money to loan you over $2.2 billion by purchasing your commercial paper.

The Fed said this bailout was necessary in order to prevent the world economy from going over a cliff. But over 3 years after the start of the recession, millions of Americans remain unemployed and have lost their homes, their life savings, and their ability to send their kids to college. Meanwhile, huge banks and large corporations have returned to making incredible profits and paying their executives record-breaking compensation packages, as if the financial crisis they started never occurred.

Mr. President, everyone understands that over the long-term we have got to reduce our record-breaking $14.2 trillion national debt. But, we must reduce the deficit in a fair way and not balance the budget solely on the backs of the middle class, the sick, the elderly, the children and the poor.

That means we absolutely must tell the wealthy and large corporations that it is high time that they to pay their fair share in taxes. And, that means that the President has got to stand tall and stand firm and let the American people know that if we do default on our debt obligations, if America and the world economy is plunged into a depression, it was because the Republicans refused to raise the taxes of the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations in this country by one red cent.

Shared sacrifice isn't just good public policy, it is also what the American people want. Overwhelming majorities of the American people believe that the best way to reduce the deficit is to end tax breaks for the wealthy, big oil, Wall Street, and that we must bring our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's about time that Washington listened to the American people. Let's reduce the deficit. But, let's do it in a fair and responsible way that requires shared sacrifice from the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations.

I thank the President and I yield the floor.