Thursday, March 22, 2012

The XL Pipeline and Other Progressive Rumblings; A Letter to the President

The Keystone XL pipeline is touted as necessary, even though it will lead to only 50 permanent jobs, and any output will be sold abroad, not here in the U.S. And there is a reason that Canada does not want the pipeline to be built to their seaports. It is called the environment.

The price of crude oil is set on the world markets, and speculation in oil future's markets has increased dramatically, yet we are told that somehow gasoline prices can be lowered by the actions of the president, and in particular, by allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to be built. Those gas prices rise or fall world-wide, and the major difference in gasoline prices across the globe is due to taxes.

Support for the pipeline sounds like a purely political move at the expense of the environment.

We want the progressive president that we elected in 2008, not someone who continually caves in to the uncompromising demands of the opposition party. We need someone who understands that the GOP wants low revenues in order to cut social programs. We need someone who understands that individual responsibility without social responsibility is just selfishness and greed.

We need someone who will stop mixing general revenues with the payroll tax revenues in the Social Security Trust Fund; general funds in the Trust Fund gives the GOP the excuse they want in order to cut expenses by cutting Social Security. We need someone who will fight for allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices rather than paying whatever the pharmaceutical companies demand.

We need someone who will refuse, absolutely refuse, to allow the Bush tax cuts to continue. We need someone who demands an end to preferential tax treatment for income from working money over income from working people; end the 15% capital gains tax and treat capital gains (and special dividend income) the same as regular income. Anything else is a slap in the face to blue-collar workers.

End the saddling of expenses on companies in the form of employee health care insurance. American companies which employ American workers have to compete with overseas companies which have employees with national health care. Fight for health insurance which is not dependent on the type and longevity of employment as well as the size of the company. That alone would help small businesses attract quality employees.

Again, please stand up for the principles of candidate Obama, and become the great president we so desperately need.

Monday, March 19, 2012

On the Road Again to 1929 - The JOBS Act

Copy of Letter to Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN):
I am writing about your YES vote on the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, HR3606 (JOBS, or Jumpstart Only Big Scams Act).

Thank you for voting to end protections that were put in place after the stock market crash of 1929. And thank you for making the raising of capital more difficult and expensive because of the increased risk of fraud.

Exempting some types of transactions from SEC disclosure requirements as well as getting rid of penalties for lying will definitely make raising capital easier.

Getting rid of many parts of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law will facilitate the return to the era of innovative accounting such as those practiced by Enron and WorldCom.

We have already eliminated the Glass-Steagall Act which kept commercial and investment banking separate, allowing bad investments to endanger commercial financing. With taxpayer financed bail-outs available, what danger could there really be?

So let's say good-bye to investor protections and give more jobs to people like Bernie Madoff and others who benefit from laws promoting economic self-destruction.

And by the way, how much did those securities industry special interests have to contribute to get you to vote yes on this bill? I bet you sold out real cheap.
This is yet another bill whose purpose is at odds with the title, unless the title only refers to the jobs of our representatives in Congress. I have also written my other representatives, President Obama, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) to let them know my opinion of this bill.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

AARP Wants Social Security Cuts Again?

From the Huffington Post, we have that AARP "will soon be holding a private, principals-only 'salon-style conversation' with a host of advocates of entitlement cuts." A petition opposing this outrage is at FireDogLake.com.

AARP meeting "off-the-record" with social security opponents to discuss strategies for changing Social Security, including possible benefit cuts? How ignorant and despicable!

The only change which should be made is to raise the cap at which payroll taxes are taken out (the cap should be indexed, not fixed), and that is only to insure full benefits past the next 25 years.

Raise the retirement age? You have got to be kidding. Social Security is fully funded for 25 years at current retirement ages. Will you penalize future retirees because of lies? And get rid of the payroll tax holiday and stop mixing our retirement insurance payments with general revenues.

If AARP want me as a future member, they had better start acting like advocates for seniors.

And get rid of AARP CEO Barry Rand along with whoever advises him. NOW!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Romney for President?

Crony capitalism, disaster capitalism, lies and super pacs. Now Romney wants to reduce capital gains from 15% to 0%, eliminate corporate taxes altogether, and reduce income taxes (the wealthy would be the prime beneficiaries). Romney says he can do this and still balance the budget without touching military spending, Social Security or Medicare. It is a snow job, pure and simple. Thirty years of reducing taxes on the rich, two unfunded wars, a Medicare prescription plan that pays pharmaceutical companies whatever they want (no negotiation), reduced revenues due to Bush's recession, and we are told that spending is the problem?

The rich pay a smaller percentage of their income than the middle class in federal taxes, and most of their income is exempt from payroll taxes. Yet we are told that the poor are taking money out of the rich man's pocket, even though it is clearly the rich who are taking from the rest of us.

We have effectively eliminated our borders and invited the 50 cents-an-hour workers of the world to take American jobs using unfair free trade agreements.

We force corporations to pay for health insurance for long term full-time employees, then blame taxes and regulations for difficulties in competing with companies in other countries that have universal health care. And those who make minimum wage or are not full-time employees need not apply for health insurance.

We are told that jobs are the number one priority, and watch while state after state tries to balance budgets by eliminating public sector jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, police, firefighters, maintenance and highway workers.

We are told Social Security needs fixing and privatizing, even though it is self-funded (except for the misguided tax holiday), has a $2.6 trillion surplus (increasing to at least $3.3 trillion dollars by 2020) to handle baby boomers retiring, and can pay full benefits for the next 25 years.

The firewall between investment banks and commercial banks was eliminated, and ten years later, exactly as predicted, the economy crashed. Republicans blame Democrats for the state of the economy, even though the crash happened during Bush's presidency.

The price of crude oil is set on the world markets, and speculation in oil future's markets has increased dramatically, yet we are told that somehow Obama is to blame for high gasoline prices. Those prices rise or fall world-wide, and the major difference in gasoline prices across the globe is due to taxes. The Keystone XL pipeline is touted as necessary, even though it will lead to only 50 permanent jobs, and any output will be sold abroad, not here in the U.S. And there is a reason that Canada does not want the pipeline to be built to their seaports. It is called the environment.

Conservatives are willing to take the United States to the brink of default in their stubborn insistance on not ending any tax cuts, but point to the national debt as the fault of spending instead of reduced revenues.

Conservatives are falling all over themselves proclaiming their godliness, while they implement socialism for the rich and diaster capitalism for the rest of us. They are leaving most of us to fend for ourselves in their version of social darwinism for the less well-off, preferring individual responsibility without social responsibility.