Economy
7 Economic Lies
Robert Reich explains the 7 Economic Lies in 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This is an old one, but a good one.
Nick Hanauer’s Income Inequality Ted Talk
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“…The true job creators are Middle Class consumers…”
Entitlement Myths
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Let’s get started with our economic week with a video about entitlement myths.
A Week Of Economics
For the next week, I’m only going to post videos about the economy. Ones that breakdown the myths that we hear in the media and from the pundits. A lot of them will be from Robert Reich – an economic genius.
Enjoy!
Romney’s Lack Of A True Tax Plan
I write this just hours before the second Presidential Debate. As I write this, Romney is pulling slightly a head of President Obama in the polls. Given the plus/minus ratio, President Obama has not only lost his lead, he is effectively tied with Mitt Romney. This is without Romney releasing more than two years of his taxes, with Paul Ryan still dazed by his debate loss to Vice President Biden and without the Romney/Ryan team releasing a full and complete tax plan.
The latter of these is my greatest concern. You can’t cut $5 trillion out of Federal revenues without cutting the Federal budget severely. Period.
Romney/Ryan aren’t stating what will be cut. They aren’t detailing what loopholes they’re going to close. Will they take away the mortgage deduction? Early in his campaign, Romney said he would for families earning more than $250,000 but that didn’t go over well, so his team backed off as quickly as they mentioned it.
The only spending cut Romney actually promotes is the $444 million spent each year on public television. That’s less than a percent of our spending – big savings there. But, he’s talking about cutting $5 trillion in taxes. To leave the deficit as is, $5 trillion will have to cut from our spending and what should be cut?
You can’t cut defense. In addition to the welfare of our country, there are economic issues to consider. We spend less in defense, defense companies lay off employees and unemployment rises.
What about infrastructure? That has to be ruled out. Our nation’s roads, bridges and other structures are in the worse shape. We have been neglecting the majority of our infrastructure (exception is Wisconsin).
There are other programs. Romney wants to eliminate the Department of Education, that would be a huge savings and a very bad idea. We need to educate our nation’s youth, not throw them aside like yesterday’s news.
I’m just throwing ideas out here, because Romney/Ryan certainly never give us any.
Be warned: the great state of Wisconsin elected Scott Walker after he promised to lower taxes and create 450,000 jobs in his first four years. So, far, Walker has cut some taxes (mine haven’t dropped any), cut Education spending in the state and the unemployment rate – after a slight drop – is 7.5%. This isn’t the highest it has been under Scott Walker, but it is back on the rise.
In New Jersey, where Christie reigns, their unemployment is 9.9% – higher than the Nation’s. If the economy is what you care about, then Romney’s policies are not what you want. They aren’t working on the state level (cut taxes, cut spending ) and they won’t work on the national level.
Romney’s 47%
Back in May, Mitt Romney went to a Florida fundraiser and basically called the 47% of Obama supporters victims. His mistake was confusing the 46% of Americans who do not pay Federal Income Tax with the 47% of Americans who are supporting President Obama.
And, he said it to a room full of rich people who believe the same thing.
A lot of news casts have been focusing on the people who make up the 46%, but I don’t think that is the only lesson we should take from this. I think we should also realize that how Romney described Obama supporters is how Romney and other conservatives actually see us. If I had a dollar for every time a Republican has called me lazy when all they know about me is that I write a blog, I’d be almost as rich as Romney. I’ve been told to get a job, too. People like Romney have been kept so far from normal people that they can’t understand how a working person might consider paying taxes as the price we pay for living in the greatest country on earth.
Rich people like Romney are really the ones who feel entitled. In trying to dig himself out of this hold, Romney has been saying that people need good paying jobs and he strongly suggests that President Obama would rather give handouts. But, the irony on Romney’s statement is lost on him and most Republicans : People like Romney are the reason there aren’t more good paying jobs in America. In the search for cheap labor, the so-called job creators have laid off Americans and moved their factories overseas. Then, they rake in the big bucks and demand to pay less taxes.
Last night, Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan laid the blame of the slow recovery at President Obama’s feet. He claims that President Obama has failed and we “deserve a real real recovery.” But, Ryan is wrong. This is what recovery looks like. It took years to get to the recession and it will take years to recover from the recession. The last thing we need running this country are a spoiled rich boy and an Ayn Rand follower.
We need men who know what it’s like to work hard to obtain their dreams, not someone who’s father purchased his first house and someone else who went to school on Social Security benefits, but wants to cut them for everyone else.
Top Of My Head 