Post by TonyV on Feb 21, 2011 4:03:06 GMT -5
Hello, I would like to bring your attention on a new post published on the
UAWLAP.org Site.
Details of the post follow.
In Solidarity,
Steven M. Stone
THE REAL REPUBLICAN AGENDA
By: Robert Reich
The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class -- pitting
unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against
non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against
younger workers who don't believe these programs will be there for them, and the
poor against the working middle class.
By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans hope to deflect
attention from the big story. That's the increasing share of total income and
wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else
languish.
Republicans would rather no one notice their campaign to generate further tax
cuts for the rich -- making the Bush tax cuts permanent, further reducing the
estate tax, and allowing the wealthy to shift ever more of their income into
capital gains taxed at 15 percent.
The strategy has three parts:
The battle over the federal budget.
The first is being played out in the budget battle in Washington. As they raise
the alarm over deficit spending and simultaneously squeeze popular middle-class
programs, Republicans want the majority of the American public to view it all as
a giant zero-sum game among average Americans that some will have to lose.
The President has already fallen into the trap by calling for budget cuts in
programs the poor and working class depend on -- assistance with home heating,
community services, college loans, and the like.
In the coming showdown over Medicare and Social Security, House budget chair
Paul Ryan will push a voucher system for Medicare and a partly-privatized plan
for Social Security -- both designed to attract younger middle-class voters.
The assault on public employees
The second part of the Republican strategy is being played out on the state
level where public employees are being blamed for state budget crises brought on
by plummeting revenues. Republicans view this as an opportunity to gut public
employee unions, starting with teachers.
Wisconsin's Republican governor Scott Walker and his GOP legislature are seeking
to end almost all union rights for teachers. Ohio's Republican governor John
Kasich is pushing a similar plan in Ohio through a Republican-dominated
legislature. New Jersey's Republican governor Chris Christie is attempting the
same, telling a conservative conference Wednesday, "I'm attacking the leadership
of the union because they're greedy, and they're selfish and they're
self-interested."
As I've noted, this demonizing of public employees is premised on false data.
Public employees don't earn more than private-sector workers when you take
account of their education. To the contrary, over the last fifteen years the pay
of public-sector workers, including teachers, has dropped relative to
private-sector employees with the same level of education – even if you
include health and retirement benefits. Moreover, most public employees don't
have generous pensions. After a career with annual pay averaging less than ,000,
the typical newly-retired public employee receives a pension of ,000 a year.
Bargaining rights for public employees haven't caused state deficits to explode.
Some states that deny their employees bargaining rights, such as Nevada, North
Carolina, and Arizona, are running big deficits of over 30 percent of spending.
Many states that give employees bargaining rights -- Massachusetts, New Mexico,
and Montana -- have small deficits of less than 10 percent.
Republicans would rather go after teachers and other public employees than have
us look at the pay of Wall Street traders, private-equity managers, and heads of
hedge funds -- many of whom wouldn't have their jobs today were it not for the
giant taxpayer-supported bailout.
Last year, America's top thirteen hedge-fund managers earned an average of
billion each. One of them took home billion. Much of their income is taxed as
capital gains -- at 15 percent -- due to a tax loophole that Republican members
of Congress have steadfastly guarded.
If the earnings of those thirteen hedge-fund managers were taxed as ordinary
income, the revenues generated would pay the salaries and benefits of over 5
million teachers. Who is more valuable to our society -- thirteen hedge-fund
managers or 5 million teachers? Let's make the question even simpler. Who is
more valuable: One hedge fund manager or one teacher?
The Distortion of the Constitution
The third part of the Republican strategy is being played out in the Supreme
Court. It has politicized the Court more than at any time in recent memory.
Last year a majority of the justices determined that corporations have a right
under the First Amendment to provide unlimited amounts of money to political
candidates. Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission is among the
most patently political and legally grotesque decisions of our highest court --
ranking right up there with Bush vs. Gore and Dred Scott.
Among those who voted in the affirmative were Clarence Thomas and Antonin
Scalia. Both have become active strategists in the Republican party.
A month ago, for example, Antonin Scalia met in a closed-door session with
Michele Bachmann's Tea Party caucus -- something no justice concerned about
maintaining the appearance of impartiality would ever have done.
Both Thomas and Scalia have participated in political retreats organized and
hosted by multi-billionaire financier Charles Koch, a major contributor to the
Tea Party and other conservative organizations, and a crusader for ending all
limits on money in politics. (Not incidentally, Thomas's wife is the founder of
Liberty Central, a Tea Party organization that has been receiving unlimited
corporate contributions due to the Citizens United decision. On his obligatory
financial disclosure filings, Thomas has repeatedly failed to list her sources
of income over the last twenty years, nor even to include his own four-day
retreats courtesy of Charles Koch.)
Some time this year or next, the Supreme Court will be asked to consider whether
the nation's new healthcare law is constitutional. Watch your wallets.
The strategy as a whole
These three aspects of the Republican strategy -- a federal budget battle to
shrink government, focused on programs the vast middle class depends on; state
efforts to undermine public employees, whom the middle class depends on; and a
Supreme Court dedicated to bending the Constitution to enlarge and entrench the
political power of the wealthy -- fit perfectly together.
They pit average working Americans against one another, distract attention from
the almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and power at the top, and
conceal Republican plans to further enlarge and entrench that wealth and power.
What is the Democratic strategy to counter this and reclaim America for the rest
of us?
Link to the post:
uawlap.org/building-chairpersons-report/the-real-republican-agenda.php
Link to UAWLAP.org: uawlap.org
UAWLAP.org Site.
Details of the post follow.
In Solidarity,
Steven M. Stone
THE REAL REPUBLICAN AGENDA
By: Robert Reich
The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class -- pitting
unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against
non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against
younger workers who don't believe these programs will be there for them, and the
poor against the working middle class.
By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans hope to deflect
attention from the big story. That's the increasing share of total income and
wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else
languish.
Republicans would rather no one notice their campaign to generate further tax
cuts for the rich -- making the Bush tax cuts permanent, further reducing the
estate tax, and allowing the wealthy to shift ever more of their income into
capital gains taxed at 15 percent.
The strategy has three parts:
The battle over the federal budget.
The first is being played out in the budget battle in Washington. As they raise
the alarm over deficit spending and simultaneously squeeze popular middle-class
programs, Republicans want the majority of the American public to view it all as
a giant zero-sum game among average Americans that some will have to lose.
The President has already fallen into the trap by calling for budget cuts in
programs the poor and working class depend on -- assistance with home heating,
community services, college loans, and the like.
In the coming showdown over Medicare and Social Security, House budget chair
Paul Ryan will push a voucher system for Medicare and a partly-privatized plan
for Social Security -- both designed to attract younger middle-class voters.
The assault on public employees
The second part of the Republican strategy is being played out on the state
level where public employees are being blamed for state budget crises brought on
by plummeting revenues. Republicans view this as an opportunity to gut public
employee unions, starting with teachers.
Wisconsin's Republican governor Scott Walker and his GOP legislature are seeking
to end almost all union rights for teachers. Ohio's Republican governor John
Kasich is pushing a similar plan in Ohio through a Republican-dominated
legislature. New Jersey's Republican governor Chris Christie is attempting the
same, telling a conservative conference Wednesday, "I'm attacking the leadership
of the union because they're greedy, and they're selfish and they're
self-interested."
As I've noted, this demonizing of public employees is premised on false data.
Public employees don't earn more than private-sector workers when you take
account of their education. To the contrary, over the last fifteen years the pay
of public-sector workers, including teachers, has dropped relative to
private-sector employees with the same level of education – even if you
include health and retirement benefits. Moreover, most public employees don't
have generous pensions. After a career with annual pay averaging less than ,000,
the typical newly-retired public employee receives a pension of ,000 a year.
Bargaining rights for public employees haven't caused state deficits to explode.
Some states that deny their employees bargaining rights, such as Nevada, North
Carolina, and Arizona, are running big deficits of over 30 percent of spending.
Many states that give employees bargaining rights -- Massachusetts, New Mexico,
and Montana -- have small deficits of less than 10 percent.
Republicans would rather go after teachers and other public employees than have
us look at the pay of Wall Street traders, private-equity managers, and heads of
hedge funds -- many of whom wouldn't have their jobs today were it not for the
giant taxpayer-supported bailout.
Last year, America's top thirteen hedge-fund managers earned an average of
billion each. One of them took home billion. Much of their income is taxed as
capital gains -- at 15 percent -- due to a tax loophole that Republican members
of Congress have steadfastly guarded.
If the earnings of those thirteen hedge-fund managers were taxed as ordinary
income, the revenues generated would pay the salaries and benefits of over 5
million teachers. Who is more valuable to our society -- thirteen hedge-fund
managers or 5 million teachers? Let's make the question even simpler. Who is
more valuable: One hedge fund manager or one teacher?
The Distortion of the Constitution
The third part of the Republican strategy is being played out in the Supreme
Court. It has politicized the Court more than at any time in recent memory.
Last year a majority of the justices determined that corporations have a right
under the First Amendment to provide unlimited amounts of money to political
candidates. Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission is among the
most patently political and legally grotesque decisions of our highest court --
ranking right up there with Bush vs. Gore and Dred Scott.
Among those who voted in the affirmative were Clarence Thomas and Antonin
Scalia. Both have become active strategists in the Republican party.
A month ago, for example, Antonin Scalia met in a closed-door session with
Michele Bachmann's Tea Party caucus -- something no justice concerned about
maintaining the appearance of impartiality would ever have done.
Both Thomas and Scalia have participated in political retreats organized and
hosted by multi-billionaire financier Charles Koch, a major contributor to the
Tea Party and other conservative organizations, and a crusader for ending all
limits on money in politics. (Not incidentally, Thomas's wife is the founder of
Liberty Central, a Tea Party organization that has been receiving unlimited
corporate contributions due to the Citizens United decision. On his obligatory
financial disclosure filings, Thomas has repeatedly failed to list her sources
of income over the last twenty years, nor even to include his own four-day
retreats courtesy of Charles Koch.)
Some time this year or next, the Supreme Court will be asked to consider whether
the nation's new healthcare law is constitutional. Watch your wallets.
The strategy as a whole
These three aspects of the Republican strategy -- a federal budget battle to
shrink government, focused on programs the vast middle class depends on; state
efforts to undermine public employees, whom the middle class depends on; and a
Supreme Court dedicated to bending the Constitution to enlarge and entrench the
political power of the wealthy -- fit perfectly together.
They pit average working Americans against one another, distract attention from
the almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and power at the top, and
conceal Republican plans to further enlarge and entrench that wealth and power.
What is the Democratic strategy to counter this and reclaim America for the rest
of us?
Link to the post:
uawlap.org/building-chairpersons-report/the-real-republican-agenda.php
Link to UAWLAP.org: uawlap.org
then went after a public unions collective bargaining rights, the teachers, even after they agreed to other concessions. Not the Police or Firemen, the teachers. 
Of the 5 states that currently prohibit teachers collective bargaining rights, Tx., Va., NC, SC, and Ga. thier education scores have fallen versus the rest of the Nation. 
