| George W. Bush,
the anti-Robin Hood
He and his GOP-run Congrees just love rich
people,
|
GW Bush represents government by rich people, and FOR rich people. Everything he and his cronies do is designed to help make more money for those who already have it. If you ain't in that class, you're only going to sink lower in life. The middle class, which is the backbone of the USA, has gotten progressively screwed. Here's the rundown on how they've done this.
Quick stat: Poverty was at a 26-year low when Bush took over. As of March 2007, it was at a 32-year HIGH.
Min wage | Estate tax | Fed spending | Tax breaks | Tax rebate | Bankruptcy | Tax reform | Soc Sec reform | Hurricane | Uninsured children
Congress doesn't raise the minimum wage for a
decade. In that time, they give themselves nine pay increases, while gas
has gone up 150%, and other indicators of buying power have dropped. The
only way the GOP scum in Congress would vote on it is to bundle it with
a break on inheritance taxes affecting only million-dollar estates. In
other words, the working poor have to wait in line while the rich get yet
another break from these scumbags.
The inheritance tax affects a fraction of one
percent of the population. Abolishing it will take hundreds of billions
out of the treasury and contribute massively to the deficit. But Bush and
his crony Congress did just that, doing nothing for the little people in
the process. August 2006, this Congress had such a mojo to cut taxes
on multi-million dollar estates that they tied it to a raise in the
minimum wage. These disingenuous bastards said, sure, we'll give the
working poor a break, but only if our rich sponsors get mroe for themselves
as well. SLEAZY. Even right-minded Republicans screamed about this one.
Congress is looking at cutting costs, in the wake of hurricane relief, record deficits, and voters finally coming out of their haze and realizing that we're in a big, black hole. So in November 2005, they finally bite the bullet and get down to taking stuff out of the budget. What do they want to cut? Food stamps. Medicare. Heating bill help for poor people. Education. Bush seems to have no problem with that. But he threatens to to veto the bill if it touches defense spending.
What is Congress not going to cut? Their own bloated, unnecessary highway spending bill, with the quarter-billion dollar bridge to nowhere. Four thousand pet projects (that is not a joke, by the way). They also plan on extending tax cuts that will mainly benefit the wealthy, and adding to cuts in taxes on capital gains and other investment income. Bush says not a thing. This is OK with him.
In fact, Congress wanted, in November 2005, to cut $30 billion in spending, but at the same time offer an additional $60 billion in tax cuts that would mostly benefit upper income citizens. Their new cuts would help more wealthy people, and MORE than wipe out the savings WTF !!!!!!
December 2005, RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS,
the GOP Congress voted to extend Medicaid and Medicare payments to drug
companies, while at the same time raising co-payments for the poor folks
and old folks who need help. Also in the Medicaid mess was a provision
that would make it harder for old folks to transfer assets to their kids
in order to pay for nursing home care, while regional health companies
were able to keep a subsidy that it meant to lure them into the Medicaid
program.
The way they've restructured taxes so far, rich people pay a smaller percentage than ever. Sure, the middle class is also paying less, but they're not shouldering a much larger portion, percentage-wise. And Bush has in mind even bigger tax cuts for the wealthy. If he cut out just those massive tax breaks for the upper couple percent, he could start to bring fiscal sanity back to the country. But that ain't gonna happen.
In fact, as of November 2005, some of the cost-cutting the GOP-controlled Congress has in mind, with Bush's blessing, to deal with hurricane rebuilding, also includes additional tax breaks that primarily benefit the wealthy. The net result will be ADDING to the deficit. Unbelievable.
Remember the tax breaks for people who bought SUVs for their businesses? How in the hell did that EVER make sense? Now people are running away from SUVs like mad, as they should.
January 2006, Bush and his rubber stamp Congress are allowing to expire two taxes that were put in place in 1990 by Bush's dad for the purpose of relieving the deficit. The ensuing tax breaks will take $27 billion out of the U.S. Treasury, and benefit ONLY millionaires. Literally.
Goldman-Sachs put out a report in mid-2006, saying
that the investment scene has been good because of the the distribution
of income away from the labor class.
So dumbass GW Bush could look like Santa Claus
for one brief, shining moment, he handed out a tax rebate early in his
first term. He could have taken that money and shored up Social Security.
The average American got a rebate check less than the amount of the average
car payment or mortgage payment. It made not one bit of difference to the
economy. His reasoning was, if we have a surplus, then we've collected
too much money. But THEN he went on to spend money we didn't have. So instead
of paying for it up front, it being all the shit he's gotten on credit
(like the Iraq war), he's going to let his successor figure out how to
pay for it, for the next hundred years.
These are a complete joke. Under the new Bush bankruptcy laws the GOP-controlled Congress passed, if you have a lot of assets, but you go bust, you can shield those assets. On the other hand, if you're NOT as well off, and you go bankrupt, you can't get any relief from creditors.
Now, here's the REAL crime of this new law. Most people with significant assets who go broke do so because they overextended themselves. In other words, they got stupid and/or greedy. The folks without assets who go bust more often than not go bust because of catastrophic illness. So this law does NOTHING but benefit people with lots of cash. That is its sole purpose.
The immediate whammy of this dumbass law is the
huge number of people filing for bankruptcy after all the hurricanes
of 2005. They're rushing to file, because after the new law takes effect,
they're screwed.
Bush wants to simplify the tax codes, and eliminate most deductions. BUT ...... he wants to skip taxation on most investment income. It's a gift to the wealthy, and nothing else. It's all about giving money to people who already have it, and doing nothing to elevate the rest of the population.
November 2007: Democrats want to do what millions of Americans WANT
Congress to do: fix the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which was devised
back in 1969 to insure that rich folks paid their fair share. Because of
poor math built into it, the AMT has snagged increasing numbers of the
middle class. The GOP has long gone along with the notion of fixing it,
but now they're starting to waver, because the AMT will affect more blue
state than red state residents. They're also calling it a tax increase
on the rich. As usual, these slugs kiss the asses of their more affluent
constituents, insulting the middle class.
To Bush, SS reform did not exist without private accounts. Instead of using the surplus to fund SS, his big, bold, brilliant plan was to let the idiots out there who have no idea how to invest pick investment vehicles. Three things are instantly, obviously, radically wrong with this approach.
- It takes money OUT of the system, on the GAMBLE that eventually it will FIX the system.
- When the various morons who pick the wrong investments end up losing a lot of their cash, they're going to come back to the gummint ANYWAY to get bailed out. The odds are very good that a whole lot of people WILL invest badly. So ultimately it will cost us all more.
- It benefits all the investment houses and bankers out there, which is really the whole idea in the first place. To Bush, there IS no Social Security reform WITHOUT private accounts, which will enrich the money-handlers. Once again, Bush wants to put money in the pockets of Big Business.
Hurricane aftermath
Check out how the Bush gummint is using the mess
following Hurricane Katrina to make rich people
richer.
The SCHIP program was designed to insure children
from poorer families. Dems AND Republicans both supported upping the program
to cover literally millions more children. Bush hypocritically threatened
to veto the measure, saying the add-on kids added too much money to the
program, even though during six years of GOP majority rule, he NEVER ONCE
VETOED A SPENDING BILL, not even the ridicuously bloated highway spending
bill with the half-billion-dollar bridge to nowhere. EVERYBODY piled on
the prex for this one, and then sure enough, he f____g vetoed it. So bloated
spending is okay when it's the GOP doing it, but spending that actually
helps people is NOT okay when the Dems are in control. Bush is a f____g
idiot.
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