How A Republic Dies: By A Thousand Tax Cuts

Update: thanks again to Batocchio for linking this on the daily Mike's Blog Round-Up at Crooks and Liars!

So this week we're facing the financial end of the American Republic.

After learning blistering lessons from their health care debacle, the GOP Senate has managed -- so far -- to hold their conference together and keep inching toward legislation that will extensively rewrite the country's tax code for the first time in three decades.

But, behind-the-scenes negotiations continue and there is plenty that could go wrong. The party nearly skidded off schedule Tuesday over concerns from Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Corker wanted to ensure that tax bill would actually lead to economic growth and was able to secure an agreement in principle that would trigger some kind of automatic tax increase if the GOP's anticipated growth didn't materialize. Johnson, meanwhile, went into the GOP tax vote in the Budget Committee still frustrated about the way the tax bill treated tax rates for pass-through business income, but voted anyway to advance the proposal, saying that he wanted to keep the process going.

The Republicans voted for it in spite of the fact there are serious problems with what they are about to pass.

The House passed a tax cut plan earlier, one that promises to gut pretty much everything that's not a defense spending bill on planes that won't work.

And this is all happening despite this tax plan being one of the most unpopular things in the universe. 

All of this will cost the government trillions in lost revenue. Republicans are hoping to partially offset that massive expense by eliminating tax breaks that many people, and companies, currently enjoy, and will be very unhappy to lose. The entire home-building industry has already decided to go to war against the plan because it’s worried the bill will kill off deductions for homeowners. Northeastern and California Republicans are in open revolt over a proposal to curtail the deduction for state and local taxes, which their constituents rely on.

Meanwhile, virtually every credible bit of public polling suggests that, if anything, ordinary American think that taxes on big business should be higher, not lower. In September, the Pew Research Center found that 52 percent of Americans thought that corporate taxes should go up; just 24 thought they should go down. In April, 67 percent of adults told Gallup that corporations paid “too little” in taxes. This week, CBS News found that 56 percent of its survey-takers favored a corporate tax hike, while only 17 percent backed a cut.

Even among the GOP’s base, corporate tax cuts simply aren’t that popular. Pew found that just 48 percent of conservatives who either identify as Republican or lean towards the party think that corporate taxes should come down; 49 percent thought they should go up or stay the same. Among all Republicans and leaners, including moderates, just 41 favored lowering the corporate tax burden.

And yet, this is happening. The Republicans are risking a massive backlash by the public if they pass their efforts to slash taxes for the rich and the corporations...

...and yet NOTHING and NOBODY will hold them accountable if they do.

Welcome to the consequences of where campaign finance laws make it easy for the rich to buy up elected officials like so many toys. Welcome to the consequences of gerrymandered districts that make it easy for incumbents to remain elected regardless of their bad legislation until scandal or retirement drives them out. Welcome to the media bubble of the Far Right where Republicans can shelter themselves among like-minded tax cut dereg acolytes who fervently worship at the teats of Mammon.

It'd be pretty to think that in 2018 a voter revolt will cast out these crooks. But I despair over the fact that our political landscape is so partisan that even common sense no longer has an effect on people. Just look at Alabama: they are poised to vote for a publicly known pedophile who chased after TEEN GIRLS in his Thirties in Roy Moore, all because he's a Republican Bible-thumping conservative on "their" team.

I'm with John Cole, who's come to the same depressing shore as I have:

This tax cut is less popular than past tax INCREASES. A while back I made a joke about what compromise was like with crazy people:

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

We’re now to the point where the American people are screaming for Italian, and the Republicans are looking back at us and telling us that spaghetti is out of the god damned question, and not only are we getting tire rims and anthrax but we need to wash it down with liquid Drano.

This is insanity. They literally want to push the country off a cliff to provide aid and comfort to people who don’t need it and have openly stated they aren’t even going to spend the money the way the Republicans say they will.

That's because this is all the modern Republican Party is after. For all the racism and sexism they shill to their voting base to keep them happy, for all the claims of being pro-fetus and pro-God, the one thing THE ONLY THING the Republicans will never bend on is their goddamn tax cuts. I noted this about Romney before, but it applies to the whole party: it is their goddamn Ever-Fixed Mark, around which their entire philosophy - of killing off the New Deal social safety net, of deregulating every business rule that protects people and workers, of splitting this nation into the Rich and the Fucked - revolves. 

The only positive outlook I have about this is that the tax cut is so demonstrably bad a plan that our economy immediately tanks - much like this massive tax cut devastated Kansas - with clear evidence it has everything to do with the tax cuts adversely affecting our industries, our property values, our stock markets to the point it all comes crashing down like the Great Depression.

The only problem with that is, obviously, everybody who's not wealthy with their money all safely tucked away in offshore accounts will get killed in that economic collapse.

But it's the only way to fucking wake the voters up. If only this time THEY STAY AWAKE AND CHASE THESE DAMN CROOKS INTO THE DEEPEST PIT OF HELL THEY DESERVE.

Red States Cutting Off Their Own Noses Part CXXIV: The "Who Lives Off The Federal Teat" Paradox

So trump dumped his proposed budget this week, and amid all the wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of hair about how sharp the spending cuts are I am willing to bet a lot of trump-voting Republicans in the Red States are all thinking to themselves "Well, these cuts couldn't possibly affect ME after all. I'm sure the budget-slashing is only gonna hurt the urban poor in Blue States, or programs that I don't ever use, or..."

Yeah, the disconnect is gonna be strong on this one.

Still, just a reminder about how ALL federal domestic spending works:

Usually through grants towards the states, at various levels of funding per state depending on the program. The grants come with certain requirements to ensure each state plugs the money into the appropriate state-level agency and thence to the masses. For those programs not fully funded, the state fills in those gaps with their own revenues.

But where exactly does the federal money go?

Per the Tax Foundation site, a link. https://taxfoundation.org/which-states-rely-most-federal-aid-2/

O Irony. Some of the Reddest of states - anti-government, railing against "lazy bums" AKA the dreaded "Other" living off the taxpayers' largesse - are the ones taking most of the federal money.

Granted, there are exceptions like North Dakota which takes the lowest amount of fed money. And for a Liberal hotbed, New York takes a middling chunk (likely due to the financial cornerstone of NYC taking a lot of national security/legal funding).

But four of the Top Five are traditionally Deep South Conservative states (Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky). Missouri's 6th and Georgia's 8th. The only consistently Blue state of the past 5-6 election cycles in the Top 10 is Oregon (wait, maybe Maine, except they still vote in too many Republicans to office).

You'd think Virginia, right there at the hub of government power, would be a major player for federal aid, or at least similar to Maryland. But no, they're not on the hook for a lot of Benjamins.

If there's any consistency between the Dependent States, it might be due to a lack of diversified industries. That is, a lot of the top needy states are reliant on Agriculture/Farming, Ranching, OR Fishing. Georgia still sticks out as an odd duck because of Atlanta being a massive business hub: Mayhaps those businesses are reliant on federal funds as well.

State-level taxation doesn't show any consistency: Louisiana has a high corporate tax rate but Mississippi and Georgia do not, yet they are in the Top 10 for Federal Aid.

Thing is, in the end the neediest states for Federal Aid tend to be the ones with the angriest citizenry screaming for the Feds to stop supporting "the wrong kind" with Federal Aid.

Do you think they'll keep screaming that if trump's Budget passes?

Just How Bad Is 2017 Going To Get?

I gotta admit, this is the first day where I am waking up to the dread of a new year.

I'm no optimist, but every other January 1st I've lived through has been a "hey, okay, this is the year all the good things come my way." I had hopes, I had good intentions, we all had the promise that things were turning up.

And then 62 million morans went and voted for Trump last November.

We're entering into a new Presidential administration led by the most ill-informed, proudly ignorant, vulgar, corrupt, bankrupt, dishonest, untrained and unqualified human being this nation could ever produce.

I'm not the only one thinking this. Even the audience for the Far Right Noise Machine thinks so:

And this is a month after his Electoral College "win". The "One of the Worst" category at 31 percent beats out "Above Average". You'd think the Fox audience would have biased themselves to AT LEAST give Trump an "Average" support (after all, 25 percent forced themselves to support "Above Average").

How bad is this year going to get?

Trump's very existence could well become an impeachable offense the moment he swears the oath of office. Via the Washington Post:

Until now, we have never had one for whom it was legitimate to question at the onset of his presidency whether he could fulfill his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

As things stand now, President-elect Donald Trump has suggested he will not divest himself of a myriad of businesses around the globe that pose serious conflicts of interest, nor will he liquidate even foreign holdings, the proceeds of which would put him in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.

Jennifer Rubin cites a Brookings Review of the Emoluments Clause and what it found:

While much has changed since 1789, certain premises of politics and human nature have held steady.  One of those truths is that private financial interests can subtly sway even the most virtuous leaders.  As careful students of history, the Framers were painfully aware that entanglements between American officials and foreign powers could pose a creeping, insidious risk to the Republic.  The Emoluments Clause was forged of their hard-won wisdom.  It is no relic of a bygone era, but rather an expression of insight into the nature of the human condition and the preconditions of self-governance.

Now in 2016, when there is overwhelming evidence that a foreign power has indeed meddled in our political system, adherence to the strict prohibition on foreign government presents and emoluments “of any kind whatever” is even more important for our national security and independence.

Never in American history has a president-elect presented more conflict of interest questions and foreign entanglements than Donald Trump. Given the vast and global scope of Trump’s business interests, many of which remain shrouded in secrecy, we cannot predict the full gamut of legal and constitutional challenges that lie ahead.  But one violation, of constitutional magnitude, will run from the instant that Mr. Trump swears he will “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” While holding office, Mr. Trump will receive—by virtue of his continued interest in the Trump Organization and his stake in hundreds of other entities—a steady stream of monetary and other benefits from foreign powers and their agents.

In the attached brief, we examine the Emoluments Clause in detail and conclude that Donald Trump’s diverse dealings violate both the spirit and the letter of this critical piece of the U.S. Constitution...

By some arguments, Trump can't even place his holdings into a Blind Trust because he'll still be in a position to know what profits him (and having his children run that "Trust" still violates ethics). Thing is, Trump will not even do that: he keeps "promising" he'll provide a solution but never does.

Trump is a walking Impeachment, but this Republican-controlled Congress will never go for it: not enough of their own wingnuts will turn against Trump, meaning a serious Impeachment effort requires support from Democrats... and the Democrats are not going to be charitable out of the kindness of their hearts, they are going to want concessions on key issues - Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, voting rights, Medicare and Social Security protections - that Paul Ryan and the Budget Slashers could never accept.

And in the time that Trump will be in office, disasters will abound. If Trump and the Congressional wingnuts have their say, we'll be in the middle of a tariff trade war by April, rising costs on commodities by June, and double-digit unemployment by November.

Think I'm exaggerating? We're facing nearly the same economic conditions as 1929.

It's not going to help that Paul Ryan is hell-bent to implement his Randian Utopian budget of social safety nets and massive tax cuts for the uber-rich. This is going to do nothing to solve the income inequality problem that truly threatens a majority of Americans.

And it's really not helping that Trump is playing into Putin's hands, leading the Republicans into a foreign policy crisis where they're placing Party Loyalty over the national security needs of the United States.

And it's really really not helping that Trump is convinced he can restart a nuclear arms race and that he can use nuclear arms at a whim.

It's kind of nice that 2016 is finally over and that our celebrities may be safe for now... but 2017 is already an Excedrin Headache in dire need of trepanning relief.

The Real Scandals

So the media is blowing up this Friday with stories about accusations towards Ted Cruz's personal life, and whether or not Trump had a hand in spilling the sleazy rumors.

Meanwhile, in Florida the state is reeling from a massive draining of toxic waters from one of our main sources Lake Okeechobee into surrounding rivers and canals, leading to horrific kill-offs of the fish and other animals dependent on the fragile ecosystem. The poisons are reaching our scenic beaches and disrupting the lives of hundreds of thousands. And why is this a problem? Because the local sugar industry generates a ton of toxic runoff. When then-Governor Charlie Crist proposed between 2008 and 2010 a plan buying up land around the lake and sugar farms to create marshlands that could filter those toxins out, the Big Sugar owners raised a stink and did what they could to stop Crist from running for the Senate in 2010. Meanwhile, Crist's successor Rick "No Ethics" Scott came in and deregulated the state's environmental protection agency into shreds. And now, with fewer wetlands to handle the ecosystem, we're seeing the results turn our rivers brown, our beaches red and our wildlife dead.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina the Far Right in control of the state legislature called for a special session and sped through at historic speed a bill designed to stop their city governments from passing their own zoning laws protecting gay and transgender rights. The law, according to that Atlantic article, is specifically written to "prevent any local governments from passing their own non-discrimination ordinances, mandates that students in the state’s schools use bathrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate, and prevents cities from enacting minimum wages higher than the state’s." The law details that businesses actively discriminate, and that people have to police the bathrooms now to enforce these rules. And in an especially dickish move, the Republicans pushing this law added that cities can't create their own minimum wage hikes just so these self-righteous Bible-thumpers could screw poor people alongside Teh Gays.

Meanwhile, in Kansas the state is facing one of the most severe budget crises in the nation as the Republican-controlled government there has to cope with growing deficits. In the wake of massive tax cuts to the upper classes and corporations, Gov. Brownback and his legislative allies are fighting their state's Supreme Court that ordered the the state lege to increase funding for public schools. How are they fighting that court order? By making it easier for the Kansas legislature to impeach state judges who "dishonor" those very elected officials. Never mind the fact that the Republican obsession with tax cuts never generated those magical revenue increases that Brownback promised. Better to silence their critics and shut down one-third of the whole system of Checks and Balances that's supposed to exist in our American model of government.

Meanwhile, the state of Louisiana is reeling from eight years worth of gubernatorial mismanagement under "Future of the GOP" Bobby Jindal. Much like Brownback, Jindal had forced through budget after budget of massive tax cuts to where the state is one bad day away from closing all their schools including their public universities like LSU, and making it so that the Democratic governor Edwards who replaced him be forced to raise taxes to generate enough revenue to fix things, for which the tax-cut-obsessed Republicans will attack Edwards for raising those damn needed taxes they never had the balls to raise.

Meanwhile, the state of Wisconsin is having the standard economic woes of few jobs, fewer well-paying jobs, and almost nothing left in their economy as the Republican Governor Scott Walker and his legislative allies ship all funds into God Knows What. It won't be the schools by the looks of things as that state is apparently cutting back on public education and privatizing a lot of it into higher school costs for families and weaker standards.

And topping that all: Meanwhile in Michigan, the state is still reeling from the poisoning of the city of Flint, and with growing reports of how Governor Rick Snyder and his plan of unaccountable "Emergency Managers" screwed up the water supply for thousands of families that became a health hazard of lead poisoning, deadly diseases, and a wrecked infrastructure that will cost billions to repair.

Anyone notice how none of these scandals involve sex all that much? Anyone else notice how each of these scandals involve Republican mismanagement, Republican falsehoods, Republican obsessions with tax cuts and deregulation, Republican viciousness towards anyone NOT of their tribe?

Here's the real scandal, America. Here's what the major news channels and papers and pundits ought to be reporting on for the rest of time until all sins are answered for.

The Republicans are not governing with the nation's best interests at heart. The Republicans are not concerned with our economy, our communities, our families. The Republicans are not in this for anyone other than themselves and their rich drinking buddies at the country club golf courses.

Every one of the scandals I've listed here ought to be headlines every hour of every day. They're not. We're getting sleaze and distractions instead.

I should be shocked. But thirty-plus years of watching all this sh-t is getting me a little jaded. And more angry.

Death By A Thousand Cuts, Well Not a Death But a Serious Wound To Public Service

Normally I've got another blog to talk about librarianship.  But this topic is more about politics than libraries, and besides this is the blog where I use curse words more often and after hearing this I'm in dire need of dropping some F-bombs:

Miami-Dade County commission just voted to NOT raise the county millage rates in order to keep their county libraries and firefighter stations properly funded.  They'll be closing out 22 out of 49 branches as well as a small number of fire stations, and cutting 251 employees from the library system while cutting back on everyone else's hours.

The cuts are the result of a $15 million library budget shortfall. (The system had been using leftover funds to bridge the gap for the past two years.) Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez recommended the budget which necessitates the cuts, as well as which cuts should be made, to the county commissioners, who approved his recommendation on July 16.Once the commissioners set the preliminary rate, it can be lowered but not raised. Throughout August, there will be six town hall meetings to explain the proposed budget to residents and receive feedback. On September 10 and September 16, there will be budget hearings. The commissioners will vote on the budget at the September 16 meeting, and it will take effect on October 1.But though the millage can’t be raised, Raymond Santiago, director of the Miami-Dade Public Library System and LJ’s 2003 Librarian of the Year, hasn’t given up on mitigating the worst of the impacts. He called the cuts presented to the commissioners and detailed above “a worst-case scenario,” and “probably the most drastic of all the options.”“Before the final budget vote in September,” Santiago continued, “the administration will continue to investigate options to reduce these negative impacts” through different adjustments to the library budget. “We’re looking at everything right now,” he said.

This county commission are pretty much the jokers who voted HOW MUCH in order to build a bullshit overpriced gaudy and unfilled baseball stadium for a morally bankrupt killer of baseball franchises - I dare you to say Loria's name in public anywhere in Canada, I dares ya - who as a businessman could have figured out a hundred other ways to raise his own goddamn money to build his own goddamn park.

The city/county mayor Gimenez is quoted in the article as saying "people have said that the age of the library is probably ending." I call bullshit on that, mayor (the Library Journal article I've linked to shows stats that library use has gone UP).  Which people?  'Cause there's a lot of people where I am - and where I've been at other public libraries as well - that come in to use libraries all the time.  People are still checking out books.  They're coming in to use library computers because libraries are now telecommunication hubs and workplaces.  I've got people coming in all the time needing help with logging into their unemployment benefits and online job hunts and typing up their resumes and downloading their medical records to get their HMOs to approve coverage.  Anybody who thinks libraries are ending hasn't been paying attention.

And speaking of all those people who come in to use libraries.  WHERE THE HELL DO THEY GO NOW?  There may be half of the county libraries still open, but they'll now be packed solid with people desperate to get onto computers - not everyone's got a laptop at home, Mister Mayor - and unable to find worktables to get any projects done.  I did the math of 49 branches to 2.5 million county residents, I got it roughly 52,000 people per branch.  With 22 branches closing, that 1.4 million residents suddenly put out without library access.  It will take them that much more effort to get to a library that's further away - not everyone's got a car, Mister Mayor, and buses get expensive too - and they'll be competing with that many more people to get onto a computer.

I worked in Broward County Libraries between 1994 to 2003.  We're right next door, county-wise, and we had a lot of traffic and usage of our resources, a lot of checkouts and a lot of people waiting their turn to use computers.  I can imagine Dade's libraries were just as busy.  I was there when we had a county referendum to vote for a bond issue in 1998, which involved a small tax increase.  We were expecting a close vote.  We got 72 percent approval, an unbelievable result, and it was because people in Broward liked their community libraries and wanted us to improve our services to them.

What the county commission did this week was unforgivable, unwarranted.  If they were having problems raising funds for libraries and fire stations, they should have done what Broward County did back in 1998: let the people vote on it.  Instead, they're cutting services rather than dare the ire of... lord, there's no sign of anyone even yelling at them to cut spending or even yelling about the taxes going up too high.  Why the hell did they do this?!

Here's a solution: sue Loria and Major League Baseball for that $500 million back for an unfilled baseball stadium.  Maybe when he's on the hook for it, Loria might actually spend his own money and field a fucking team in order to fill his goddamned empty seats.  That $500 million could easily pay for the county libraries, the county fire stations, the county police, and about twenty other social services a large metro like Miami have need for.  It's a far better solution than closing half of everything and forcing a ton of low-income families and retirees to suffer.

GOD.  Our political priorities are screwed, aren't they?  Our cities and counties and states and federal government are giving out millions to a handful of men who already have millions while the rest of us have to fight for table scraps.  At what point do we stop this bullshit?

In the meantime, call the Miami Dade County Commission's office (phone 305-375-4696).  Let them know that cutting back on library and firefighter services is a bad f-cking idea (don't say "fuck", but be very stern and concerned sounding) and if you're a county resident remind them that you can very easily vote them out like the idiots they are if they don't straighten up and do right by the citizenry.