Richest people must face up to their responsibility to share the wealth

Dolly Levi said in the entertaining musical "Hello Dolly!"
"Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow."

For decades, I listened to Republicans complaining about tax money "wasted" on welfare programs.  

I often asked these Republicans how they recommended we care for the people who cannot care for themselves? Consistently, their high minded responses were to summon private charities to care for the needy. These same Republicans were nobly supportive of charities like United Way and the Salvation Army. Now, with the United Ways, and the Salvation Army and others in the position of being swamped with requests for funds, these same Republicans are still denying the need for government to provide support for those who cannot care for themselves.

Now there's a widening disparity of wealth distribution throughout the world. But instead of the rich extending their wealth to help the poor, many have been unwilling to support improving the human condition by advocating for increases in minimum wage and cost of living increases, based upon inflation, for social safety nets like Social Security and military pensions. Americans must be dedicated to supporting rising incomes for everyone who works to earn economic security.

An excellent academic paper about income inequality is at this site:  Global Income Inequality by the Numbers:
in History and Now 
http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/pdf/10.1596/1813-9450-6259

Rather than hoard wealth, Republicans must share wealth. If they really believe charity, not government, should care for those who need access to economic security, then, they should lead the way. Republicans should support policies whereby they will engage in sharing their wealth by increasing the minimum wage and supporting child care, access to health care, and social safety nets for the retired and disabled. Sharing wealth will improve the economy of our nation because hard working people will have access to middle class status. When the middle class grows, the economy prospers. Evidence of this is the post World War II economic boom.

Wealthy people have an ethical responsibility to share their money. Income redistribution is the best way to prevent government programs from becoming welfare and charities from going broke trying to help the less fortunate. Let's enjoy Dolly Levi's wisdom and thrive on the economic results.

American voters who elect Republicans are being duped the GOP has done nothing to deserve your vote

It's beyond sad to consider how American voters can be so duped by Republicans and vote them into office. All Republicans should be voted out of office.  Obviously, there are good Republicans, but when their political agenda is obsessed with blocking progressive leadership, they must be rebuked.

Republicans have done absolutely nothing to earn the votes of Americans. When asked how Republicans will fix Obamacare, aka Health Care Reform?  They have no solutions except repeal.
Republicans want to privatize Medicare and have practically done so already with Managed Care absorbing profits off of retail products. Republicans want to put money in the pockets of insurance companies rather than have your Medicare dollars spend on paying for a health care benefit earned by hard working people. 

Unfortunately, CNN is reporting how Democrats are finding it difficult to calculate how they can continue to control the Senate.
Well, if the Senate goes Republican, I can't foresee anything but a veto President in the White House. A Republican controlled Senate will generate virtually no progress, our  nation will continue to stagnate because regressive public policies will dominate the debates and President Obama will be known at President Veto. 

Nevertheless, Republicans don't have to control the Senate if all Democrats vote and outnumber the GOP at the polls.  It's absolutely essential for all Democrats to vote their party in the 2014 election!  There's virtually no reason for Republicans to control any branch of our government because there is no evidence of their policies having helped middle class Americans.  

Dear President Obama - you obviously won the election but Republicans are winning the public relations contest

Dear President Obama, Middle Class voters waited in long lines to re-elect you last year, but since then, you have not stood up  to defend our best interests.  You must stand up to the right wing obstructionists, bigots and time wasting recalls of Obamacare.
You have nothing to loose.  But, Middle Class citizens are loosing ground in public opinion. As a result, Republicans are holding public relations trump cards, squelching your well intended initiatives. This is evident by observing the following:

1.  Congressional obstructionism continues - Roll back of stupid budget sequester should be a "no brainer".  Instead, the sequester is running roughshod over programs needed by poor people who rely on Meals on Wheels and children who need Head Start education.

Alexandria, VA, June 4, 2013 - New information detailing the devastating impact of the federally mandated budget cuts known as sequester...reveal nearly 70% of Meals on Wheels survey respondents have reduced the number of meals served to the nation's hungry and homebound seniors.
2.  Obamacare is voted on time after time, wasting tax payer money with useless votes to overthrow the health care reform law.  Republicans waste tax payer paid time trying to repeal this important reform, although it's the law of the land. The Congress acts as though they know better than the majority of people who want to protect insurance reform provisions in Obamacare and the U.S. Supreme Court who supported its implementation.  

3.  Republicans continue blocking immigration reform, because President Obama supports a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.  GOP opposition to immigrants achieving U.S. citizenship is the highest form of hypocrisy ever perpetrated on innocent people, because every single Congressman, including Speaker John Boehner, are descendants of immigrants but they won't allow the same privilege to others.  

4.  Supporters of the National Rifle Association continue to override the public opinion in support of increased regulations for gun ownership, especially for weapons intended to murder people.
A CBS-New York Times Poll reports that 51 percent of those polled support stronger gun ownership regulations while only 11 percent oppose it.  Although, Mr. President, you became angry when the U.S. Congress ignored public opinion and did not approve stronger gun regulations, nothing has been done since the failed vote.  

Outside of delivering some inspiring speeches, your leadership has gone underground on issues vitally important to the middle class who voted for you. 

Americans need leadership to stop the relentless votes to override health care reform; we need to know you have our backs when we rely on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, Military, Veterans and women's health care.  Nevertheless, your recent absentee leadership doesn't seem committed to helping us sustain these vitally important programs. 

We need leadership, advocacy and confidence from you!  
Please help us, like you promised.  We haven't given up on you, Mr. President, so please stand up for us.

Go after the GOP with your own public relations campaign. Speak to Americans and require us to change the concrete mindedness of those in Congress who are ignoring our calls for help.  

You clearly won re-election, but your leadership is waning. Those of us who supported you against formidable opposition are still waiting to see the President we elected.

We want you to win the public relations contest now in the Republican camp, because they are simply biding time until you are out of office. Don't let them get away with it!

Americans like you, President Obama. To use a basketball metaphor, winning a public relations contest should be a slam dunk.
Go to the net and just do it!

Where's the Help? Americans Must Ask how Republican Scandal Obsessions Supports Middle Class and Poor

Americans are deluged by 24/7 news coverage whereby political scandals du jour captures headlines, while detracting from the debate needed to protect the economic needs of majority of middle Class and poor Americans.  

In other words, Congressional Republicans are deliberately ignoring the stupid sequestration, a series of fiscal cuts whereby working class people are subjected to the impact of cuts in government contracts. These cuts are forcing federal employee furloughs and reductions in funding programs for underprivileged children, like Head Start. Republicans can't even respond to the desire of 85 percent of Americans who want the Congress to do more to protect us against gun violence.

Instead, Republicans, who preach fiscal austerity, apparently have no problem wasting taxpayer money by building myths around real or perceived scandals. They demand ridiculous emails and documents to create doubt about administrative responses to the tragic outcomes in Benghazi. Their rhetorical questions that won't bring back four Americans killed in an attack on the US Consulate and where Ambassador Stevens died as a result of the violence.  

Included in wasteful Republican Congressional time are futile and repeated efforts to repeal health care reform, aka Obamacare.

For some unknown reason, Republican refuse to accept the results of the 2012 election and the victory of President Barack Obama.  Although Republicans are certainly capable of counting the number of voters who opposed their candidate - Romney, (many Democrats waited hours to cast their ballot for President Obama), they have, nevertheless, decided to follow a strategy to obstruct all of President Obama's progressive agenda.

Obstructionism and muckraking scandals does nothing to help ordinary Americans.  Of course, why would Republicans want to help ordinary Americans, who voted against them in 2012, in support of re-electing President Obama?   

In fact, all elected leaders take an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution, which means abiding by the will of the people.  Our US Constitution begins in the preamble with the phrase, "We the people....." .  This Democratic document does not begin with "We the Congress.....".  

Although the Congress recently began a practice of reading the US Constitution, a ritual at the opening of new sessions, the readers don't seem to understand the importance of the first sentence.

Average Americans need help protecting good paying jobs from being outsourced to cheaper labor markets.  Americans need help to protect our retirement income and Social Security safety net.  Americans need access to affordable, and quality health care to protect our well being against chronic diseases and debilitating infections.  Americans need safe infrastructure in our communities including good roads, reliable public transportation and a national policy to provide everyone with access to wireless technology.

Incredulously, Republicans simply can't find a way to rise above the 2012 election results  Instead of showing Americans how their leadership can improve our lives, they choose, instead, to create chaos. They're like the Cervantes character, Don Quixote, in Man of La Mancha, the man who fights windmills, thinking they're dragons.  Yet, instead of windmills, the Republicans are creating political dragons, by inventing myths and conspiracy theories, about real and imagined scandals. Moreover, Republicans soak up tax paid salaries, while doing nothing to lift the stifling, stupid and needless budget sequestration. 

Since Republicans don't get what happened in the 2012 election, it's time they receive an even more emphatic message in the 2016 elections. Americans must politically punish Republicans who won't (a) compromise on issues we care about, like improving gun safety, (b) don't seem interested in supporting the will of the people who elected President Obama, and (c) continue to be engaged in obstructionism by not lifting the sequestration (and blocking progressive programs that require raising taxes on the rich and super rich). 

It's time Americans demand accountability from Republicans. They must explain how they intend to help Americans, rather than create fear, obstruct progress and protect the rich from paying their fair share of taxes. Obviously, Republicans can't explain anything unless the facts are shrouded in lies and myths. 

Entrenched Republican politicians must go the way of Don Quixote, who died in a feverish sate of delusion.

Time Clock for US Congress

House Speaker John Boehner Won't Accept Taxes on the Rich

It is evident the US Congressional House Republicans want to put the cost of running the government squarely on the middle class who largely voted to re-elect President Obama.

Meanwhile, President Obama must protect the middle class and support the rich paying their fair share!

Therefore, my solution is this:  If the US Congress wants to put the cost of running government on the middle class then they should try living like us.  Let's give Congressional House and Senate members a time clock to punch, just like middle class workers, to document their time worked before they're paid.  

A time clock Congress (twitter #timeclock) will not only cut the government's costs by reducing their salaries, but it will also be a reality check on the policy makers who somehow don't "get" that their obstructionism, against raising tax rates on the rich, are hurting the middle class.

Let's call for a time clock Congress!  #timeclock

We are the tax payers, we are the bosss.  Let's create "at will" Congressional employees of those whose salaries we pay.

Building America Forward

Republicans speak about austerity in government, but wealthy supporters waste many millions to wine, dine and donate to party candidates, while calling for cuts to middle class safety net programs. Medicare needs to be supported, student loans need to be readily available, affordable health care must be accessible to everyone. The politics of fear has no place in our nation. Yet, Americans hear the opposite from Republican politicians who buy their messaging from extremely rich contributors. 

"Holding Power Accountable" published by Common Cause, writes:

http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4764307

"Big money has long dominated our elections, and the problem only got worse in 2010 after the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, which paved the way for corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in our elections, adding to the enormous influence they already have within the political process."

"...money in politics is not so much (the problem)...as it is who pays (and) what they get in return, and how that affects public policy and spending priorities. Common Cause is working diligently to expose the role of special interests and promote reforms that put democracy back in the hands of 'we the people'."

Americans need to wake up to the reality of money, rather than voters, being in charge. Why do rich moguls want to own American politicians? There must be a payback. I submit, the payback is an insatiable need to increase the wealth of the rich on the backs of the middle class.

Money is now more influential than voters. Yet, voters pay the salaries of the elected officials, while appearing to become less relevant in elections!

Voters will eventually realize how our politics is becoming less democratic. Instead, wealthy moguls like the conservative rich Koch brothers and others, are buying our candidates. Wealthy GOP contributors with a vested interest in the outcome of the Presidential election will buy their position of tax cuts, for the rich, while they know, full well, the middle class will pay the bills of running government.

American middle class voters have a lot to loose if Romney is elected President. Voters who buy into the myth that the American dream is built entirely on individual ingenuity will ignore the progress of past initiatives that built the standard of living enjoyed in America today. Investments in infrastructure, education, national security, innovative technologies and, yes, safety net programs are part of the American dream. Our collective American social consciousness has developed because government programs have been there for those of us who have grown to appreciate the value of our tax investments.

Governor Mitt Romney has not captured enthusiasm with middle class voters, but his campaign would be absolutely nothing and going nowhere without the venom of right wing extremists, who want to dismantle progressive government. Many of these extremists happen to be rich men with greed as an agenda.

We cannot change America for the better by dismantling or recreating past progress. Building America forward requires improvements on progressive policies of the past, rather than concocting ways to dismantle past political accomplishments.

If rich moguls like the Koch brothers and other right wing wealthy conservative are paying for political candidates, it's time they stand before our nation and explain their motives. Why do they invest in candidates, like they're expensive thoroughbred race horses? The kick back is most likely greed motivated.

Electing a Romney administration will put rich moguls in charge of America. These un-elected men are not interested in building our nation forward, but, rather, appear focused on dismantling our progressive past.

It's essential we re-elect President Obama for the sake of putting voters in charge of elections and validating the progress of past efforts to support the middle class.

Economic Assault on the Middle Class- Congress is Not a Middle Class Group

http://nationaljournal.com/graphic-individual-vs-corporate-taxes-what-you-re-paying-20120417

A red-blue line chart in the above link shows how 1934 was the last time Americans saw a balance between individual and corporate taxes to pay for funding government services.  Ever since then, the widening gap between the two tax revenue sources has grown embarrassingly large. Corporate revenues are shrinking, going south on the chart, while individual sources spike upward.

This chart is an economic assault on the Middle Class because the blue line represents the bulk of the tax payers, in other words, the middle class.

This chart is a dangerous trend of anti-middle class public policy assaults where the Republican Party is intent on opposing tax fairness.

Moreover, lukewarm support by Governor Romney for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the law requiring equal pay for equal work, supporting women, demonstrates duplicity.  How can Romney give speeches about putting women on public assistance to work, while not demonstrating support for equal pay?  Another economic middle class assault, harming the welfare of women.

Republicans are typically anti-union because collective bargaining can take chunks of money out of profits for the purpose of writing labor contracts. But anti-middle class economic policies will drive worker unrest- look at Wisconsin, where people are in a state of civil strife because the Republican Governor Scott Walker launched a union busting campaign.  Regardless of the outcome of the Wisconsin assault on the middle class by Governor Walker, the divisiveness caused by his lack of leadership has cost the state in low employee morale, political cynicism about Walker's administration and related lost productivity.

Yet another economic assault on the middle class was levied this week, when the US Congress voted to oppose the tax fairness law called the "Buffet Rule". In other words, the law would have required millionaires and billionaires to pay more in taxes, at least at the 30 percent level.  A clear majority of Americans support the Buffet Rule concept.  A majority of Americans supported the Buffet Rule, but Congress opposed it.  Perhaps, this is because many in our US Government are among the millionaires who would pay more in taxes if the law passed?  Our US tax money made these greedy elected officials into millionaires, but many of them don't want to vote for a law that would pay back their fair share.

Hello? Middle Class? Are you listening?

There's an economic assault being launched on those of us who are not millionaires.  Nonetheless, somehow Republican strategists are convincing some, especially right wing extremists, that our economic problems are related to the poor on welfare.  I say "welfare" is the money we pay government officials who will not speak truth to the American people.  They use our tax money to create regressive economic policies.

We are the majority who must vote to protect economic policies that grow the middle class.

If Republicans really care about the middle class, they would speak the truth - America grows when the middle class is supported rather than assaulted.

Democrats should carry the red-blue line chart pictured in the link above to every political rally this year.  Perhaps, this line graph should be a power point slide displayed on the wall of the US Congress whenever tax policy is debated.

But, I'd add a third line to the graph.  Let's put a green line on the chart to show how US Congressional  salaries have grown while corporate taxes have declined and individuals are paying more.

My point is, the US Congress has left the Middle Class even while they are supposed to represent us.