Debra Ness, President
The deal is done. Both chambers of Congress have now voted, and President Obama has signed an unprecedented bill into law to avert the immediate catastrophe of a government default. But the country will be living with the consequences of this deal for decades to come.
By agreeing to unprecedented spending cuts without additional revenues – not even modest tax increases on the wealthiest billionaires and corporations – lawmakers have set in motion a series of events that are almost certain to result in devastating cuts to the safety net programs that protect the most vulnerable women and families. On the chopping block in the months ahead: essential programs like Head Start, medical research into breast cancer and other deadly diseases, implementation of health reform, family planning, child care, nursing home care, nutrition assistance, education, housing and countless other programs that support Americans who need help the most.
These safety-net programs have long defined our core values as a nation. At stake in the decisions that lie just ahead is the future of the middle class, the economic security of families – and what we stand for as a country.
We all get sick, get old, lose jobs, and hit hard times. Government’s role in helping during those rough patches – with health care and other basic supports – is now uncertain. So where does America go from here?
Tea Party values are not America’s values, and lawmakers must restore the priorities that Americans support – and re-establish the federal agenda this country deserves.
Who is for us? No one, it appears. I don’t understand the ability of this part of the Republican Party to affect the lives of women, children and the needy so much. Down the road, will we ever be able to help these groups again? What will it take?
When will people who advocate for total dependence on the government realize that it will lead to our loss of freedom? Individuals need to be responsible for themselves and be helped on occasion when help is needed. Living off the government should not be a 3rd generational way of life. Individuals should not be totally supported by the working public’s tax contribution. This is why our country is broke. Too many people think that others owe them a living. In Acts of the Apostles it said that those who worked got to eat. Think about that.
We need a progressive Democratic President who does not espouse Republican ideas. We need strong representatives who are willing to put constituents above their personal agenda and who will not capitulate to threats. If Progressives do not work to elect strong Democratics who will fight for their rights, it is all over. Our President appears to want to appease the right, more than he wants to stand by what he ran on to get elected. Not sure who will believe him now when he says “I will work hard for….”…so far, he has failed on 4 occasions to stand up to the Republicans and thrown those who elected him under the bus.
I’m disgusted by this bill and dread the hardship it will cause for so many Americans. I want to speak out and protest this travesty, but think it would be more effective to do so along with others in organized opposition to these cuts. Does NPWF have such advocacy initiatives, meetings, demonstrations? What can I do to help others (esp. women) like me whose welfare is now in such jeopardy?
By shredding the social safety net via welfare “reform,” we ensured that a single set-back, a single job loss, can tear families apart and leave them in poverty. We have seen how cuts in basic aid have increased infant mortality among the poor, and is resulting in a falling life expectancy (unlike the more advanced nations). Workfare labor has largely become a local Third World workforce, serving to crush unionizing efforts and suppress wages (Don’t like that? Tough, you can by replaced with workfare labor by morning.) There is a steady funneling of the middle class into permanent poverty. The list goes on, and the impact is obvious in the dramatic deterioration of the “quality of life:” rating of the US (#1 when Reagan first came into office, down to #34 today) continues to fall below that of the more modern nations.
When I was very much younger,I used to wonder how the Nazis were able to take over the German nation and fool the German people. Now I know how. The Krupp family supported Hitler’s outrages. Now we have the Kochs and the Wall Street criminals. It might be well if those paid for politicians in Washington took a good look at the “Arabian Spring.” They might find themselves facing an “American Fall.”Our only true salvation would be if the Democratic party would admit their failure in selecting Obama in 2008 and find a true liberal to run against him.
I’ve been reading some books by Harry Turtledove. He specializes in alternative history, like stories about what would have happened if the South won the civil war, or what if Hitler had not been defeated. We are now at a point in history when Mr. Turtledove would have a significant turning point that could give him a really juicy story to write about, “What if Barack Obama loses the election in 2012, and the Republicans and the Tea Party take over the country, with majorities in both houses of Congress?” It will be up to us to determine if this will become just an interesting fantasy or real life. Will Presidential and Congressional candidates, in the future, be run directly by corporations, so that we will be electing corporations rather than individuals to fill these offices? Will corporate serfdom become written into law, the same way some are fearing Sharia law may take over the country? It will be up to us to determine how the plot evolves.
This debt deal is just the latest event in the corporate takeover of democracy. On July 19, I sent letters to Dennis Kucinich, John Yarmuth and Bernie Sanders (all of whom voted AGAINST this deal) as follows and expresses what I believe we should do:
The first President for whom I voted was Lyndon Johnson and the last President for whom I voted was Barack Obama. Throughout this time I have been staunchly Democrat at local, state and national levels. But, recently, I have been so disappointed and angry with the realization that Republicans and Democrats have morphed into two wings of the same bird: the Corporate State. While the rhetoric between these two parties may diverge, their actions demonstrate too much similarity, too much togetherness, and equal amounts of corruption. I do not think this was always true. In the Sixties and Seventies, I believe we Americans were still presented with options when we went to vote. Over the last three decades, though, corporate non-persons have succeeded in stealing away American democracy through bribery and fraud from real people until we have the current corporate oligarchy. I really, truly had hope in 2008 that policies would change under President Obama, but he is continuing the push to drill-drill-drill and mine-mine-mine for energy despite the Deepwater Horizon disaster, is willing to consider more tax cuts to the rich (employers’ payroll taxes, for example), to conduct illegal and unpopular military actions, to negotiate trade deals which eliminate jobs for Americans and impoverish workers in trading countries, etc. It seems we, the American people, need to initiate a new Revolution to restore democracy.
However, despite my feelings about the “Parties,” I think highly of you because you have championed same solutions and policies. Maybe I have not agreed with every decision/vote/approach you have advocated, but I feel we agree more often than not. I want to invite you to form a new “Party” — one with a wiser, ethical agenda to pursue, one which will act rather than promise to solve problems and reform injustices and will not vacillate or cave in to hysterical tactics of opposition. Oh, I know all the arguments against this: 1) third (or other) parties have always failed to wield real influence in the past and to get elected to high office; 2) third (or other) parties, by drawing votes away from one candidate, actually elect the other candidate, just like the people who choose not to vote; 3)more than two parties would make government too unwieldy to work by necessitating coalitions — so how do some European democracies function? But these arguments are exactly what both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party want voters to believe because that BELIEF maintains the two-party system. Democracy can exist with more than two parties or even without parties at all. If the basis for any vote were the best congruence of agendas between the voter and the candidate, whatever that candidate’s affiliation or non-affiliation was, instead of a decision as to which of two “evils” was the least, then actual majority opinion on issues could be represented. As it currently is, a mere 2% of the population controls government because only that 2% is wealthy enough to corrupt politicians of both parties. Furthermore, coalitions among multiple parties that fluctuate depending on which issues or problems were being addressed would more closely reflect the diversities of opinions on these issues in the actual population.
I do not want to violently overthrow the government. As Gandhi and Dr. King both knew, violence only begets more violence. But I DO want to cure the schizophrenia that is infecting the two-party system. I DO want to purge both the American government and the American spirit of corruption by exterminating corporate control and propaganda. I invite you to join me in this effort. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss specific issues/problems and offer approaches/solutions. Please read and see how much you agree or disagree with me and then decide.
There was much more to my letter; it ran to 21 single-spaced typed pages. However, what we all need to do now is form a NEW PARTY and take back the government for the people!
I agree with Diane. Why should the rich not be held accountable for their taxes the way the rest of us are?
Once again the castrated democrats cave give into republican demands with nothing to show for it. Are they the left-of-center faction of the tea-baggers. Now the the poor, middle-class, seniors, etc., bare the brunt of corporate americas’ fiascoes; default would have hit the super-wealthy pigs in the nut_ more so. After all, America’s interests reflect a pseudonym for corporate americas interests. Signed, This is Pure Bull-Sh_t
Actions speak more than words. The GOP is more interested in the overthrowing of our first black president then doing anything to helping overcome our economic crisis. The Republican Party never ever new how to balanced the country’s budget before, and they are not going to do it now.
This is all planned. They create havoc in the stock market so that the experienced money makers and financial/billionaires/millionaires watch everyone loose their hard earned money in their 401′s and IRA’s that they designed and they clean up with all the stocks that they buy at low prices. This is a scamm and the government is in it also. We should get rid of atleast half of Congress and then freeze their accounts and put the issue’s on the table and let the public go to the poles and vote on the issue’s. We don’t need these greedy individuals making decisions for the hard working americans. We should remove the remaining Congress members and put them in one office building with cubicles so that they are not wasting steps in the beautiful buildings in Washington D.C. And then they should only be permitted to have the medical treatment that any other employer would allow their employee’s to buy into.
Congress started this mess and the american people were so busy working 2 or 3 jobs over the last 20 years to put food on the table for their families that they didn’t have time to pay attention to congress schemes.
They encourage people to have kids and the single individuals are ignored while they push family, family , family.
They create programs like the eeoc, social security, fmla, flsa, doj, dol, workmen’s compensation, osha and when you excercise your rights they make it so they punish the person for filing with any of these programs.
If you file workmen’s compensation they give the employer the right to cancel your health insurance. You file workmen’s compensation and then need to file social security and they have a “Offset Provision” that social security deducts from the 66 2/3 that is approved after being forced to go to a hearing because the employer reports your injury as being non compensable when in fact it was compensable. So the social security deducts money from the employee that is barely making ends meet to begin with. It’s just another way to punish the employee for filing with any of these agencies. Way to go Congress!
Grade A stuff. I’m uqnueistonalby in your debt.