inthetrunkroom

Some time ago the question was asked as to how this nation took such a hard right turn and found itself held hostage by the tea party and its unreasonable and borderline irrational agenda. The vinegar of the late sixties had turned in to the venom of our time and the ability to reach any sort of middle ground on the spectrum of important issues has long since been abandoned.One cannot deny that tracing this frightening path is the path of the Republican party and over time, its driving the U S into what is clearly the “Great Regression” ! It is likewise clear that the future agenda for the GOP is to turn back the progress made since the turn of the last century, destroy a federal government, reducing it to simply a trade and war machine – all geared toward profiteering – and return to the days of a confederation of independent states.
While one can stipulate to a certain level of partiality in these discussions, the track of the GOP is almost irrefutable. It is rife with policy and process which has either directly or indirectly attacked so much of those elements in every day life which benefit the vast majority of our citizenry.
On 14 August 1935, the Social Security Act was passed. Over the decades, social security has kept literally millions out of the grip of dire poverty. It has provided, though lean, some income for those who have none or those who are disabled or survivors. It is indeed social insurance. On 15 August 1935, the Republican party began its drive to repeal the Act and return those millions to a life paralleled to the worst conditions in third world countries. To this day, that quest continues with attempts time after time to privatize the Act and turn over the management of it to the robber barons of Wall Street. Curious, the GOP  nominee for the presidency and his vice presidential pick are well in tune with that quest.

In 2010, Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Within weeks, the drive to repeal this legislation had begun. While the Act itself was flawed on some respects and the sponsors caved on certain essential elements which were critical to success, the blanket opposition was unmistakably GOP and specifically Tea Party. The Administration’s handling of the roll out was at best a disaster and the Secretary of DHHS failed miserably in following basic procedures for the implementation of such a broad scale program. Nevertheless, there was nothing but calculated opposition from Congress who no less than fifty-two times wasted time, energy and funds trying to repeal this monumental piece of legislation. Rather than discuss its merits and work toward repairing the deficiencies in the Act, the GOP preferred to waste its time trying to scrub the entire Act, this in spite of the fact that millions who never had access to heath insurance now had that opportunity. The GOP simply caved to the insurance lobby. It is well know that near all of the major industrialized nations, including those of Scandinavia and the United Kingdom and others have some system of universal health care. Nevertheless, the GOP fought it from the beginning, just as they did Social Security and just as in the case of Social Security, that obstruction continues to this day.

No one can contest that there is an increasing level of gun violence in this country. While the official statistics may be seen as showing a down trend in crime overall, the instances of gun violence have not only increased but have intensified. Some instances include 2007, thirty-two killed at Virginia Tech ; 2008, five killed at Northern Illinois University ; 2009, thirteen killed at Fort Hood , Texas ; 2012, twenty-six killed at Newtown Connecticut ;2012, 12 killed in Washington,D.C. ; 2011, six killed in Tucson, Arizona ; 2012, twelve killed at Aurora Colorado ; 2015, nine killed in Charleston, South Carolina ; 2016, fifty killed in Orlando, Florida ; and in 2016, five police officers killed in Dallas Texas.The country is demanding answers, some of which may never come.  However, with the prospect of more and more of these attacks, most with military style AR-15 rifles and high capacity magazine Glock pistols,the threat could be lessened to some degree by instituting some measure of common sense firearms control. Accept that these attacks may not have been stopped, perhaps the severity of them could have been lessened and perhaps some even prevented. Even one would be invaluable. In several national polls over the period of those years, 92% of people polled agreed that universal background checks for ALL purchases of firearms would be a serious step in the right direction. 89% of firearms owners agreed and over 80 % of NRA members likewise agreed. Nonetheless, when the vote came to the floor in the U S Senate, it went down in utter defeat. It was never taken up in the House. The GOP, in controlling the vote, caved to the NRA and made certain that there would be no legislation which even closely resembled gun control, common sense or not. And so, while some of these senseless tragedies will visit upon us again, the few that just might be stopped will not !

In 1872, the federal government set aside the Yellowstone Park for all to enjoy. In 1933, President Theodore Roosevelt established the National Park Service which took over the management of Yellowstone along with, over time, fifty-eight other national parks. These indeed are the marvels of our nation and are enjoyed by people form nations all over the globe. Millions come here to to see the wonder that is Yellowstone, the awesomeness of the Grand Canyon, the splendor of Arches and Canyonland, the beaity of the Great Smokey Mountains and the sheer unanswerable nature of the Mesa Verde. These are solemn lands, protected by the National Park Service under the Department of the Interior.
Now many members of the GOP, sadly especially the Congressional delegations from Arizona and Utah particularly, want to divest the federal government of their role with the national parks and revert that to the states which can open it up for development. In Arizona, Congressman Trent Franks, on more than one occasion, has introduced legislation to open the Grand Canyon National Park to uranium mining.In Utah home of Bryce, Arches and Zion, Rep. Bishop and Senator Lee are pushing legislation to force the federal government to cede ALL national park and wilderness holdings to the states with the express aim to open these lands to commercial developers.
The agenda is clear. remove any and all things that are there to enjoy unless they make someone or some group richer than they already are. It is indeed sad that the GOP has lost all sense of aesthetics and any taste for the gifts from the Creator.

Speaking of gifts, one of the great gifts, or rights, bestowed on citizens of this country is the right to Vote. As per the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voter Rights Act of 1965, all citizens have the right to vote and to vote their conscience. The Supreme Court gutting Part 5 of the Act notwithstanding, ( that part that mandates certain states have federal approval before making changes to their voting procedures ) we ALL have the right to vote. Red state GOP controlled legislatures don’t seem to see it that way. Phony voter fraud legislation abounds and ridiculous ID laws likewise. Case in point – Pennsylvania. In their action to federal court seeking approval for their voter ID laws, etc, they even stipulated in their complaint that there was no evidence of voter fraud prior to their filing. They just wanted to prevent it in the future. REALLY. And then there is the case of Arizona. In Arizona, the County recorder – the person responsible for implementing voter procedures – cut the number of voting places from over two hundred to sixty for the Presidential Preference Primary. This was in Maricopa County where near 74 % of the state’s 6.4 million people live. The Secretary of State, who is ultimately responsible as the chief election officer for the state, simply blew it off. These are just two of the many examples of the hidden agenda of the GOP across the nation. Maybe it is time for the courts to take a long hard look at this !

Let’s face it. The GOP track record working on behalf of this country is a bit dismal. At least since to post WW II era, through the Cold War period, we have had to put up with one war after another, usually less than justified or, in one case, even illegal. We have had to spend enormous amount of funds to support these ventures into insanity and then the Democrats who followed had to pick up the costs and bail out the those damaged by the profiteering war machine. Accepting some slant here, and also, it is not quite that cut and dry, the case can be made. After all, it was a GOP administration that not only got us in to an illegal war that lasted over a decade but, with the cost of two wars waged simultaneously and a completely reckless tax cut program for which we are still paying, we damn near lost it all. Yes,, lest we forget, it was indeed the 2000 – 2008 administration that cost us our credit rating. Things which are important to the every day functioning of a country – schools, health care, infrastructure, transportation – all have been sorely and ,one might add, criminally neglected. By comparison, for instance, our rail system is of third world caliber in comparison to other nations. Calculated obstructionism, which began on the very night of the Presidential Inauguration in 2009, has destroyed any effort at progress and has won the day. We are once again on the verge of collapse in many dimensions of our nation’s capacity to move forward. A new agenda is critical. It is necessary. It is essential to our very survival. The GOP agenda, focused on destruction rather than construction, is most certainly not the one.

As per an earlier posting, there is a sense that this nation has taken not only a hard right turn in its politics but also in its whole demeanor. The vinegar of the sixties has turned to venom and the idea of having any respect on any level for those who hold public office or who work in the public sector has, admittedly with some justification, left us almost entirely. Those who occupy the halls of congress, on both sides of the aisle, have failed miserably at their charter to govern and as a direct result of a calculated plan of obstruction on the part of the GOP, nothing has moved in a forward direction for now nearly eight years. What is scary, though, is not just the thought of this obstructionism continuing in to the next administration but the thought of who might be in that administration. It is election season and the race is on.
The “jackass” candidates started out on what seemed to be a fairly decent playing field, discussing issues and agreeing to disagree on certain specific points. There was sufficient agreement on the problems at hand with curious disagreement as to the solutions. And while the one candidate came across as having a single issue focus, the other took on a much broader, almost waterfront agenda. Then, for some reason, the whole tenor darkened and slid into a bit of name calling and the usual nonsense we see in campaigns. Issues which have little or no bearing on a future administration or the ability to function as such became the main course and sour apples were all over the place. By well in to the race, we were now left with one candidate with more baggage – real or imagined – than a flight to Colorado on a ski weekend and one not only continuing to be, in our opinion, single issue but resorting to raising matters sometimes totally out of sync with fact and most of the time out of sync with relevance, a status I fully blame the campaign manager who is not happy unless and until he is trolling. It is no less than pitiful and,in the long run, may well damage the party and its chances to end up on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The “elephant” on the other hand is quite a different story.
The field of candidates brought to the stage performers who have curiously failed to address anything in the real world and constantly go off on tangents which resemble Fantasy Island gone amuck.While the field of candidates started out at seventeen, with a steady menu of theocracy, bureaucracy and hypocrisy , the final candidate poses the most fearful of possibilities.

The loudmouth from Manhattan is clearly who has no respect for anything or anyone except himself and whose entire agenda has been to get rich by manipulating laws and and exploiting trade policies. His entire candidacy is capitalizing on fear, misinformation, crass ignorance and xenophobia.
To quote a columnist form Australia , he has been “ gaslighting ” this country for months. His blatant and obvious failure to grasp even the basics of government serve to make ones head spin. He continues to spout conspiracy theories as if they were fact, citing as his “ reliable source” some of the more moronic right winger bloggers and twitter posts. When challenged on some of these nonsensical pronouncements, his fall back is that “ I am only retweeting what I read”, as though a presidential candidate has no responsibility to make even a cursory effort at fact checking !
There is no effort at concealing blatant disdain for the less fortunate among us, for any diversity of ideas and being disguised as patriotism, a return to the whole white supremacy notion from an earlier time. Support for his path to Pennsylvania Avenue rests with the likes of the former grand wizard of the KKK, the cast of Duck Dynasty, the brainless Ted Nugent and a likewise lunatic, Alex Jones. There is constant belittling of handicapped persons and those whose lives have been destroyed by disasters. We won’t even venture in to the mire of his opinion of women ! All this, as distasteful as it is, is being fed, like kerosene on a smoldering fire, by the current political climate, not to mention being enabled by the media. That he is the presumptive nominee for the GOP should give pause to wonder just how far down that road to hell we have ventured . And here is the really frightening part – support for this posture is very widespread. The dark side has come to the forefront and it should have set off the alarm in every community but it hasn’t.
As noted earlier, we have taken a far and hard turn to the right and unfortunately, none seem to awaken to that fact and nor do they see the course on which we have embarked. Gone are the days when partnerships were workable and there was a sense of community – at least on a policy level – and the profiteering mode rules again as it did in the eight years prior to the current administration. Apparently we as a nation have learned nothing and one knows what happens to those who fail to learn from history.

In the early sixties, a school of dramatic presentation arose in which the things seemed to get way out of hand and “Absurdist Fiction “ was born. In this, the logical and compelling were reduced to the irrational and the illogical. It was coined by Martin Esslin as the “Theatre of the Absurd”.
Welcome to the theatre – the curtain gone up !

Every four years there is a major event in this country that captivates pretty much all of us – the election of a new president. For whatever reasons – positive or negative, liberal or conservative, pro this or anti that – we all have a stake in the outcome. At least, we should all see it that way because we do.

Regardless of how one feels about the process or the system under which it operates, it is a big deal and all should be of interest and prompt participation by all who are eligible.
In 2000, the Clinton administration was coming to an end and the candidates for the highest office in the land were jousting for position for the final battle – the November election. After a long campaign season, it all came down to two – George W. Bush and Albert “ Al “ Gore.
Election Day was November 7th, but the election was far from over by the end of that day. In what can only be described as a legal battle more convoluted than a halloween corn maze, the Supreme Court finally had to intervene. It heard arguments and then remanded the key issue back to the Florida Supreme Court.It was their ruling which allowed the then Florida Secretary of State’s declaration of George Bush as the winner in Florida to stand. This gave Mr Bush the needed electoral votes to take the election, win the presidency and move in to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We have been paying the price ever since for that curious maneuvering of the court system which in effect appointed the president.
Mr Bush took office in January, 2001 and the journey down a very hard road began. Over the next few years, budgets got out of hand, tax breaks for the wealthy were the stock and trade of the administration and between January 2001 and March 2004, over 1.6 million jobs were lost. This trend would continue well in to the administration’s second term – an election jaded by fear and ignorance – when the official unemployment rate went up to near 8 % and, with reckless economic policies providing the impetus, between December 2007 and December 2008, an additional 3.6 million jobs were lost, most going overseas with unchecked outsourcing carried out by multi national corporations farming for profits in the sweat shops of Asia.

\And then the proverbial manure hit the fan. In spite of many warning signs ( such as the now infamous Phoenix Memos from the FBI Office in Arizona ) the intelligence community failed , or chose not to connect the dots and on September 11, 2001, we were attacked by Islamic agents of Al Qaeda from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. It is noteworthy here that the attackers were not from Iraq. This attack precipitated such upheaval on so many fronts, it is hard to gauge the impact even now fourteen years later. What is certain is that a calculated and well planned campaign of fear mongering, outright lies and reckless policy decisions which brought about two unpaid for wars, one of which is still ongoing. There was implemented ( The Patriot Act ) unchecked surveillance on American citizens disguised as keeping the country safe where,it has come out, much of that was to spy on those who were opposed to the wars in the Middle East.
Those who dared to question the authenticity of the so called rationale for it all were chastised as being unAmerican ( sound familiar ) and in one case, when Ambassador Joseph Wilson made public statements questioning the veracity of Vice President Cheney’s charge that Iraq was importing weapons grade uranium from Africa, a White House senior staffer revealed – outed, if you will – the identity of his wife, a CIA covert operative,a clear violation of law and procedural policy.
There is much that has since come to light about the lies and chicanery in the administration, orchestrated by the four key actors in all of this – Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld – far too much to discuss here. Suffice it to say that the mess in Iraq cost near 2.2 trillion dollars and near 5,000 American military lives. One can add over 4.4 trillion in costs for Afghanistan. There is no counting for Iraqi and Afghani soldiers or civilians but it is estimated at over 350,000. One cannot even begin to calculate the toll for this total and complete disruption and chaos caused in the Middle East, paving the way for the havoc existing there now. Again, does this sound sound familiar ? The whole truth and probably far more other secrets may not actually ever be made known by the public but, even with what we now know, one needs to ask the question – why has no one been held accountable. Indeed, even the then Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, finally admitted that he knew he was lying to the U N Security council about the status in Iraq. Why have no charges of war crimes been levied against the former president and vice president and their cohorts, the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Advisor ?

Since those days, to the end of the Administration, reckless economic policies sent the nation in to a deep economic recession rivaling the Great Depression of the twenties and thirties. The administration was handed a modest surplus in the deficit in 2001 but by its end in January 2009, Bush handed a deficit of over six trillion dollars to his successor. The impact of his overall tax plan to date has cost the nation over two trillion dollars in revenue; His policies increased the federal budget by almost 53%. And we are still paying for it.
In an effort to dilute some of this deep deep red ink, the Bush administration vetoed bills for continuing Child Health Insurance, slashed the Veterans Administration budget and crippled the No Child Left Behind Act ( the Elementary and Secondary Education Act updated ) by so much it was rendered almost useless as a means to improve K-12 education. In addition, as if to add insult to injury, especially to seniors and those on fixed income, Mr Bush pushed hard to privatize Social Security – something which Republican presidents have been pushing since the days of Harry Truman. Fortunately, the fear of not getting reelected held sway with even the GOP members of congress and millions of people dodged that bullet once again.The succeeding administration has had to spend well over what would be acceptable levels just to try to bring some level of stability to a crashing economy.Costs for medical and rehabilitation care for the thousands of returning veterans has skyrocketed to over 134 billion,and , with an obstructionist GOP controlled legislative branch keeping them in tact, those tax cuts for the upper 10% continued to add to the deficit year after year until some modest changes were made in 2013. The Bush years drove us to the very brink of complete fiscal collapse and that red ink is deeper than ever due to his complete reckless abandon regarding the well being of the nation.

It is time for everyone to acknowledge the damage the Bush administration has and continues to do to this country. The time for an accounting and accountability is now and it is time for those very courts which appointed this traitor and his minions to be held liable for damages caused.

After posting what is an outside the beltway state of the union, it seems appropriate to take some time and put a question flat out on the table with the challenge for some answers, doubtful to be forthcoming but needing to be asked anyhow.

According to the Constitution – which so many members of the GOP use as their bible though I fear few have actually read it – government , this government, was established “ ……. to insure domestic tranquility …… promote the general welfare…..”. It was also designed to “….form a more perfect union…” as the Articles of Confederation were deemed inadequate. In U S vs Cathcart, the courts reputed the “heresy” that states could at will or against the will of other states consider secession OR nullification.
So, as is often said here, one needs to ask the question. Why is the GOP agenda so dead set against domestic tranquility and the general welfare of the country, a condition prevailing not only inside the beltway but also inside every red state, several of which are deliberating nullification bills, as well.
It is well known that on the night of the first inauguration of President Obama in 2009, the GOP leadership met in a hotel suite to discuss and plan for years of obstruction, a plan well carried out over the six years of this administration. Now, I accept that there is blame on both sides of the aisle for the complete and utter dysfunction of the federal government but one must certainly fault the GOP for its continuing and flagrant disregard for the “ insuring of domestic tranquility…”.
But this did not start in 2009. No, it clearly did not. The modern day GOP has been a thorn in the side of progressive thinking, forward movement and general consideration of the well being of the nation for decades. Unpaid for wars costing trillions, not to mention thousands of lives, brought to the brink of economic collapse more than once, disdain for the middle class, not to mention those in poverty, and an all out obsession with conferring upon big business the mantle of complete immunity in its reckless drive for unlimited profits, the cost to social and environmental balance be damned.                  The GOP fought against Social Security from the beginning and it continues to do so today under the Ryan budget plans. The plan still calls for the privatization not only of Social Security but also of Medicare, capping medical insurance at $15,000 annually.

It has taken a dark blue pencil to SNAP – the food stamp program – and doesn’t think school lunches are important. It has fought raising the minimum wage, unwilling to accept that most people who are working in the $7.25 to $10.00 / hour strata are not only working for a wage which cannot support a family on any level, but are usually not working a forty hour week, making the task of making ends meet next to impossible
The modern GOP, controlled by the extremist Tea Party wing, continues to block job growth initiatives, equal pay for equal work, efforts for clean air and clean water, support for higher education costs, student loans and any efforts whatsoever at reform directed at the robber barons on Wall Street, whose blatant greed continues to keep the nation off an even keel. Trickle down doesn’t and never did !!!
This is, in no way, limited to high jinks inside the Beltway either. No, this insanity has filtered down to the state level especially in those dark red states whose austerity measures have brought about incredible hardship for so many populations.
In numerous states, most notably Texas, within the hour of the Court striking down Section 4 of the Voter Rights Act ( Chief Justice Roberts seems to think that racism in the voting process no longer exists ) executed a raft of anti voting measures which rival the Jim Crow measures of the fifties and sixties. Many states are doing away with redistricting commissions, paving the way for the legislature to design the voting patterns virtually eliminating whole voting districts. And then there are those “nullification” laws alluded to earlier which are gaining traction by the week.
In Arizona, capitalizing on the tea party mantra of fighting federal government overreach, Proposition 122 was passed. False information about its scope and only a 26% voter turnout being major causal factors, the State now is flexing its anti federal government muscles and poised to allow developing on federally protected lands and, most detestable of all, mining at the rim of the Grand Canyon – one of the most scared of all protected national monuments.

Red states have embarked on diluting to the point of extinction collective bargaining for public sector employees and Right to Work legislation is moving straight ahead in those states which do not already have such. And per usual, these same public sector employees who provide so many of much needed services will soon be unemployed as states are using severe cuts to public agencies as their way to dilute the deep red ink in which they all find themselves swimming. And, as there is insufficient time and space to address the issues around education, suffice it to say that cuts in education, especially in higher education are reminiscent of that old Mitt Romney adage, if your daddy can’t afford college, then try a trade school or something you can afford, supporting the now well acknowledged GOP policy agenda of keeping the rich richer and well educated while keeping the ever fading middle class broke and uneducated. Red states are using their legislative agenda to balance their debt by cutting services to those populations in most need. TANF, Medicaid, SNAP – all finding new eligibility rules, new limits and new restrictions – all designed to find those dollars which are scarce in a trickle down budget – and all this while, for some inexplicable reason, downsizing sources of revenue. Some states are going so far as moving toward eliminating state income taxes and corporate taxes all together.
I suspect some day the fearful and ignorant will awaken to find that not only are they struggling to maintain their lives as the quality is being greatly diminished, but to find also that the services which helped them survive the stupidity of across the board austerity are no longer to be found. Then, just then, we might see a greater than 26 % voter turnout. One proposes that the question on the table is, with such a pervasive and long standing agenda which clearly runs counter to the “… promotion of the general welfare…” how can anyone with any sense of moral compass cast a vote for any GOP candidate on any level ?

As per Article II of the Constitution, the President is required to present a report on the state of the union before Congress. Congress invites the President to make that address usually shortly after the new Congressional session begins. This year there is talk around the halls of congress that they will, in fact, not invite the President to make that address before Congress [ I suppose if this happens, it will revert to the written form usual before the days of radio and  television ]. If true, it would not surprise me as the 113th Congress , in addition to failing to govern across the board, took a most intensive obstructionist position on virtually everything in the president’s agenda. both domestic and foreign. This all began on the very evening of the inaugural in 2009 and continued to the seating of the 114th Congress. I suppose we shall see just what the president offers as his “State of the Union” . However, allow a different take on it based on this observer’s assessment.

The year 2014 has mercifully come to an end and the GOP House has accomplished little or nothing, having worked less than one hundred and ninety days, except continuing the hard obstructionism which began on the very night of the President’s first inaugural in 2009. We have endured six years of this agenda and sadly, there does not appear to be any end in sight.
The GOP Administration of 200 – 2008 left us with an economic picture dangling dangerously close to complete Depression and the amnesia continues. The economy has indeed improved but the benefits of that rather slight recovery have been mostly for the upper ten percent while most are still trying to manage in minimum wage jobs. The so called job creation statistics, much like the unemployment figures are not reality based nor do they reflect the bulk of those underemployed nor do they make note that much of the alleged job creation numbers are in fact part time jobs. The “official” unemployment figure is now around 5.6% while in truth, the unemployment if far higher, such as in Arizona where the calculation is, according to independent sources, closer to 16 %.

The agenda for the 113th congress, as per the senator from Kentucky, was to be certain that this administration was a one term administration and so the blocking of any and all domestic policy was set.
In spite of the economic circumstances, a major jobs bill, passed by the Senate in 2011, was still sitting in Rules as of the close of the 113th, with the Speaker vowing it would never get a vote as long as he was speaker. So much for any progress in not only the jobs which would have been created but the vast amount of infrastructure rep[airs which are so desperately needed. The House, during the 113th , sent sixteen bills to the Senate for action, all titled jobs bills when in reality they were nothing more than deregulation actions. So much for making real strides in the employment picture, not to mention any semblance of community renewal.
Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and, while the managing of its implementation was just sort of a disaster, the intent to bring access to health care to millions who, to this point, could not afford it, was a most laudable pursuit. The GOP controlled House did, in its own obstructionist way, draft and pass legislation to repeal this legislation no less than fifty-two times, wasting time and tax payer money on this obsession, denying so many the health care which damn near every other industrialized nation provides to their citizenry. And to add insult to injury, this obsession filtered down to the GOP controlled states as well, supported by a mindless decision rendered by the Supreme Court which allowed states to opt out of Medicaid Expansion, an integral part of the ACA. Sadly, that battle continues and the fate of this historic attempt to afford health care to so many is shaky at best. One item is the proposal to add the requirement of a forty hour week being full time. This would mean that unless you work a forty hour week, your employer does not have to provide insurance coverage. Leaves the door open for employers to require a thirty-five hour week but still have no responsibility to provide insurance, forcing employees to turn to the health exchanges in their state for health care.

Akin to this craziness is the continuing attack on what are the two major safety nets for seniors – Medicare and Social Security. George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security and fortunately failed. In the 112th, Congressman Paul Ryan, then Chair of the House Budget Committee, tried to force a measure which would hand over social Security to Wall Street and make Medicare a private insurance package with a $ 15,000 annual cap. It likewise failed at the presidential level. He tried again and failed again in the 113th.
However, with the seating of the 114th Congress, the talk again is about privatizing Social Security and raising the eligibility age to sixty-eight and likewise Medicare, which would become a private voucher system having that same $15,000 cap.
Once again, the average worker is being attacked and denying access to health care for not only working class folk but also for seniors is being cast as a viable way to reduce the deficit – a deficit which, for the record, has been declining progressively for several years already. [ Even those on the Hill confuse the deficit with the debt]. Interestingly, this all began with a GOP effort spearheaded by Congressman Ryan who would not have gotten out of high school if it were not for social security benefits.
Mr. Ryan’s budget plans also call, in the name of reducing spending, the decimation of Pell Grants, serious cuts in the school lunch programs and major reductions in the budget for the newly created Office for Consumer Protection. In addition, the GOP strategy, while obsessively adhering to the supply side economic ideology of the Reagan era, will, as Mr Ryan loudly proclaims,not add any taxes to the upper ten per cent nor to corporations, many of which do not pay taxes at all. However, they will support a tar sands pipeline for a foreign oil company, gut the Environmental Protection Agency and fight hard to dilute, if not eliminate the controls levied by the Dodd-Frank Act, allowing the banks on Wall Street to return to their reckless banking practices which brought us to near collapse in the late nineties.

Fear indeed is warranted, not of attacks from foreign aggressors but from the complete disdain for the middle class – or what’s left of it – by this congress. One need only look at their agenda of the GOP, which now controls both houses of congress. One should be concerned about the agenda that we know and especially about the agenda we do not know
And before one goes ballistic about this rant against the GOP, it must be said there is plenty of blame for our circumstances on the other side of the aisle as well. Spineless is a word that comes to mind and as the GOP is obsessed with destroying this administration and everything it stands for, the Democrats are obsessed with trying to time after time find a way to back step and compromise their way out of what should be a serious fight. What little gains there have been are, in my opinion, a result of failure rather than as a result of successful governing and now that the GOP controls the House and the Senate, the Oval Office is the only thing standing between some level of sanity and a complete destruction of our way of life.
All in all, the state of the union is weak at best and on a road to complete chaos, indeed class warfare brought about by , if I may paraphrase President Eisenhower, the power grab by the industrial, military, and now banking complex. Sadly, when we had a chance to turn it around in the mid term elections of 2014, only 36% thought it important enough to vote and I submit most of them did so in ignorance of the stakes. 2016 is two years away but that , politically speaking, is a lifetime during which havoc in so many areas can be wreaked and we, all of us, will pay the price. Is that what it will take for us to wake up ??