I Accuse.....

(This post, originally posed on the morning of October 30th, will stay on top until Wednesday morning.)

I accuse the Republican party of actively working to sabotage the Federal government, including the destruction of Social Security and Medicare.

I accuse the Democratic party of craven collaboration with the saboteurs of the GOP. I accuse the Democratic party of lacking the spine and courage to stand up to the saboteurs.

This is my brief.

It is a simple fact of economics, from the smallest lemonade stand to the largest corporation, that if expenses are larger than income and remain that way, then the entity will eventually go broke and fail. For individuals and families, if expenditures are larger than income, then they will eventually go bankrupt.

Let us step back in time nine years.

In 2001, in part thanks to tax increases signed into law by President George H.W. Bush nearly ten years before, the Federal yearly budget was in the black. The long-term forecast was for Federal budgets to be in the black. For possibly the first time in decades, the Federal government was projected to not only be running a surplus for the foreseeable future, but that it would make large-scale reductions in the Federal debt, then a skosh over 5 trillion dollars.

That was intolerable to the Republicans and to the devotees of Ayn Rand, chiefly Alan Greenspan. It had been a plan of the Republicans for decades to overspend the Federal government until the deficit was so high that the New Deal and Great Society social programs could be dismantled. A Federal government that was running a surplus was not part of their plan.

And so they sent about wrecking it.

The way they set upon was massive tax cuts. Those tax cuts, while offering a little bit of a break to the middle class, were huge for the wealthy. They were especially significant for those who made their money not by going out and working, but by letting their money do the work for them (through investments). Those who lived off returns on investments, whether it was money they had made through their own businesses or those who had inherited wealth (the winners of Lucky Sperm Lotto), made out like bandits.

The result was the Federal government's budget shifted immediately from the black to the red. Deficits returned. The long-term outlook from the effect of those tax cuts was so bleak, with deficits, as projected by the Congressional Budget Office, to eventually skyrocket over the trillion dollar amount per year, that the only way that the administration of George W. Bush could get his little giveaway enacted was to have the tax cuts expire in 2011.

And so here we are, pretty much in the situation that the CBO said would exist, and that was before we got into two wars.

Remember what I said at the beginning: Income has to equal or exceed expenses eventually. Companies, businesses and households sometimes have to run at deficits to weather bad times. But sooner or later, the budgets must balance and the debts have to be paid down.

Any discussion of bringing the Federal government's budget back into balance that does not discuss the revenue, ie, income, side is not a serious one. It is not an ideological talking point that the Bush tax cuts are largely responsible for where we find ourselves today, it is a statement of fact.

The Republicans are doing what they have always done; Smashing down the poor, working and middle classes so that the rich benefit. If you even can get a Republican politician to talk about the revenue side of the Federal government (which they hate doing), what they talk about is crap like the "Fair Tax" and the "Value Added Tax". There is another term for both proposals: Federal sales taxes.

Sales taxes are regressive taxes. The burden of sales taxes falls disproportionately on the lower rungs of the economic pyramid. I maintain that this point is so self-evident that if I were to expound on it further, I would be insulting your intelligence.

If the tax structure is going to be a burden borne by other than those who work for a living, then it has to be on income. I believe that if the taxes are to be fair, they must not land most heavily on those who can least afford them. Those who reap most of the benefit of the freedom of this country in the creation and multiplication of their wealth should be expected to share the burden of paying for it (for the Lord knows that it is not their sons and daughters who have been playing games of IED Roulette for the last several years).

The first step is to let the Bush tax cuts die their planned death. If that is not permitted to happen, then the politicians are not serious about fixing the Federal budget.

In point of fact, there is not a single member of the Republican party, whether those in Congress, those running for Congress, or those running for the presidency in 2012, who is serious about fixing the Federal deficit. (Remember that the 2009 Federal budget, which was more than a trillion in the red, was proposed and written by the Bush Administration.)

I accuse the Republicans of economic sabotage of the Federal government. It has been their plan for decades to run the Federal government off a cliff, to destroy Social Security and Medicare, and to bring this country back to where it was in the 1890s, if not the 1840s. (Some of the far right Republicans are seriously talking about scaling back or even eliminating compulsory education.) What they seek is to reduce this nation to a near Third World status, a nation with a number of glittering rich, and mostly poor people, but a nation with nuclear weapon. What they seek is to have a system where only their viewpoints are permitted and those who dissent are marginalized, if not imprisoned.

There is a nation, of course, that is almost fully in line with the Republican ideal: A nation where dissent is not tolerated, the rich run rampant, the workers and poor are crushed down and the industrial base has been largely dismantled or allowed to rust into permanent obsolescence.

That nation is Russia.

The turning of the United States into another Russia is what the Republicans have in mind. That is why I accuse the Republicans, every last one of them, of sabotage, if not outright treason.

The Democratic party has been absolutely spineless and craven in this. Despite the self-evident results of the Bush tax cuts, the Democrats have been unable to stand up, to do a "Ross Perot" and show any graphs or charts to the American people to explain the perfidy of the Republicans. Some of the Democrats have not just been cowards unable to stand up to the Republicans, they have, in fact, actively collaborated with the Republicans on their plan to destroy the Federal government and to bring this nation back to the 19th Century.

It has been said by many people that nations get the governments that they deserve. This is particularly true in a democracy. Whatever the outcome of the election on Tuesday or the one on November 6th, 2012, we will get the government that we deserve.

Whether it is a government that looks to the 21st Century or to the 19th Century is up to you.

Vote.