by Stephen Lendman

High income earners have clever lawyers and accountants able. They’re able to minimize their burden. Ordinary people are hit hardest.  The payroll tax will rise from 4.2% to 6.2%. Doing so means a 50% tax increase for over 90% of Americans. Payroll taxes shouldn’t have been cut in the first place. Better economic stimulus methods exist. Cuts drain Social Security Trust Fund reserves. Doing so irreparably hurts the ability to pay future benefits. Congress planned it that way.

Both parties want Social Security privatized. Doing so assures destroying it altogether. It also violates Franklin Roosevelt’s pledge. He said:

“We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits.”

“With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program. Those taxes aren’t a matter of economics. They’re straight politics.”

Both parties play hardball. Class war defines their agenda. America’s social contract is on the chopping block for elimination. A decade from now it won’t exist in its current form. In two decades or less it will disappear altogether. Doing so means using America’s resources for waging war on humanity, increasing corporate profitability, and benefitting super-rich elites already with too much. Vital popular needs will be sacrificed.

Nominally at midnight December 31, unemployment benefits for 2.1 million Americans expire. They represent those without jobs longterm. In 2013 Q I, another million Americans will lose their benefits. More will lose out throughout the year.

Budget sequestration kicks in. Initially, automatic $1.2 trillion in spending cuts are mandated. Nominally they’re across the board. Obama, most Democrats, and Republicans agree. Defense spending will rise, not fall. America’s war machine will be generously funded. War profiteers demand it. Bipartisan complicity won’t disappoint.

Social America will be hardest hit. It’s longstanding policy. Over the next decade, agreement was reached on cutting about $4 trillion. Before it ends, expect much more. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public pensions are prime targets. Other vital social programs are included. Erosion and planned privatization assure eliminating them.

So does eventually ending virtually all benefits disadvantaged households now get. Bedrock programs will be entirely destroyed. Doing so in their current form comes first. Eliminating them altogether follows. The annual “doc fix” also expires. Medicare’s growth formula ties physician compensation to economic performance. Healthcare providers get shortchanged. Doc fixes minimize damage.

Unless renewed, physician compensation will drop 26.5%. Doing so assures more doctors dropping out of the program altogether. Many already did so. The alternative minimum tax (AMT) expires. Annual congressional patches keep it in place. In 1969, it was introduced.

Initially it was conceived as a system to assure high-income earners, corporations, trusts, and estates pay at least minimal taxes. Currently around 20% of households are affected. Thresholds aren’t automatically adjusted for inflation. For years, Congress enacted one-year patches. At times, modest inflation relief was included. AMT kicks in if tentative minimum taxes exceed regular ones.

Tentative ones are AMT amounts times alternative minimum taxable income less the AMT foreign tax credit. Regular ones equal income tax obligations minus foreign and possessions tax credits.

The AMT is a very complicated. It’s a parallel tax system. Ordinary people need accountants to determine if it affects them. What began in 1969 is totally dysfunctional. Many middle income earners are hard hit. Nominally it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Patches rectify things annually. Failure to do so assures voter rage. It’s been avoided so far. Given bipartisan agreement to destroy America’s social contract, anything is possible ahead.

Social destructiveness is prioritized. Doing what’s right is spurned. Imagine the difference effective policies would make. Key ones include: Putting money power back in public hands where it belongs. The Constitution’s Article I, Section 8 mandates it.

Public banking works. It’s an idea whose time has come. Privatized money power is destructive. Regaining public control more than ever is needed. Colonial America prospered that way tax and inflation-free. It’s the same wherever it’s instituted. Imagine if Wall Street’s controlled Federal Reserve was nationalized.

Its franchise would be abolished. Giant banks could be broken up. Too-big-to-fail ones could end. Insolvent ones would be shut down. Responsibly run public ones would replace them. Sustainable inflation-free prosperity could follow. Readily available credit makes it possible. All boats could be lifted equitably. It happened in America before and could again. Political will alone prevents it.

Imagine the difference under public banks. They’re not beholden to Wall Street or shareholders. They don’t have to earn profits. They don’t pay huge salaries and bonuses. They’re mandated only to serve communities, businesses of all sizes, farmers, and private individuals responsibly. They’re very much up to the task. They succeed marvelously.

Federal, state and local debt could be substantially reduced or eliminated. So could personal and payroll taxes. America’s manufacturing base could be rebuilt. Social programs could be funded inflation-free. Infrastructure rebuilding could be prioritized. It could be done on a scale never before imagined.

Environmental cleanup could happen. Alternative, sustainable, clean, safe, affordable energy sources could be developed. Millions of good-paying jobs could be created. Employment would exist for everyone willing and able to work. People with money spend it. Doing so enhances economic growth. Home ownership would be available to millions. Foreclosures would end. Mortgages would be sustainably cheap. Booms and busts would end. So would destructive currency devaluations and economic warfare. Private pensions, savings and investments would be safe. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public pensions, and other vital benefits would be secure in perpetuity. So would sustainable prosperity.

Fiscal cliff duplicitous hype wouldn’t exist. Imagine this kind of nation. It’s not pie-in-the-sky. Colonial America proved it works. So have other nations where it was tried. Why not again now. Political will alone prevents it. People power can change things.

Reinstitute anti-trust laws with teeth. Prohibit monopoly and oligopoly power. Revoke corporate personhood. Business giants are private tyrannies. Their rights are the same as people. Limited liability status eliminates most responsibilities.

They’re a universe unto themselves. They can reside in many places simultaneously. They can’t be imprisoned for wrongdoing. They take full advantage. They’re obligated only to shareholders. Their power has grown exponentially. They’re out-of-control. They’re rapacious predators. They make US policy. They write legislation Congress passes. Presidents dutifully enact it. It’s high time that changed.

Dismantle destructive duopoly power. Replace it with multi-party direct democracy. Get money out of politics.

Break up big media. Make broadcasting a public utility. Airwaves belong to everyone. Business giants exploit it. Generous subsidies support them. Prohibit corporate handouts, loopholes, and special benefits. Make corporations pay their fare share. Tax all profits equitably.Mandate progressive taxation. Treat all forms of income equally.

Tax speculation. Impose a Tobin tax on large financial transactions. Reinstitute Glass-Steagall. Decouple commercial from investment banks and insurers. Abolish the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. It legitimized swap agreements and other hybrid instruments. It prevents regulatory oversight of derivatives and leveraging. It turned Wall Street crooks loose on unsuspecting investors. Fraud more than ever was institutionalized. It’s Wall Street’s business model.

Giant banks make money by stealing it. Crooked politicians permit it. Predatory rapaciousness is institutionalized. America’s 1% profits at the expense of others. Depression conditions harm growing millions. Reckless policies make it possible.

Mandate level playing field fairness. End monied corruption. Hold corporate bosses accountable. End America’s student loan racket. Reenergize organized labor. Let workers bargain collectively with management fairly.

Save public education. Institute it at the college and graduate school levels. Establish universal healthcare. Everyone in. No one left out.

End America’s permanent war policy. Prioritize peace. Close all overseas bases. Cut defense spending sharply. Use America’s resources for productive economic growth.

Imagine priorities this beneficial. Imagine a country fit to live in. Imagine widespread activism committed to achieve it. It won’t happen any other way. It never has. It never will.

Ordinary people are responsible for their own futures. They hold their fate in their own hands. It’s their choice. Act responsibly or lose out entirely. America’s on a fast track toward the worst of all possible worlds.

Imagine mass activism unwilling to tolerate it. Beneficial social change could follow. Institutionalizing it could become policy. It that’s not worth working for, what is?

ABOUT THE AUHTOR

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

http://www.dailycensored.com/responsible-fiscal-cliff-resolution/

MYLES HOENIG

One of many arguments of the extreme right in opposing gun control and banning assault weapons is that they are needed against an over-powering enemy, the federal government.

To them, the government is in league with NATO and the United Nations, preparing to take away our civil liberties and put us all in FEMA camps.   At one time this was viewed as an extremist point of view, but now it’s becoming quite clear that this federal government is not exactly what Jefferson envisioned. Nor is it one that easily fits any particular conspiracy theorist’s framework.

Our federal government has long gone over to the dark side. Whether it fits Dr. Lawrence Britt’s “Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism” (http://rense.com/general37/char.htm) or not, it is clear that the interests of the poor and the middle class are barely secondary in Congress’s deliberations.  Human, civil, and economic rights have long been ignored for the benefit of the banking industry as well as the military-industrial complex. Have we learned nothing from the Nye Commission of 1934-6 regarding their involvement in our entry into WW1? Have President Eisenhower’s prescient words rung so hollow since?

The latest revelations of how Obama’s police state has worked with local police departments and the banks to suppress, often brutally, a la Bahrain, the Occupy movement should wake up even the most brain-dead Obamabot as to the horrors this administration is planning for us. FEMA camps and UN black helicopters? Maybe that does fall into the realm of conspiracy theories but it’s easy to see how a real fear permeates our society.  Jefferson said, “A government afraid of its citizens is a Democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny!”

Election, economy spark explosive growth of militias—READ THE REST OF THE STORY

So what is the response? An armed citizenry? Second Amendment advocates see that as the answer while many others view that amendment as a reference to a state-styled militia to protect it from an overreaching federal government. Clearly, the founding fathers, landowners and the elite of society, would not have wanted the average citizen to be armed against their economic interests.

To arm the citizenry against the federal government is suicidal. One can have all of the most effective automatic weapons at one’s disposal, magazine clips to hold dozens of rounds, and the will and determination to take on the federal troops. But wouldn’t it be like Indiana Jones taking out a gun when the other has a sword? Or as Malone in “The Untouchables” said, “Isn’t that just like a xxx? Brings a knife to a gun fight.” Face it. One might have a survivalists’ arsenal, but the feds have tanks.  David Koresh’s compound was burned to the ground and not a single federal agent had even his hair singed. If the US can obliterate a wedding party or first responders (as a ‘double tap’) in Pakistan with their joysticks in Colorado, then the idea of ‘militarily’ taking on the feds is foolish and, again, suicidal.  Saddam Hussein had an army and still lost to the invading American imperial forces.

The patriotic American revolutionaries learned from the indigenous people how to fight overwhelming enemies. The Brits stood shoulder to shoulder. The Americans learned to hide behind rocks. This is not to educate the dissident or the revolutionary on how to take on such an army.  If interested read Che, Sun Tzu or follow Red Cloud.

I would argue that militarily taking on the federal government is not an effective approach to achieve radical change in America.  The people of the Philippines took on Marcos without firing a shot. The Arab Spring saw lots of casualties but they toppled dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. Palestinians of Gaza are overwhelmingly outnumbered militarily but finally the world is being forced to see Israel for what it truly is.  The southern nations of Europe are heading towards revolution and in time we just might see a victory for the vox populi.

“Eat your pheasant
Drink your wine
Your days are numbered
Bourgeois swine”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Myles Hoenig is an educational advocate and veteran ESOL teacher with Baltimore City and Prince George’s County public schools. His email is hoenigedu@gmail.com.