The Scary Federal Tax Cut Agenda

By James Donahue

I recently listened to Rush Limbaugh’s radio pontifications. While I rarely agree with this man’s twisted extreme right wing opinions, I am sometimes tempted to tune in just to hear the “great” Limbaugh’s latest rants.

On this day I found Rush expounding on the current Republican campaign agenda that calls for more tax cuts to pull the American economy out of the deep recession/depression we now find ourselves wallowing in.

The man was billowing at great length about how government redistribution of tax money in federal assistance and public works projects does not generate additional wealth. He said it is comparable to dipping water from the deep end of a swimming pool and pouring it into the shallow end, hoping to equalize the depth of the water at both ends.

Limbaugh argued that cutting taxes allows the working public to keep more of the money they earn and thus encourages spending, which stimulates business growth. As business grows more jobs are created. On the surface the argument sounded good. In fact one woman caller almost swooned while talking to Limbaugh. She expressed concern that he might be giving the Democrats too many “good ideas” that they might use to defeat the Republicans in 2012 elections.

While listening to the garbage flowing from the mouth of that man, it occurred to me that commentators like Limbaugh are dishing out so much misinformation about a relatively complicated financial problem, and getting listeners so confused, that they are becoming downright dangerous.

Of course Limbaugh blamed the Obama Administration for everything that has gone wrong with the American economy. He whitewashed the fact that Mr. Obama appointed many of the same financial advisors to his cabinet that led us into the economic slide during the George W. Bush years. In fact, we can trace the origins of this mess all the way back to the Ronald Reagan Administration. There is enough blame to be passed around.

What has been happening is that there has been a constant redistribution of wealth until it is now being held and controlled by a few very wealthy individuals. The plan has included a movement of American industry overseas in a quest to find cheap labor, a breaking of American labor unions, and the subsequent loss of millions of good paying jobs at home.  The nation’s remaining primary industries include the military industrial complex, a massive police-prison-legal system, and a broad range of malls filled with fast food restaurants and shops hawking junk made in China.

If you want to buy a new kitchen appliance, new television set, new computer, new coat, or a pair of new shoes, the chances are what you buy will have been made outside of the United States. Even much of the food, cosmetics and medicine we buy is imported from overseas.

The government’s policies of constant warfare and the use of multi-billion dollar military hardware, the bail-out of “failed” banks and a refusal to demand that wealthy Americans pay their fair share of the financial burden through increased taxes has helped create a multi-trillion dollar deficit that gets steadily worse with each passing day. The Federal Reserve’s insane policy of printing more money, without anything to support its worth, is eroding the value of the dollar on the world markets. And it is causing run-away inflation at home, especially now that primary world resources are running out.

With less money in circulation the price of food, energy and health care is rising. Because more people are holding low paying public service jobs or getting no work whatsoever they are not buying things. Consequently business in America is in gridlock.

While the Republican call for additional tax cuts may sound good to a lot of the Americans that tune into Limbaugh’s radio program, they don’t understand that the tax cuts are not going to benefit low wage earners, the retired and unemployed. The tax cuts at issue are earmarked only to further benefit the rich. And without this badly needed source of revenue, America’s economic system is going into freefall. Taxing the guys sitting on the vaults containing all of the money is going to be the only way for the United States . . . and all of the other nations of the world facing this same money crunch . . . to fix this mess.

There is only so much wealth that exists. If we cannot find a way to redistribute it so that everybody benefits, then we are heading for a repeat of the dark ages, with the people living in subservient poverty and slaving to the whims of the ruling class. It took years of bloody revolution to turn that imbalance around. Have we not learned from past mistakes? Must we repeat history again and again until we get it right?

This is the issue facing voters in the 2012 election. The problem is that it doesn’t appear to matter which party gets in power. The Obama Administration appears to be following the same path established by George W. Bush and party leaders preceding him. And it appears to be a path leading us directly into self-destruction.