Top Ten Ways We Got Jacked by Conservatives

Diamond Cross · 09-22-2006, 10:36 PM

If you ever wanted to see how badly 'conservatives' have been shaking the silver out of our pockets in the past six years, this list is it.

1) The Bush administration has created the biggest budget deficit, debt, and trade imbalance ever while cutting funding for domestic needs like education, Medicare, and Medicaid.

2) The administration’s tax cuts favor the rich, no matter how you look at it. About 87 percent of tax benefits go to the 14 percent of households with incomes above $100,000. Households with incomes below $75,000 -- three-quarters of all households -- get just 5 percent of those benefits.

3) Bush signed the largest corporate tax break package in two decades, $136 billion. After World War II, corporations paid half the cost of running the federal government. Today, they pay 7%.

4) The price of gas doubled under Bush. The top oil companies earned $25 billion during the quarter that Hurricane Katrina struck compared to $50 billion for all of 2004. Former Exxon-Mobil, CEO, Lee Raymond got a $400 million exit package.

5) The Republican Congress has voted against every minimum wage increase, except the one linked to getting rid of the estate tax for the rich. The real income of the average American household has fallen five years in a row.

6) House Republicans chopped education programs by $14.3 billion -- the highest cuts ever. College tuition has increased 34 percent since Bush took office.

7) Since 2001, average monthly health care premiums have risen from $342 to $603. Annual deductibles have doubled. Today 46 million Americans (including 8.4 million children) have no health insurance, an increase of 6 million since Bush took office.

8) The Senate approved the biggest bankruptcy law in a quarter of a century. Republicans voted AGAINST protecting senior citizens, the seriously ill, military members, veterans, and employees.

9) In 1983, the Greenspan Commission put Social Security measures in place that created a $1.7 trillion surplus in the system. This administration borrowed against and cut that to $153 billion while blaming citizens for not dying young enough.

10) In 2005, Americans paid $4.3 billion in withdrawal fees at ATM’s and $16 billion to credit card companies in late fees alone. Republicans have suggested no remedies.

Nomi Prins is a senior fellow at the public policy center Demos and author of Other People's Money and Jacked: How "Conservatives" are Picking your Pocket (Whether you voted for them or not).

AlterNet: Top Ten Ways We Got Jacked by Conservatives

09-22-2006, 10:48 PM

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

If you ever wanted to see how badly 'conservatives' have been shaking the silver out of our pockets in the past six years, this list is it.

1) The Bush administration has created the biggest budget deficit, debt, and trade imbalance ever while cutting funding for domestic needs like education, Medicare, and Medicaid.

2) The administration’s tax cuts favor the rich, no matter how you look at it. About 87 percent of tax benefits go to the 14 percent of households with incomes above $100,000. Households with incomes below $75,000 -- three-quarters of all households -- get just 5 percent of those benefits.

3) Bush signed the largest corporate tax break package in two decades, $136 billion. After World War II, corporations paid half the cost of running the federal government. Today, they pay 7%.

4) The price of gas doubled under Bush. The top oil companies earned $25 billion during the quarter that Hurricane Katrina struck compared to $50 billion for all of 2004. Former Exxon-Mobil, CEO, Lee Raymond got a $400 million exit package.

5) The Republican Congress has voted against every minimum wage increase, except the one linked to getting rid of the estate tax for the rich. The real income of the average American household has fallen five years in a row.

6) House Republicans chopped education programs by $14.3 billion -- the highest cuts ever. College tuition has increased 34 percent since Bush took office.

7) Since 2001, average monthly health care premiums have risen from $342 to $603. Annual deductibles have doubled. Today 46 million Americans (including 8.4 million children) have no health insurance, an increase of 6 million since Bush took office.

8) The Senate approved the biggest bankruptcy law in a quarter of a century. Republicans voted AGAINST protecting senior citizens, the seriously ill, military members, veterans, and employees.

9) In 1983, the Greenspan Commission put Social Security measures in place that created a $1.7 trillion surplus in the system. This administration borrowed against and cut that to $153 billion while blaming citizens for not dying young enough.

10) In 2005, Americans paid $4.3 billion in withdrawal fees at ATM’s and $16 billion to credit card companies in late fees alone. Republicans have suggested no remedies.

Nomi Prins is a senior fellow at the public policy center Demos and author of Other People's Money and Jacked: How "Conservatives" are Picking your Pocket (Whether you voted for them or not).

AlterNet: Top Ten Ways We Got Jacked by Conservatives

1) Cutting funding for education, medicare and medicaide? Is that why those budgets are higher than ever even after adjusting for inflation? Ted fucking Kennedy wrote the education bill....

2) The top 25% get most of the benefits because they pay the HUGE majority of the taxes. The top 50% pay a whopping 96% of the taxes in this country. EVERYONE got a tax break with the bush tax cuts. Those that pay more benefit more, thats simply math and economics.

3) Corporate taxes are paid for by consumers and employees, thsi has been proven mutliple times with fairly basic economics. Corporations should pay no income tax, the fact that they do is abhorrent.

4) Bush doesn't control gas prices, even elluding to the fact that he might is ignorant.

5) The "real income" hasn't fallen five years in a row. It's just been lower than it was in the year 2000. There's a difference, "real" incomes are up from 2003, 2004 and up again in 2005, obviously 2006 isn't in yet.

6) Highest cuts ever in education? You fail to mention this comes after the highest increases in education spending ever.

7) 46 million americans lack healthcare coverage? Thats not a bad number considering in 2004 the democrats specifically Kerry touted that number as being 51.4 million. Thats even better considering in the year 2000 that number was 48 million according to the Clinton administration. So that means both in real numbers and in % numbers its gone down. Holy crap a smaller % of the US population has NO health coverage, this is bad for democrats so it must be bad for america

8) I disagree with the bankruptcy law, but instead of publishing real numbers the only thign you could come up with was a play on emotions? Nice

9) This administrations spending has been abhorrent but htey never blamed people for "not dying fast enough" thats just...well ridiculous.

10) So the government is supposed to be responsible for poor spending habbits and money management by citizens of this country?

Scrum · 09-22-2006, 11:50 PM

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

4) Bush doesn't control gas prices, even elluding to the fact that he might is ignorant.

That's not entirely true.

He certainly can affect the prices of oil by likelihood of military action in the ME or by pushing different pieces of legislation that will drive the prices up.

I'm not saying he has a telephone he picks up and says "raise the price of oil". He doesn't control it directly, but he can affect it.

Diesel66 · 09-23-2006, 05:48 AM

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

If you ever wanted to see how badly 'conservatives' have been shaking the silver out of our pockets in the past six years, this list is it.

1) The Bush administration has created the biggest budget deficit, debt, and trade imbalance ever while cutting funding for domestic needs like education, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Wtf? Education and medicare just got huge boosts by Bush. Over 1 trillion to the new medicare program alone.

2) The administration’s tax cuts favor the rich, no matter how you look at it. About 87 percent of tax benefits go to the 14 percent of households with incomes above $100,000. Households with incomes below $75,000 -- three-quarters of all households -- get just 5 percent of those benefits.

Look who pays taxes. Plus everyone got a tax cut.

3) Bush signed the largest corporate tax break package in two decades, $136 billion. After World War II, corporations paid half the cost of running the federal government. Today, they pay 7%.

Good, they should keep lowering it until it reaches zero. Corporations dont exist. The employees, customers and stockholders pay all their taxes, so why not just tax them directly ?

4) The price of gas doubled under Bush. The top oil companies earned $25 billion during the quarter that Hurricane Katrina struck compared to $50 billion for all of 2004. Former Exxon-Mobil, CEO, Lee Raymond got a $400 million exit package.

5) The Republican Congress has voted against every minimum wage increase, except the one linked to getting rid of the estate tax for the rich. The real income of the average American household has fallen five years in a row.

Good.

6) House Republicans chopped education programs by $14.3 billion -- the highest cuts ever. College tuition has increased 34 percent since Bush took office.

Yes because Bush controls the cost of state public schools ?

7) Since 2001, average monthly health care premiums have risen from $342 to $603. Annual deductibles have doubled. Today 46 million Americans (including 8.4 million children) have no health insurance, an increase of 6 million since Bush took office.

How is this his fault ?

8) The Senate approved the biggest bankruptcy law in a quarter of a century. Republicans voted AGAINST protecting senior citizens, the seriously ill, military members, veterans, and employees.

Good. Pay your bills

9) In 1983, the Greenspan Commission put Social Security measures in place that created a $1.7 trillion surplus in the system. This administration borrowed against and cut that to $153 billion while blaming citizens for not dying young enough.

We have been borrowing from the SS fund since the 70s. Even if the SS fund got every penny they are owed, it will still run into problems in 2042 just because more people will be retired then paying into it.

10) In 2005, Americans paid $4.3 billion in withdrawal fees at ATM’s and $16 billion to credit card companies in late fees alone. Republicans have suggested no remedies.

09-23-2006, 08:05 AM

Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent

That's not entirely true.

He certainly can affect the prices of oil by likelihood of military action in the ME or by pushing different pieces of legislation that will drive the prices up.

I'm not saying he has a telephone he picks up and says "raise the price of oil". He doesn't control it directly, but he can affect it.

You're absolutely right on that account.

He can "indirectly" affect prices via actions domestically. The only way to directly affect prices is to raise the fuel tax. Clinton helped to keep prices artificially low during his administration we got used to it. Bush doesn't interfere in the market, when he does its as little as possible and you can see this throughout all of his policies not just reguarding oil.

Yes we're paying more for gasoline but we weren't paying enough for almost 20 years.