Are those our only choices? And if so, what's it going to be? Cutting defense spending or cutting Social Security? Because with a GOP-dominated Congress, it won't mean increasing revenues by raising taxes on those who are most able to afford a slight increase.
The GOP-dominated House Ways and Means Committee just voted to repeal the federal estate tax, which the Republicans, Libertarians and Tea Partiers have been labeling as a "death tax" that unfairly steals the family jewels from ordinary hard-working Americans.
Economists refer to "job polarization" in the labor force when middle-class jobs (requiring a moderate level of skills) appear to disappear relative to those at the bottom (requiring fewer skills) and to those at the top — requiring greater skills; or those who are better networked and know people in a position of influence. (Below is a simple animation to show how job polarization might look).
The House overwhelmingly approved sweeping changes to the Medicare program (voting 392 to 37) which would establish a new formula for paying doctors and increasing premiums for Medicare beneficiaries.
Unlike politically incorrect journalists in the mainstream media (including Fox News), one can't accurately report on bloody budget cuts — and then, just to appear non-partisan, say it's "Congress" who's proposing the cuts — not when it's the Republicans within Congress who are the ones proposing all these bloody budget cuts.
From his blog: "It’s now possible to sell a new product to hundreds of millions of people without needing many, if any, workers to produce or distribute it ... The ratio of producers to customers continues to plummet ... New technologies aren’t just labor-replacing, they’re also knowledge-replacing ... When more and more can be done by fewer and fewer people, the profits go to an ever-smaller circle of executives and owner-investors ...
For decades the top 0.01% (and their political allies) have been winning the war on working-class Americans (meaning, about 92.2% of the labor force). One particular political party always wants to cut government agencies and programs that protect workers' health, safety and welfare — such as workers' wages, workers' pensions, workers' voting rights and workers' labor unions (like they do with their so-called "Right to Work" laws).
To pay themselves first. In the past several years, profits have been increasingly paid back to shareholders, rather than invested in hiring more people and/or paying their employees better.
An investigation by ProPublica and NPR has found that Republican state legislators (on behalf of lobbyists working for their local chamber of commerce) have passed laws that cut worker compensation insurance benefits to save employers money. Because of this, now the U.S. taxpayers have to pick up the added costs in Social Security disability, Medicare and Medicaid.
Ninety percent of the drop in the labor force since the Great Recession is attributed to young prime-age workers going on Social Security disability. OMG!!! Can this be true? Would the new CBO lie?
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