The US Falls Down the GOP’s Tax Scam Memory Hole. Again.
When is a tax cut more than just a tax cut? When it’s a GOP tax cut. Because when the GOP cuts taxes, it’s never just an attempt to cut taxes because tax cuts are just one element of the GOP’s much larger agenda of creating a society run by and for the super-rich. And massive amounts of propaganda and deception are part of the tax cut package too. It’s why GOP tax cuts tend to be so much more than just tax cuts for the rich. They’re Big Lies designed to fool society into dismantling itself. So it should come as a surprise to no one that the current GOP tax cut plans are horrible abomination being sold to the public by a web of lies. But what is genuinely surprising about the current GOP tax push is just how shoddy that web of lies is turning out to be this time. As we’re going to see, it’s almost as if the failure to pass Trumpcare only increased the resolve of America’s right-wing oligarchs to finally pass legislation that’s even more politically awful than Trumpcare. But as we’re also going to see, even if the tax cuts turn into a political disaster for the GOP that will still be fine for the GOP as long as the public forgets to remember that we’ve been here before.
Trumplandian Feudalism: Employ the Unemployed While Still Starving Them
Did Trump suddenly drop his oft-repeated criticism of tradition unemployment reporting and assertions that in reality its 42 percent and 94 million American adults are out of work? Well, as we’re going to see, probably not because his administration is still planning on redefining the “official” unemployment rate to be much “looser” and his claims that 42 percent if American adults are out of work are necessary to achieve a long-held GOP goal championed by House Speaker Paul Ryan: converting the US safety-net — including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — into a “work for a pittance to get a pittance of government support”-net that traps the poor in system where if you have to find full time work to get any help at all. Maybe even for the elderly. And the help you get in return for that work-requirement will keep shrinking year after year. It’s a plan that can’t happen unless almost all non-working adults are defined as “unemployed”. So, no, Trump didn’t change his mind. He just still thinks we’re all stupid (maybe).
Killing Granny: The GOP’s “One Size Fits All” Death Panel for Health Care
Change is coming to Washington DC. Mostly horrible changes. But as we’ll see in this post, there is one very significant and positive change coming as a consequence of the unified GOP control of the White House and Congress: GOP is actually going to start getting the blame it deserves for all the damage its pro-oligarch/anti-everyone-else agenda routinely inflicts upon the American people. Politics can be frustrating for a myriad of reasons, but one of the biggest sources of frustration is the cloud of perpetual obfuscation and confusion that tends to permeate the political discourse and collective understanding of what’s actually happening, why it’s happening, and who should be rewarded or blamed for it. But for the next couple of years, at a minimum, it’s going to be very clear who to blame for the damage DC is about to unleash, and it’s not just going to be Donald Trump. And when it comes to health care “reform” (privatization) that the GOP is about to impose upon the populace, that blame is about to get dangerously diffusive for state legislatures and governorships because the Health Care Austerity Hot Potato is about to get tossed in their laps over and over. Indefinitely. And since the GOP controls almost all state legislatures and governorships at the moment they won’t be able to prevent themselves from slashing these programs. So with the coming block granting of first Medicaid and then Medicare (or maybe both together), the politics of health care is about to get weird. And tragic because the GOP won’t be able to help itself with all the austerity
Free advice for a multimillionaire, Part 2: Lies, damned lies, and surrogates
Are you running for president? Do you find yourself in a bit of a Bain-bind? Is life starting to feel like a convoluted mess? Then we have just the advice for you.
FROM THE LECTURE SERIES
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