What is more important, our Freedoms or continuing to allow the richest Americans to ruin our country?
Since the Reagan administration we have been getting screwed by the richest people and corporations starting with trickle down economics. The bigotry party is giving tax breaks to the wealthy and slowing taking our Freedoms away! Citizens United has pretty much taken over Congress.
Big corporations have taken control of mainstream media. The anti diversity party has taken away a women’s right of choice. Our Freedoms are on the chopping block!
To listen to some of these not conservative views from this loud minority like MTG who wants to shut down the government and impeach our president without any evidence hoping some evidence will appear after they start an inquiry. Or Vivek Ramaswamy who said he would deport children of immigrants who were born here!
On the same day the House returned, Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced that he’ll direct the chamber to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
A loud minority of the GOP (Gaga Over Putin) party is Corrupt and the rest of the Republicans are complicit. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin defended Trump, saying that his prosecutions show that the United States is fundamentally corrupt. Putin has created a lot of our dissent by interfering in our elections! He is Pure Evil!
Liz Cheney recently said “Putin has now officially endorsed the Putin-wing of the Republican Party. Putin Republicans & their enablers will end up on the ash heap of history. Patriotic Americans in both parties who believe in the values of liberal democracy will make sure of it.”
The Constitutional patriots in the Republican Party have to stand up against these power seeking Putineers now or their legacies will be forever tainted!
I can't buy the arguments that are made today by you (and are made so often by so many) that "we" have chosen various things—in this case to impoverish huge proportions of the U.S. population. I did not do this. Yes, I ignorantly voted for Bill Clinton, who then betrayed me by undermining and destroying much of what I had believed was "our" U.S. government (the programs and policies of FDR and also of LBJ). But I did not "do" those things.
I did not choose to undermine the University of California and make it into an institution that is available only to the wealthy or to others by incurring huge debt at huge rates of interest. I did not choose to make Community Colleges (which were called Junior Colleges when I was young) expensive—they were tuition-free when I was young, and I wanted them to stay that way.
The Democratic Party was taken over by so-called "New Democrat" types who might as well have been Ronald Reagan Republicans.
I didn't want that and I don't want it now. I support Biden because he appears to me to be trying to move the Democratic Party back to being the champion of the people, not of the banks and financiers. That's what I want and support.
The Child tax credit was Great 👍 the failure to continue it abysmal . Yet many want to stop abortions but don’t want to pay families to support children.
Having children was the greatest thing I ever did but also the most expensive .
Any tax credit program should fund children tax credit first before all other tax credits.
You know, I find it very hard to rationalize the republicans against abortion and what they call killing babies with abolishing the Child Tax Credit that leaves our children impoverished. It absolutely makes no sense! Why in the world would these politicians decide to eliminate the one thing that was working to reduce child poverty? It was working for our children!! The two simply do not relate! They have screamed and hollered until they finally got the Supreme Court to do away with Roe V Wade saying that women had to have children no matter if it was due to rape, incest or health situations. They say they are doing it for the children yet they are willing to let millions of our children live in poverty. It is deplorable!! I retired from teaching and I know how hard it is for children to be able to concentrate when their little bellies are grumbling due to hunger. I always kept snacks (apples, raisins, crackers, etc.) for children that were hungry. I also made sure my students were able to eat at lunch. I am so saddened, sickened, and embarrassed that our country chooses to let our children live in poverty.
Why is it that in the "richest" country in the world are both children and senior citizens living in poverty? It's all because the wealthy people don't give a damn..children well that's someone's else's concern but now due to the mentality of the Republicans you now will have those babies...so what it's not my problem! With seniors who worked out entire lives are barely getting by as once again they in Washington want to cut Social Security and Medicare, don't want to get lower drug process for seniors...the bottom line again is everything in the United States comes to GREED....as I've heard my entire life.." the rich keep getting richer, poor keep getting poorer, and the two will never meet" only in America are children and seniors disposable...
9 million children at 300 dollars per month would add $32.4 billion to the budget. The F-35 fighter jet, designed to kill, is estimated to cost $1.7 trillion by the GAO. Divide that out and the F-35 budget covers over 50 years of the child poverty program. Extremely expensive death dealing versus 50 years of 9 million healthier children. Which do you support? If politics were rational that sounds like a good campaign sound bite. Unfortunately rationality left the airport a while ago and we are left with Joe Manchin, Matt Gaetz, MTG, ...
Most of our country’s problems are policy choices. We choose to give corporations and the extremely wealthy enormous tax breaks, then, out of the other side of their mouth’s, our politicians lament how much we are spending on welfare, while the truth is that the tax breaks are far larger than anything one might call welfare. We choose to have a political system that allows legalized bribery and depriving people of equal representation via voter suppression, the representation scheme of the Senate, the filibuster, and partisan gerrymandering. We choose to squander enormous wealth on “defense” while we fail to educate the children of parents who can’t afford private education. We choose to have a medical system that shortens our lifespans, denies medical care to the poor, and bankrupts many. We choose to allow banks and fake universities to profit from high-interest loans we foist upon our students then burden with unaffordable payments.
Our policies are always a choice and we are making many short-sighted choices that are harming us and the future of our country. Of course, I know I’m preaching to the choir.
Here's one effect of great wealth redistribution to the 1%. Port Royal, in Naples FL, is about 45 minutes south of my home.
Some wealthy Port Royal landowners have so much money, they don't know what to do with it all. One investor purchased and demolished a $22.5M luxury home and built a new, multi-million dollar home on the same lot BECAUSE HE COULD. Some Port Royal homes are occupied a mere two weeks a year, and multi-million dollar teardowns and rebuilds are said to be frequent in Port Royal.
You are right o Dr Reich, I was employed for over thirty five years assisting financially deprived persons/families. We had the most effective program during the pandemic but it was allowed to die by republicans and two so called democrats. Why, they want families on the edge so their corporate masters can hire at the lowest possible cost to maintain a huge profit. It is inhumane. Children cannot learn while they are hungry.
Couple this with the multiple ways our tax code favors corporations with the effect many multi bullion in profit do not pay federal tax or if they do at a rate lower than working families.
The total amount and rate of poverty in the U.S. is, of course, an aggregate of the rates across all fifty states, red and blue. But not all poverty is created equal.
In red states, particularly the Southeast, poverty, and lower incomes are, not surprisingly, a consequence of Republican governance BUT, not an UNINTENDED consequence.
Because prices for most goods and services tend to rise only as high as the majority of the likely consumers of those goods and services are able and/or willing to pay, it is in the interests of the politicians who control the economies of these states to keep as many people possible poor or in the lower-middle class, because surrounding the rich — whose interests Republicans so tirelessly serve in return for financial rewards down the road — with poor people increases not only the real and perceived disparities between the two economic classes, but, tangibly, their actual buying power because the basic goods and services that the poor and other lower-income people consume also serve as the raw materials and building blocks of the luxury goods and services that the rich consume.
We’ve always known that conservatives, promoters of a patriarchal society and foes of abortion, want to keep women barefoot and pregnant, but you can add to that that they want to keep practically everybody else poor.
Another very timely and important message from Robert Reich. As usual, he's in the zone, saying the right things at the right time in the right way. (I wish more of us knew how to do that, myself especially.)
I grok your heavy-handed and righteous hint, Robert: We've got a serious problem, and we can fix it. Yes, we can, but we're up against (1) pure meanness and (2) ignorance -- oceans too wide to cross, mountains too high to climb.
Pure meanness cannot and will not be changed by appeals to humanity, mercy, kindness, or generosity. That's trying to fit a square peg into a round hole; mean people are unreachable, Ebenezer Scrooges before the three ghosts visited them.
I learned of an intellectual mask for meanness just yesterday: Right-wing thought leaders fervently believe in the "unsustainable crisis that is the entitlement state," i.e., government aid is the ultimate dead-end, because we can't afford it and because people become permanently dependent, lazy, thus dragging down the nation and everyone in it. Sounds reasonable, eh?
According to this mindset, we just can't help our neighbor; such tactics can't work; therefore, they must stand on their own two feet, these poor people, who are with us always -- unless forced to overcome their problems. Sure, they'll do a little suffering, but that pain will drive them to grab the golden ring of independence, Emerson's vaunted goal of self-reliance, perhaps the loftiest American value, rugged individualism. Just give a man a bottle of water and a sharp stick, and if he's worth his salt, he'll discover how to support himself and live the good life. Just stand back and watch the magic work.
Yeah, that's a theory, a hypothesis, a fantasy. Most humans need a lot of help getting out of the hole they're born in and staying out of it. Most rich people today inherited their wealth; they did not earn it, the Walton family, the richest in the world, are a prime example of such. The Trump kids, the Kennedy kids and grandkids, and the Rockefeller kids are others in that grouping.
And regarding ignorance: Most Americans believe that the federal budget is just like their household's, or at least the same as a corporation's or a state and local government's, all of which must balance their budgets and not spend, for very long, money they don't have and aren't going to get in all probability, i.e., they can't live forever, or even very long, on credit.
Fortunately, the federal government finds itself in a unique and powerful position: It can levy taxes, set interest rates, and print money, a fiat currency, in our case. Those capabilities are game-changers. The federal government, like no other entity, can help people who need it, which in turn helps the nation itself, thus making generosity or welfare a wise and effective policy. A conclusion that no believer in monetarism will ever trust or support. And they honestly think that they are correct; it's just the way of the world, how finances work.
That conclusion is wrong, painfully wrong. We now know better; the full story, an explanation of how big money really works, can be found in Modern Monetary Theory, a bright light at the end of the macroeconomic tunnel. If interested, and I hope you are, a good place to start is with Dr. Stephanie Kelton's "The Deficit Myth." And you can find many free YouTube videos by numerous MMT economists explaining the new insights that MMT has discovered. Or just go to Wikipedia for references.
Thanks as always, Robert, for your stimulating ideas and messaging. You clear things up and point the way to a better America.
For some reason I don't understand, Chuck Schumer insisted we needed Manchin and Sinema, despite the fact that on all really important legislation they refused to back President Biden. Manchin has always backed the fossil fuels industry (of which he is an owner - coal) and Sinema is a bimbo like Sarah Palin, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. The only decent thing she has done is admitting she is not really a Democrat, but even that was flawed, she didn't make the announcement until after she won another term. You are correct, Professor, in a nation as wealthy as ours it is a huge stain to have so many people unhoused, underfed, and so poorly educated. We should hang our heads in shame.
What defines the US as "the richest country in the world?" Another interesting statistic might be where in the world the US lies in income inequality. Does it really matter to the bottom 50%, who may struggle to meet an emergency $400 bill, that they live in the Richest Country in the World??
Have they no decency? It seems we have many Joe McCarthy’s in congress these days. Their children are not affected by these men and women who vote against children of lesser means. Fools, indeed.
In FACT, Congress should have DOUBLED that child tax credit, not cut it! $500/mo should be where it sits! Social Security should be doubled (or TRIPLED), because we are facing a Republican demand to cut it! And it is these same IDIOT conservatives that want to eventually eliminate ALL private retirement plans. Republicans want (they are demanding) us to work till we die. It is up to US, the working folks who BUILT AMERICA, to force our will on this MINORITY of skinflint rich, spoiled conservatives. But we have to GET LOUD! We have to show OUR POWER!
To All Americans. It’s time to choose.
What is more important, our Freedoms or continuing to allow the richest Americans to ruin our country?
Since the Reagan administration we have been getting screwed by the richest people and corporations starting with trickle down economics. The bigotry party is giving tax breaks to the wealthy and slowing taking our Freedoms away! Citizens United has pretty much taken over Congress.
Big corporations have taken control of mainstream media. The anti diversity party has taken away a women’s right of choice. Our Freedoms are on the chopping block!
To listen to some of these not conservative views from this loud minority like MTG who wants to shut down the government and impeach our president without any evidence hoping some evidence will appear after they start an inquiry. Or Vivek Ramaswamy who said he would deport children of immigrants who were born here!
On the same day the House returned, Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced that he’ll direct the chamber to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
A loud minority of the GOP (Gaga Over Putin) party is Corrupt and the rest of the Republicans are complicit. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin defended Trump, saying that his prosecutions show that the United States is fundamentally corrupt. Putin has created a lot of our dissent by interfering in our elections! He is Pure Evil!
Liz Cheney recently said “Putin has now officially endorsed the Putin-wing of the Republican Party. Putin Republicans & their enablers will end up on the ash heap of history. Patriotic Americans in both parties who believe in the values of liberal democracy will make sure of it.”
The Constitutional patriots in the Republican Party have to stand up against these power seeking Putineers now or their legacies will be forever tainted!
I can't buy the arguments that are made today by you (and are made so often by so many) that "we" have chosen various things—in this case to impoverish huge proportions of the U.S. population. I did not do this. Yes, I ignorantly voted for Bill Clinton, who then betrayed me by undermining and destroying much of what I had believed was "our" U.S. government (the programs and policies of FDR and also of LBJ). But I did not "do" those things.
I did not choose to undermine the University of California and make it into an institution that is available only to the wealthy or to others by incurring huge debt at huge rates of interest. I did not choose to make Community Colleges (which were called Junior Colleges when I was young) expensive—they were tuition-free when I was young, and I wanted them to stay that way.
The Democratic Party was taken over by so-called "New Democrat" types who might as well have been Ronald Reagan Republicans.
I didn't want that and I don't want it now. I support Biden because he appears to me to be trying to move the Democratic Party back to being the champion of the people, not of the banks and financiers. That's what I want and support.
The Child tax credit was Great 👍 the failure to continue it abysmal . Yet many want to stop abortions but don’t want to pay families to support children.
Having children was the greatest thing I ever did but also the most expensive .
Any tax credit program should fund children tax credit first before all other tax credits.
You know, I find it very hard to rationalize the republicans against abortion and what they call killing babies with abolishing the Child Tax Credit that leaves our children impoverished. It absolutely makes no sense! Why in the world would these politicians decide to eliminate the one thing that was working to reduce child poverty? It was working for our children!! The two simply do not relate! They have screamed and hollered until they finally got the Supreme Court to do away with Roe V Wade saying that women had to have children no matter if it was due to rape, incest or health situations. They say they are doing it for the children yet they are willing to let millions of our children live in poverty. It is deplorable!! I retired from teaching and I know how hard it is for children to be able to concentrate when their little bellies are grumbling due to hunger. I always kept snacks (apples, raisins, crackers, etc.) for children that were hungry. I also made sure my students were able to eat at lunch. I am so saddened, sickened, and embarrassed that our country chooses to let our children live in poverty.
Why is it that in the "richest" country in the world are both children and senior citizens living in poverty? It's all because the wealthy people don't give a damn..children well that's someone's else's concern but now due to the mentality of the Republicans you now will have those babies...so what it's not my problem! With seniors who worked out entire lives are barely getting by as once again they in Washington want to cut Social Security and Medicare, don't want to get lower drug process for seniors...the bottom line again is everything in the United States comes to GREED....as I've heard my entire life.." the rich keep getting richer, poor keep getting poorer, and the two will never meet" only in America are children and seniors disposable...
9 million children at 300 dollars per month would add $32.4 billion to the budget. The F-35 fighter jet, designed to kill, is estimated to cost $1.7 trillion by the GAO. Divide that out and the F-35 budget covers over 50 years of the child poverty program. Extremely expensive death dealing versus 50 years of 9 million healthier children. Which do you support? If politics were rational that sounds like a good campaign sound bite. Unfortunately rationality left the airport a while ago and we are left with Joe Manchin, Matt Gaetz, MTG, ...
Most of our country’s problems are policy choices. We choose to give corporations and the extremely wealthy enormous tax breaks, then, out of the other side of their mouth’s, our politicians lament how much we are spending on welfare, while the truth is that the tax breaks are far larger than anything one might call welfare. We choose to have a political system that allows legalized bribery and depriving people of equal representation via voter suppression, the representation scheme of the Senate, the filibuster, and partisan gerrymandering. We choose to squander enormous wealth on “defense” while we fail to educate the children of parents who can’t afford private education. We choose to have a medical system that shortens our lifespans, denies medical care to the poor, and bankrupts many. We choose to allow banks and fake universities to profit from high-interest loans we foist upon our students then burden with unaffordable payments.
Our policies are always a choice and we are making many short-sighted choices that are harming us and the future of our country. Of course, I know I’m preaching to the choir.
Here's one effect of great wealth redistribution to the 1%. Port Royal, in Naples FL, is about 45 minutes south of my home.
Some wealthy Port Royal landowners have so much money, they don't know what to do with it all. One investor purchased and demolished a $22.5M luxury home and built a new, multi-million dollar home on the same lot BECAUSE HE COULD. Some Port Royal homes are occupied a mere two weeks a year, and multi-million dollar teardowns and rebuilds are said to be frequent in Port Royal.
See link for pictures.
https://www.naplesnews.com/picture-gallery/money/real-estate/2019/03/20/photos-port-royal-mansion-just-sold-22-5-m-and-then-torn-down/3228922002/
You are right o Dr Reich, I was employed for over thirty five years assisting financially deprived persons/families. We had the most effective program during the pandemic but it was allowed to die by republicans and two so called democrats. Why, they want families on the edge so their corporate masters can hire at the lowest possible cost to maintain a huge profit. It is inhumane. Children cannot learn while they are hungry.
Couple this with the multiple ways our tax code favors corporations with the effect many multi bullion in profit do not pay federal tax or if they do at a rate lower than working families.
The total amount and rate of poverty in the U.S. is, of course, an aggregate of the rates across all fifty states, red and blue. But not all poverty is created equal.
In red states, particularly the Southeast, poverty, and lower incomes are, not surprisingly, a consequence of Republican governance BUT, not an UNINTENDED consequence.
Because prices for most goods and services tend to rise only as high as the majority of the likely consumers of those goods and services are able and/or willing to pay, it is in the interests of the politicians who control the economies of these states to keep as many people possible poor or in the lower-middle class, because surrounding the rich — whose interests Republicans so tirelessly serve in return for financial rewards down the road — with poor people increases not only the real and perceived disparities between the two economic classes, but, tangibly, their actual buying power because the basic goods and services that the poor and other lower-income people consume also serve as the raw materials and building blocks of the luxury goods and services that the rich consume.
We’ve always known that conservatives, promoters of a patriarchal society and foes of abortion, want to keep women barefoot and pregnant, but you can add to that that they want to keep practically everybody else poor.
Bless you, Professor Robert, for your Humanism.
Shana Tova!
Chris
Another very timely and important message from Robert Reich. As usual, he's in the zone, saying the right things at the right time in the right way. (I wish more of us knew how to do that, myself especially.)
I grok your heavy-handed and righteous hint, Robert: We've got a serious problem, and we can fix it. Yes, we can, but we're up against (1) pure meanness and (2) ignorance -- oceans too wide to cross, mountains too high to climb.
Pure meanness cannot and will not be changed by appeals to humanity, mercy, kindness, or generosity. That's trying to fit a square peg into a round hole; mean people are unreachable, Ebenezer Scrooges before the three ghosts visited them.
I learned of an intellectual mask for meanness just yesterday: Right-wing thought leaders fervently believe in the "unsustainable crisis that is the entitlement state," i.e., government aid is the ultimate dead-end, because we can't afford it and because people become permanently dependent, lazy, thus dragging down the nation and everyone in it. Sounds reasonable, eh?
According to this mindset, we just can't help our neighbor; such tactics can't work; therefore, they must stand on their own two feet, these poor people, who are with us always -- unless forced to overcome their problems. Sure, they'll do a little suffering, but that pain will drive them to grab the golden ring of independence, Emerson's vaunted goal of self-reliance, perhaps the loftiest American value, rugged individualism. Just give a man a bottle of water and a sharp stick, and if he's worth his salt, he'll discover how to support himself and live the good life. Just stand back and watch the magic work.
Yeah, that's a theory, a hypothesis, a fantasy. Most humans need a lot of help getting out of the hole they're born in and staying out of it. Most rich people today inherited their wealth; they did not earn it, the Walton family, the richest in the world, are a prime example of such. The Trump kids, the Kennedy kids and grandkids, and the Rockefeller kids are others in that grouping.
And regarding ignorance: Most Americans believe that the federal budget is just like their household's, or at least the same as a corporation's or a state and local government's, all of which must balance their budgets and not spend, for very long, money they don't have and aren't going to get in all probability, i.e., they can't live forever, or even very long, on credit.
Fortunately, the federal government finds itself in a unique and powerful position: It can levy taxes, set interest rates, and print money, a fiat currency, in our case. Those capabilities are game-changers. The federal government, like no other entity, can help people who need it, which in turn helps the nation itself, thus making generosity or welfare a wise and effective policy. A conclusion that no believer in monetarism will ever trust or support. And they honestly think that they are correct; it's just the way of the world, how finances work.
That conclusion is wrong, painfully wrong. We now know better; the full story, an explanation of how big money really works, can be found in Modern Monetary Theory, a bright light at the end of the macroeconomic tunnel. If interested, and I hope you are, a good place to start is with Dr. Stephanie Kelton's "The Deficit Myth." And you can find many free YouTube videos by numerous MMT economists explaining the new insights that MMT has discovered. Or just go to Wikipedia for references.
Thanks as always, Robert, for your stimulating ideas and messaging. You clear things up and point the way to a better America.
For some reason I don't understand, Chuck Schumer insisted we needed Manchin and Sinema, despite the fact that on all really important legislation they refused to back President Biden. Manchin has always backed the fossil fuels industry (of which he is an owner - coal) and Sinema is a bimbo like Sarah Palin, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. The only decent thing she has done is admitting she is not really a Democrat, but even that was flawed, she didn't make the announcement until after she won another term. You are correct, Professor, in a nation as wealthy as ours it is a huge stain to have so many people unhoused, underfed, and so poorly educated. We should hang our heads in shame.
What defines the US as "the richest country in the world?" Another interesting statistic might be where in the world the US lies in income inequality. Does it really matter to the bottom 50%, who may struggle to meet an emergency $400 bill, that they live in the Richest Country in the World??
Have they no decency? It seems we have many Joe McCarthy’s in congress these days. Their children are not affected by these men and women who vote against children of lesser means. Fools, indeed.
In FACT, Congress should have DOUBLED that child tax credit, not cut it! $500/mo should be where it sits! Social Security should be doubled (or TRIPLED), because we are facing a Republican demand to cut it! And it is these same IDIOT conservatives that want to eventually eliminate ALL private retirement plans. Republicans want (they are demanding) us to work till we die. It is up to US, the working folks who BUILT AMERICA, to force our will on this MINORITY of skinflint rich, spoiled conservatives. But we have to GET LOUD! We have to show OUR POWER!