Let’s Hold Them Accountable

Now that the tea party and Republicans have taken back the House and control Harrisburg, let’s hold them accountable.

We want jobs, jobs, and more jobs.  We want jobs in Pennsylvania that employ Pennsylvanians.

Maloney promised to finally get rid of our property taxes.  We want no more property taxes. 

Toomey promised American jobs.  We want jobs in Pennsylvania and not jobs off shored to another country.

Gerlach promised jobs.  We want jobs in Pennsylvania and not jobs off shored to another country.

Corbett promised to not raise taxes.  We don’t want any more money taken out of our pay checks to bail out the State.

Republicans promised that they will reduce the deficit without touching our Social Security.  We will hold them to that.

Republicans promised to lower taxes for EVERYONE.  We will hold them to that.

They have two years to deliver:

• Jobs, jobs and more jobs
• No more property taxes
• Deficit reduction
• Lower taxes

We don’t want to dismantle the health care reform.  We want either single payer or public option health care to replace mandatory private insurance.

We don’t want to spend two years wasting tax payers money on frivolous investigations.  We want Congress to work on jobs and more jobs.

We don’t want our Social Security handed over to Wall Street.  We want the Government to honor their promise to our seniors and to not use Social Security to reduce the deficit.

We don’t want endless wars.  We want our troops home NOW.

We don’t want bank bailouts.  We want responsible bank and Wall Street regulations.

We don’t want to keep drilling deeper and deeper for oil and gas which destroys our environment.  We want renewable energy like wind power and solar power.

We don’t want to keep supporting big agriculture which sends us dangerous foods.  We want safe food, produced by local farms.

Two years… that’s all they have.

Take a Pay Cut

There’s a clear difference between Manan Trivedi and Jim Gerlach.

And we are still waiting to hear about Gerlach’s jobs plan.  So far, all we are hearing are *crickets*.

Job Creation – Updated

The “Man with the Plan”, that man would be Manan.

From the Reading Eagle:

Trivedi said job growth would be his No. 1 mission as representative of the 6th Congressional District, which is made up of parts of Berks, Chester, Montgomery and Lehigh counties.

“Small businesses become big businesses,” Trivedi told a caller from Reading.

Those potential big businesses, he said, are in the growing field of clean energy, where the United States has fallen behind.

“Countries like India and China are doing it,” he said of the alternative energy industry. “America’s not doing it.”

Trivedi, a physician from Union Township who served in the Iraq War, also discussed the local transportation crisis and the need for more school funding.

He said a proposed commuter rail line between Wyomissing and the Philadelphia suburbs is essential for people in Berks to access jobs nearer to Philadelphia.

“I don’t know how many of you have driven Route 422, but it’s a parking lot,” Trivedi said. “I try to avoid it like the plague. But people need it to get to work.”

Jim Gerlach’s plan…    ***crickets***   We’re still waiting.

Here’s more from Manan.

While he’s a native Pennsylvanian where coal is king, Trivedi says without hesitation – and repeated several times during our discussion – that “we need to move away from carbon-based emissions and foreign energy.” While Gerlach’s congressional Web site talks about the importance of clean energy and energy independence, as I noted last week, his campaign Web site is decidedly less friendly to the environment. In fact, while there is no “Issues” section of Gerlach’s site (there is a head-to-head comparison that omits anything about energy or the environment and is written in lowbrow, heavy-handed prose), his “Achievements” section crows that he voted “NO on Obama/Pelosi Cap and Trade bill that will raise energy rates and kill Pennsylvania jobs.”

And yet, still ***crickets*** from Gerlach.

Take Aim and Shoot

These are the Republican targets:

Jim Gerlach’s Job Program

Here is Jim Gerlach’s latest plan for creating jobs.

***crickets***

What Republicans Want for Americans

Republicans are the “economic royalists”.  A note to the Tea Party, you will be left out in the streets, too, if Republicans gain control of Congress.  These economic royalists don’t give a rat’s behind about you.  The Tea Party members are nothing more than tools for these economic royalists.

Tom Corbett Says You Are Lazy

Tom Corbett joined ranks with Sharron Angle and other Republicans in condemning workers that have lost their jobs and are unable to find jobs. The statistics are 1 job for every 6 workers so get in line and hope for the best.

Statement From Jim Burn, Chairman Of The Pennsylvania Democratic Party Regarding Tom Corbett’s Remarks On Unemployed Pennsylvanians

Pittsburgh: Tom Corbett’s insensitive and callous remarks claiming many unemployed Pennsylvanians “are purposefully remaining unemployed in order to collect benefits“, demonstrates how out of touch he is with the working families of our Commonwealth. Since becoming the Republican candidate for Governor, Tom Corbett has continually taken positions that lead on to believe he lives in a different Pennsylvania than the rest of us.

In Tom Corbett’s Pennsylvania there is no need for unemployment benefits because there are plenty of jobs for everyone. In Tom Corbett’s Pennsylvania there is no need for healthcare reform because the current healthcare system is working just fine. In Tom Corbett’s Pennsylvania we don’t need millions of dollars of federal stimulus money because we don’t need jobs and our roads, bridges and schools don’t need improvement. Hanging-out at fundraisers with oil and gas company executives, Wall Street bankers and other wealthy Republican contributors, Tom Corbett sees a different Pennsylvania than the rest of us.

Tom Corbett needs to visit the Pennsylvania we live in and immediately apologize the unemployed workers he insulted with his inconsiderate remarks.

Republicans on Unemployment

Even the Republicans that are out of work are complaining about the Republicans in Washington that have denied the current unemployment benefit extension.  It must be nice to have a job in Washington DC with a salary and benefits paid for by taxpayers.

Read all about it here from the Wall Street Journal and DailyKos

UPDATE:

The Tea Party candidates don’t care about these lazy Republicans.  Put a Tea Party member in Congress and it will only get worse because they also want to dismantle Social Security.

Don’t let them fool you because the Tea Party and Republicans are the “death panel” parties.

Don’t let the Tea Party and Republicans make you feel demoralized.  Get out and vote in November and vote Democratic because your life depends upon it.

On Becoming A Poor Nation

Let’s face the facts.  Our local governments are in a financial crises.   With the loss of jobs, comes a decrease in State income tax revenues.  Smaller State revenues means that there is less money to help struggling cities and towns.  Add to this, the decrease in sales tax revenues that are the result of less purchasing power, and we have a State going bankrupt.  Now, multiple this by the number of States near bankruptcy and we have a nation of the edge of becoming a third world country.

As States become poorer, they need to make cuts to their spending.  One of the many areas where they choose to make cuts is in funding for education.  That means that our children suffer by not receiving a full education.  Poor education will not help these children when they become adults because they won’t be able to find a job that pays a living wage or better.  Ignorance is NOT bliss.  It leads to poverty.  The greater the poverty, the closer we are to becoming a third world country.

Even though only about 10% of Americans are heavily invested in stocks and bonds, our economy is driven by the DOW.  In order to grow, we need an economy based on jobs that produce goods.  Our nation has been slowly losing its goods based economy.  Instead, our economy is based on market gambling.  There is no bartering for goods and services in this country.  We can’t “take a chicken to the doctor” because banks won’t accept chickens as mortgage payments from the doctor.  (I’m curious about this “chicken”.  Is is a live chicken or a dead chicken?)

Do you see the pattern?  It a vicious cycle, one that Republicans claim can only be fixed by cutting taxes which decrease revenues.   Understand, the taxes that get cut are the taxes to the richest 1% of Americans and the services that get cut are the services needed by the other 90%.  The Republicans and Tea Partiers support Reagan economics.  It was during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, when the decline in the middle working class started.

The bottom line is this… we need jobs based on goods that pay a living wage or better so that the States and local municipalities can collect the revenue needed to keep our governments functioning.   This includes ample money for police, firefighters, educators, libraries and infrastructure repair and maintenance.  More tax cuts for the rich will not produce jobs and will not bring in more revenue.  Instead, it starves the masses.

One question before I end this thread, how is that “trickle down” economics working for you?

Corporate Crybabies – People vs Corporations _UPDATED

Yesterday, President Obama addressed the tax breaks that corporations receive for sending our jobs overseas.  Yes, corporations are making millions and millions of dollars and NOT paying taxes and then sending OUR jobs overseas so that they can continue to not pay taxes to our government.  Keep in mind, these same corporations pay their executives millions and millions of dollars and pay their employees the low wages of India and China.

The proposal takes aim at what corporate executives consider to be one of the most critical features of the U.S. tax code: permission to indefinitely defer paying U.S. taxes on income earned overseas.

Currently, U.S. companies can avoid paying taxes on foreign profits until they bring the money back home. So a U.S. company doing business in Ireland, for example, must pay the Irish tax of 12.5 percent, like every other company doing business in Ireland. But the U.S. firm would owe an additional 22.5 percent to the U.S. Treasury (the difference between Ireland’s tax rate and the 35 percent U.S. tax rate) unless it reinvests the money overseas.

Hum, “permission to indefinitely defer paying U.S. taxes”, that sounds like a good deal.  What that means is there is no incentive to bring  jobs back to the United States.  It provides incentive to keep sending jobs overseas.

If we are to recover from this depression without continuing to bailout banks, then we need jobs, here, on the U.S. soil.

Some in Congress are hesitating support for this change in our Government tax plan.

“Further study is needed to assess the impact of this plan on U.S. businesses,” Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over U.S. tax law, said in a written statement. “I want to make certain that our tax policies are fair and support the global competitiveness of U.S. businesses.”

The American worker has always produced superior products.  Back in the ’70’s, the mantra was buy “Made in the USA” because purchasing products made here, gave an American a job and was always of high quality.  It’s difficult to find something “Made in the USA” anymore.  Most items are made in sweat shops that employ children in third world countries.   While these sweat shops produce cheap and inferior products, like all (slave labor) sweat shops do, the corporations make millions of dollars and do NOT pay U.S. taxes.

… (President) Obama proposes to move in the opposite direction. He argues that the current system gives tax breaks to U.S. multinationals at the expense of companies that operate solely on American soil. In 2004, the most recent year for which statistics are available, U.S. multinationals paid an effective U.S. tax rate of just 2.3 percent on $700 billion in foreign profits, according to the administration.

“It’s a tax code that says you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York,” the president said yesterday.

The President is correct.  Why should multinational corporations receive tax breaks while companies that operate solely on American soil not receive a tax break.  The Republicans are always chanting “small business”.  Most small businesses operate ONLY on American soil so they don’t get these tax breaks.

President Obama plans on helping small businesses.

To level the playing field, Obama would bar firms from taking deductions for expenses that support their overseas investments until they pay U.S. taxes on the profits. He would also crack down on firms that overstate their foreign tax bills. And he would reverse a Clinton-era rule known as “check the box,” which permits firms to more easily transfer cash between countries. In practice, Obama officials said, “check the box” has been used to shift income away from higher-tax countries and into tax havens such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, allowing firms to reduce their tax bills both at home and abroad.

Those provisions would take effect in 2011 and would raise about $190 billion by the end of the next decade. In return, Obama proposes to make permanent an existing tax credit for companies that spend money on domestic research and development programs, worth about $75 billion over the next decade.

Then there are the “tax shelters”, the banks where the “rich” hide their money from the U.S. Government.  They shelter their wealth while you and I pay taxes and they don’t.

Obama also proposes to crack down on wealthy people who evade taxes through offshore bank accounts, primarily by targeting financial institutions in tax-haven jurisdictions. That plan, which would net another $9 billion over the next decade, appears to have few opponents.

All this money being denied to the U.S. Government.  No wonder the Republicans are yelling that the U.S. Government can’t provide health care for all Americans.   All this hidden money in taxes and all this avoidance of paying taxes leaves the Government funds short.

UPDATE:  About those “green jobs”…

Now read the rest of this whiny fallacy….