Quote:
|
Originally Posted by willravel
The GOP is powerful and corrupt. The Dems are weak and less corrupt. They are still both corrupt, and neither is capable of running the country. I vote Green to lead by example. If enough people vote with their best representative, regardless of party, the "you're throwing your vote away" excuse will fade away. I want a president to win with 15% of the vote, against 9 other people. That's more representative of the people. If enough people leave a party, it will try to change.
|
How many congressional investigations, and the information that has come to us, as a result of them, has voting "Green", brought us?
IMO, politics is the art of the possible, and unlike voting republican, voting democrat is, at least, a compromise. I see no democrats, even under investigation in any significant degree, especially for selling out their constituents, or...in the cases of Cunningham, Foggo, Wade, Wilkes, and in the associated investigation of Jerry Lewis....our military spending potential.
The democrats are not perfect....far from it....but their "big" '90's "scandals"...the last time that they held real congressional power, resulted in Dan Rostenkowski's convictions for abusing the postal funds at his office's disposal, and Speaker Jim Wright's "crimes":
Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Wright
Wright became the target of an inquiry by the House Ethics Committee. Their report in early 1989 implied that he had used bulk purchases of his vanity book, Reflections of a Public Man, to earn speaking fees in excess of the allowed maximum, and that his wife, Betty, was given a job and perks to avoid the limit on gifts. Faced with an increasing loss of effectiveness, he resigned as Speaker on May 31, 1989, effective upon the selection of a successor. On June 6, the Democratic caucus brought his Speakership to an end by selecting his replacement, Tom Foley, and on June 30 he resigned from his seat in Congress.
|
The only hope to level the wealth disparity we are experiencing is to tax more like Sweden and France do....the alternative is the disappearance of the middle class, and a higher concentration of wealth in possession of the top ten percent than the current 70 percent of total US wealth that the 2004 Fed report says that they control.
pan comments on the elderly losing their homes to property taxes. Since 2001, the political majority in DC declared a tax holiday on the wealthiest, resulting in less domestic spending that shifts the tax burden to local entities that raise money, in lieu of federal revenue sharing that was no longer collected....to local property taxes.
My concern is about a coming wave of impoverished elderly baby boomers vs. 75 percent of total wealth in the hands of the top ten percent, and then, by 2030..... eighty percent of all wealth in the hands of the top ten percent.
I don't have much sympathy for elderly folks who have experienced home value appreciation that they could have cashed out in the last few years, at two to ten times what they originally paid for their homes. They still can lock in the profit, via reverse mortgage arrangements.
The real estate price run up shifted the wealth, not away from those approaching their elder years....who already owned homes that then rose dramatically in value in many areas since the late '90's.....but away from younger people...young families entering the home market for the first time...paying the high prices to those who already owned at a much lower basis.
Read the Huey P. Long thread that I posted several months ago. The solution now is the same as it ever was...... a wealth tax. Voting "green", and bashing
democrats who are saints, compared to republicans, is not "an art of the possible", strategy.
We need to address the wealth distribution problem....it is not going away....and it will, if the trend continue....make the US look and feel more like
Mexico looks and feels today, than like Canada.
I expect a candidate with the awareness and concerns that Edwards embraces, at least moves us toward that priority.....I heard Wesley Clark talking about the present wealth disparity on a TV interview with Charley Rose, last night.
We need tax reform that supports the plight of young families locked out of the home market, maybe via tax deductions on the rent that they pay. We need assistance for the propertyless elderly, as a priority, not the ones who are still sitting on unrealized gains from huge property valuation run up, and we need tax reform that taxes capital gains at the same rates as income from wages and salaries, and a revamp of progressive taxes that are progressive,
50 percent or more on annual income above $400K.
Most of all, we must support and communicate with democrats in congress now....the investigations that they are currently pursuing must document the record of corruption that we are just now watching come to light.
Show me timely, "art of the possible" alternatives to my points and proposals....that will have a high probability of making a difference soon.... a political solution that will transfer control of congress and possibly the presidency, from democrats to the party of your choice....without an intermediate phase that gives republicans control as former democratic supporters phase into support for other parties....like the greens...and that addresses wealth disparity trends away from the poorer ninety percent of us.
"Art of the possible", it seems to me, rests in voting for the only other party that potentially can eliminate all republican control in the senate and the presidency......the democrats. Any other strategy splits the vote, as Nader did in 2000, away from democratic candidates....and more republicans win.
IMO, the sentiments and opinions of pan and will are praiseworthy, but do not bring the immediate results that must come about.