(from James Madison; A Biography by Ralph Ketcham) as Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of Treasury promotes his plan for a national debt. . .
". . . Hamilton's candid admission that he intended the concentration in order to bring to the federal government a self-interested support he thought is desperately needed to become an effective means of government only increased Madison's apprehensions. Though the secretary expressed regret at the misfortunes of those whose interests suffered under his plans, he saw them as a small price to pay for the vital strengthening of the Union he thought made them necessary. As Madison observed the Hamiltonian "phalanx" in Congress, the eager support given the program in New York financial circles, the often arrogant comments by men of wealth about their superior capacity to lead and govern the country, and the tendency of backers of the secretary's report to exalt the executive over the legislative department, his concern for the survival of republican principles grew rapidly. Jefferson's famous charges, made in old age, that "Hamilton's financial system . . . had two objects; 1st, as a puzzle, to exclude popular understanding and inquiry; 2nd, as a machine for the corruption of the legislature," and that "men thus enriched by the dexterity of a leader [Hamilton], would follow of course the chief who was leading them to fortune. . . "
. . . that I think many people don't fully examine when they're listening to conservative candidates speak are:
1. Do you want to COMPLETELY neglect anyone (or everyone) in society who are not YOU or your immediate family?
2. Although the size of the national debt is incomprehensible to you (as it well is to me), do you really think that when these people talk about lower TAXES that they really intend to lower YOUR taxes?
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In January 1835, President Andrew Jackson (who harbored a very person dislike of the concept of debt), paid off the entire national debt. To do that, he took advantage of a huge real-estate bubble that was raging in the Western U.S. The federal government owned a lot of Western land — and Jackson started selling it off. He was also ruthless on the budget blocking every spending bill he could.
Meantime, back to the present. . .
Shouldn't we LEARN from our own history?
(Thanks to http://nextcity.org/equityfactor/entry/here-is-foreign-every-country-that-gets-more-federal-aid-than-detroit and http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/04/15/135423586/when-the-u-s-paid-off-the-entire-national-debt-and-why-it-didnt-last)
. . . but it is a glimpse into the mindset of another of our 'diligent' public servants' . . .
(from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/17/representative-virginia-fox-on-student-debt_n_1431050.html)
". . . Representative Virginia Foxx (R - N.C.) expressed either tough love or ambivalence toward students who find themselves deep in debt, depending on who you ask.
Foxx, who is chairwoman of the house Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training, said on the Gordon Liddy Radio Show that it took her seven years to finish school. She added that over those seven years, she borrowed nothing.
"I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt because there's no reason for that," Foxx continued. "We live in an opportunity society and people are forgetting that. I remind folks all the time that the Declaration of Independence says 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' You don't sit on your butt and have it dumped in your lap."
The Bronx native worked as one of her high school’s janitors before she enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She graduated in 1968, according to her congressional biography.
Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) responded to her comments on Monday afternoon from the house floor.
"Incredibly, the chair of the Subcommittee for Higher Education spoke last week in North Carolina and said, 'I have very little tolerance for people who tell me they graduate with $200,000 in debt or even $80,000 of debt.' Really?
"It is a sad statement when today's Republican party turns its back on a program that helps millions of Americans fulfill their dreams, and that is named after a Republican Senator, Robert Stafford of Vermont," Courtney said.
Foxx’s spokesperson told The Huffington Post via email, “Congresswoman Foxx is concerned about rising college costs and the burdensome effect a large sum of debt can have on a student's future. She believes the focus should be on making college more affordable and providing students and parents with the information necessary to make informed decisions about college and understand the cost and the implications of those personal decisions. . .”
(from Dylan Ratigan
Host, MSNBC's 'The Dylan Ratigan Show'; Author, 'Greedy Bastards'; Founder, Get Money Out Foundation
Auction 2012: Greedy Bastards and Student Debt)
".
. . In President Obama's first speech to a joint session of Congress,
he said "education in no longer a pathway to opportunity, it is a
prerequisite." It's no wonder - conventional wisdom says that those
with college degrees earn roughly a million more dollars over their
lives than those without them. And there is a vast apparatus of lending
institutions and Federal guarantees set up to help put people into
college. They do this not by keeping tuition free or low, as we did as a
country after World War II, but by helping people get access to student
loans.
This is the essence of what I've been calling
The Very Bad Deal, where costs are deferred while benefits accrue
upfront. If you get a student loan, you get to attend college, and
college is apparently the key to earning more over your lifetime, to
"opportunity". But student debt has some very nasty tricks and traps
that most 18 year olds aren't aware of when they sign on the dotted
line, and college may not be the opportunity gateway we've been assured
it is.
The scale of the deal is vast and getting bigger
- two thirds of those who attend college do so with borrowed money. In
August of 2010, the Wall Street reported that student loan debt
surpassed credit card debt for the first time in history. This amount
is now sitting at roughly a trillion dollars. Higher education
inflation is the higher than health care inflation, and two and a half
times the rate of normal inflation. Are students really learning two
and a half times as much?
Of course not. What is
happening is that universities have pricing power, and the Greedy
Bastard behavior encourages them to compete on facilities and brand-name
faculties rather than price and quality. The Chronicle of Higher
Education has described "an arms race of expenditures triggered by the
pursuit of prestige." Student debt also distorts pricing. If students
had to pay the full freight in college, they might be more
price-sensitive consumers. But since the costs of the education they
are receiving are hidden, they don't pressure universities to reign in
costs. Lavish living environments, pointlessly luxurious sports
facilities, and high salaries for administrators are just symptoms of a
system where costs have become irrelevant. . ."
(from http://www.voterocky.org/corporate_welfare)
". . . The U.S. federal government is facing the largest debt in its history – over $15.5 trillion. (How much is that? If you had $15 trillion and spent $15 million every day since Jesus was born, you would still have $4,500,000,000 today.) The interest on that debt is crushing. The annual interest payment on the debt is now $474 billion – more than it costs for the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, State, Transportation, and Treasury, and the Environmental Protection Agency, combined. Imagine what could be done with that money were it not being wasted as interest payments on debt irresponsibly built up over the years.
Politicians proclaim to be concerned about the debt, while in the next breath they defend the creation or extension of policies that actually add to the outrageous debt burden. Much of that addition is for corporate interests which are being provided favors by the recipients of their campaign contributions or the targets of their lobbyist blitzes.
Corporate welfare is not need-based and is largely embedded in the tax code. It manifests in the form of tax expenditures, deductions, credits, bail-outs, guaranteed and low interest loans, and subsidies. Corporate welfare benefits the wealthiest corporations, which also happen to be among the biggest campaign donors to candidates of both Republicans and Democrats. Many of these benefits continue in perpetuity until Congress votes to end them, which is not likely to happen because to end the benefits would be adverse to the interest of corporations to whom members of Congress and the President often feel indebted.
Some of these corporate welfare programs actually promote degradation of the environment while privatizing profits and socializing risks. The following are examples of wasteful and, in some instances, environmentally harmful subsidies.
The 1872 Mining Act allows companies to extract billions of dollars worth of resources from public land at $5 per acre while paying no royalty fees. (See Rocky Anderson’s column on this issue, published in The Enterprise in February 1998. http://www.voterocky.org/the_mining_law_of_1872)
The Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Crop subsidies waste billions of dollars annually supporting a small number of corporate farming operations that encourage over-production and in some cases harm the environment.
The Market Access Program subsidizes overseas ad campaigns that benefit profitable multinational corporations.
The Department of Agriculture’s Crop Insurance program benefits the largest agricultural producers and guarantees a return on even marginal land, providing an incentive to plant in environmentally sensitive areas. Claims are projected to rise due to weather issues related to climate change.
Essential Air Service provides a subsidy to airlines that operate flights from non-hub airports that are 90 miles or more from the nearest large or medium hub airport. It essentially subsidizes flights for a relatively small number of passengers and contributes to air pollution.
It appears American citizens actually pay corporations to log on public lands. However, because of the reporting system implemented by the Department of Agriculture, it is impossible to evaluate the cost to taxpayers.
The Forest Service and BLM Public Land Grazing Program benefits only 2% of the nation’s livestock producers, yet cost taxpayers approximately $136 million in 2004 to operate. The program earned only $21 million. The below-cost grazing fees encourage overgrazing and result in extensive and severe environmental damage.
The Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services Program spends millions of dollars each year to kill predators at the request of ranchers, which leads to the degradation of ecosystems that rely on healthy predator populations.
The Army Corps of Engineers is often involved in projects that are not based on national priorities and are often economically unjustified and environmentally harmful.
Taxpayers subsidize lending for American corporations that export and foreign firms that import through the Export-Import Bank, leaving taxpayers at risk for potentially bad loans.
Subsidies to coal, oil, and gas companies totaled approximately $72 billion from 2002-2008, notwithstanding that the fossil fuel industry is a mature, developed industry not in need of government assistance.
General Electric, which made $14.2 billion in profits in 2010, paid no corporate income taxes in 2011 as a result of “innovative accounting” and fierce lobbying. . . "
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". . . "With so much at stake in this election, both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan should 'go rogue' and not hold back from telling the American people the true state of our economy and national security. They need to continue to find ways to break through the filter of the liberal media to communicate their message of reform," Palin told the conservative Weekly Standard. "America desperately needs to have a 'come to Jesus' moment in discussing our big dysfunctional, disconnected, and debt-ridden federal government.". . . "
My question is, does America need a 'come to married Jesus' moment or a 'come to regular Jesus' moment?
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(from MSNBC http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/19/10765542-romney-best-thing-i-can-do-for-student-debt-is-get-you-a-good-job) at a 'Town Hall' session at Bradley University recently. . .
"I and my party are also devoted to making sure we don't pass on to
you trillions upon trillions of dollars in debt. We have in the
Democratic party people who are consumed with giving more and more
benefits to me and my generation, and passing on those burdens to you,"
How, Mitt?
"My
party, my vision, is about protecting economic freedom for you," Romney
said. "I've had it for me. I've had economic freedom. I've achieved
beyond my wildest dreams. I want economic freedom for you."
How, Mitt?
"Well
they can go wherever they’d like to go; this is a free society. But
here’s what I’d say, which is the federal government should not tax
these people to pay for Planned Parenthood," Romney said. "The idea of
the federal government funding Planned Parenthood I’m going to say no,
we’re going to stop that."
How and why, Mitt?
"Best
thing I can do for student debt is get you a good job when you come
out," Romney said.
How, Mitt?
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