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We remarked to our daughter that we’ve been observing lately that the values we hold as Americans are evolving — and for the better, I think. We grew up in the post war 1950s and early 1960s, and hit career strides in the Reagan years. America then was all about more, more, more. Conspicuous consumption was heralded, and we felt that we deserved the very best of everything because, well because we’re Americans!

I would never have considered dressing my children in hand-me-downs. They had the best of everything, and it was all brand new. New cars every two years, and we shopped and shopped. We had to have homes in only the best neighborhoods with the very best schools. It seemed that there was no end to more.

While I’m certain that our evolving values reflect the tough economic times we’re now living through, I have to say that the old adage “Some good can come from bad” seems true. It’s so interesting to see our four year old grandson proudly show off the shirt he is wearing that once was worn by his older brother. To him it is a connection to the big brother he adores. We’re seeing our children bargain shopping, and being proud and feeling accomplished about the bargains they find — when we once were only proud to buy the best (read: expensive).

While our values in earlier generations was based in accumulating, we’re observing this generation “simplifying” their lives. Down sizing and prioritizing what is really important in life is catching on as a value. And, this simplifing value gives people time to enjoy their relationships, spend more time with their children, and to go outside and play!

The times they are a changin’ — and the times are bringing new American values that harken back to simpler times. We like it.

We here at CLN keep asking, “How much is enough?”  Once you’re very, very rich, how much richer do you need to be?  How many cars can you actually drive, how many clothes can you wear, and how many houses can one person live in? 

Most of the fortunes (that the mega-wealthy hoard) they owe to the fact that they had the good luck of having lived in the United States of America — which provided the opportunity to rise to the top and get rich in the first place!

And so we wonder why Republicans consider it blasphemy to suggest that the top 400 income earners in our nation be willing to give up some very small percentage of their vast fortunes to lower the nation’s debt for the good of the country?

We’d consider that patriotism.

It’s hard to continue to believe that the Right keeps making mistakes when they repeatedly make assertions that are provably wrong.  Here’s the latest example:  FOX News Eric Bolling.

This report demonstrates that the right wing-nuts are willing to say the most outrageous lie, and that none of their comrades will call them on it!  Start observing this phenomenon and let us know when you see it too.

We’ve just marked the 10^thanniversary of the day W. signed into law the first of his infamous tax cuts, benefiting mainly our nation’s wealthy.  We’ve addressed the economic effectiveness of tax cuts vs. tax hikes in previous posts — check-it-out at  TAX CUTS FOR MILLIONAIRES AND BILLIONAIRES;   and at BUSH TAX CUTS and at TAX CUTS STIMULATE JOB GROWTH — HUH?  

So, now seems like a good time to review the claims of Tea-publicans that trickle-down economic policy is the best way to produce a healthy economy … after all, that’s what they are going to try to re-sell to the American people in the 2012 election.

FACT:  In the 10 years after W.’s tax cuts, following even more drastic tax cuts, our economy has lost a net of 1.1 million jobs.

FACT:  Under the leadership of a Democratic President Clinton the economy added more than 20 million jobs following “the biggest tax rate hike” in our country’s history. 

JUDGEMENT:  Lower taxes DO NOT guarantee economic growth and job expansion.  The Bush tax cuts were heavily skewed toward the wealthy who historically do not inject their excess money back into the economy — they instead BANK it.   

It’s worth looking back to remind us how very badly W.’s tax cuts worked in stimulating growth, as the Tea-publicans continue to claim that even more tax cuts will revive  our economy now. 

FACT:  Most big economic indicators moved in the wrong  direction following W.’s tax cuts, some horrifically!  Under W.’s administration, our country saw a series of historic economic lows and the slowest overall rate of economic growth since World War II.

FACT:  Household income declined for the first time since the Census Bureau tracked that data in 1967.  Labor force participation had reached an all-time high in 2000, but dropped steadily under Bush.

FACT:  With W.’s tax cuts the economy created fewer jobs than at any time since World War II!

What about the claims that tax cuts would lead to a boom in American entrepreneurialism?  It didn’t happen.

FACT:  The rate actually fell on start-up companies creating jobs between 2000 and 2010.

So, if the Bush tax cuts did not create a booming economy — what did they accomplish?  Well, the director of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Chuck Marr, argues, “The Bush tax cuts are a major driver of our current deficit — and have been and will continue to be.”

And still, the current crop of Republican presidential candidates continues to promote even lower taxes.  Former Minnesota Governor and Republican Presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty recently proposed cutting the individual income tax rates to just two levels:  10% and 25%.  35% is currently the top level.  Pawlenty also called for even lower corporate tax rates!  Pawlenty’s tax plan would cost $7.8 trillion over ten years,  triple the  size of the Bush tax cuts!

During his speech introducing the plan, Pawlenty excoriated President Obama as “a champion practitioner of class warfare.”  “I come from a working class background.  I didn’t grow up with wealth.  But I’ve never resented those who have it,” Pawlenty said.  But as a new analysis from Citizens for Tax Justice shows, in addition to being outrageously expensive, Pawlenty’s tax plan is based on the Republican brand of class warfare — giving millionaires huge tax breaks.

FACT:  Taxpayers with incomes in excess of $10 million would enjoy an average cut in personal income taxes of $2.4 million, a 46.3% cut.

FACT:  The cost to the federal budget of the personal income tax cuts — just for taxpayers with incomes in excess of $1 million — would be $141.8 billion.

FACT:  Pawlenty has also proposed eliminating the capital gains and estate taxes entirely, two moves which would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans and have a big impact on the budget deficit.

Pawlenty likes to point to his middle-class background while giving his economic pitch, but his tax plan implies either a huge tax shift, requiring the middle-class to pay for his massive tax cuts for the wealthy, or sky-high deficits in perpetuity.  As part of the plan he introduced, Pawlenty also endorsed a spending cap that would require deeper cuts than the current radical House Republican budget.

FACT:  Tax rates in our nation are currently the lowest they have been in 60 years.

JUDGEMENT:  And it’s still not enough to satisfy these modern day robber barons!   Where is the shared sacrifice?

FACT:  The Bush tax cuts are primarily the cause of the current budget deficits, now and into the future.

JUDGEMENT DAY:  I can sum up this disaster in two words:  Epic Failure!  How many times do we have to suffer through the social experiment known as “trickle down economics” before we finally learn our lesson?

Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, recently stated that Republicans are focusing on Medicare as a place to cut government spending, when in fact Medicare represents only 3% of GDP, and the overall costs of health-care in total is more than 17% of GDP — which is the real problem. 

The United States of America spends twice as much on health-care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation on earth, and the costs are going up faster than the rate of inflation.  Spending on health-care in the economy has doubled over the last 30 years to a current level of over 17% of GDP. CBO estimates that this percentage will almost double again over the next 25 years to 31% of GDP.  

The for-profit-health-care private sector is posting all-time record profits, and the Republican party wants to turn the health-care of older Americans over to who?  — oh yeah, to the insurance companies!

If Medicare were to be privatized the health-care of our veterans could be next.  Retirees and veterans would be at the mercy of insurance companies — truly vulnerable Americans.  Would for-profit insurance companies really insure these Americans at reasonable costs when their profits would be lower with these groups?

GO VERMONT GO!

The struggle for the “hearts and minds” of the American people has never been more clearly delineated.  The conservatives want to hold onto the comfortable, old way of running our country and clinging to an out-dated definition of cultural values.  The progressives want to move America into the future to be a part of the new inter-connected world, with shared values that make sense in this new information based digital world.

The new international interconnections through our digital networks of communications are in the process of re-patterning our consciousness.  These new international connections cross national and cultural borders and present us with an opportunity to reflect on our values and ethics, and also our identity.  More and more people are accessing connections outside of what Sarah Palin refers to as the “lame stream media.”  This corporate controlled media is being sidelined and thus opening the way for us to gain information from an independent, alternative social media.  More people are now exposed to a wide range of views and beliefs.    

Until now, America has held to a rigid and narrow view of the world and of our country’s place in it:  “We’re # 1”;  “American Exceptionalism”;  and “Our Way is the BEST way.” 

We think that America is ready to make the choice to break away from our past and these myopic scenarios.  We’ll just have to drag the conservatives, kicking and screaming, into reality. 

YES WE CAN!

Hey, we just read about a very exciting option for President Obama, which might actually manage to eliminate 75% of the federal deficit!  CHECK-IT–OUT at the New York Times.  It’s an option spelled out in an article by economist  David Leonhart, titled “Do-Nothing Congress as a Cure” published on April 12 in the Business section.

The gist of the article is that by eliminating all the Bush era tax breaks, and returning to the Clinton era taxes, America could eliminate 75% of our deficit.  The main problem that prevents this common sense action is a purely political one:  Obama campaigned on only eliminating tax breaks for the rich, those earning over $250,000 a year, and keeping the tax cuts for the middle class.  And while maintaining the tax cuts for middle America made some sense in the President’s first campaign (the economy was running on empty), that campaign promise today is out-dated. 

The economy is recovering and deficit reduction is now more important than pumping money into the hands of the middle class.  But the political dilemma remains.  Obama won’t break his campaign promise in a second term, and the Republicans won’t sign on to any deal that just raises taxes on the rich.  They demand that all the Bush era tax breaks be made permanent. 

Assuming that Obama wins a second term, Leonhart has a potential option for the President that just might work.  (If a Republican wins the White House, then look for permanent deficits into the future, and/or government slashed to the bare bones.)  If Obama is reelected then chances are more likely than not that the House and Senate will be Republican.  Divided government would reign.

And the Republicans have vowed to pass into law a bill that would make all the Bush tax breaks permanent, — and here’s the good part! — if Obama is presented with such a bill he can refuse to sign it because it has tax breaks for the wealthy in it, and then have political cover for letting all the cuts expire as they’re set to do at the end of 2012! 

If Congress can’t come to an agreement with the Administration, thereby becoming David Leonhart’s “Do Nothing Congress” — then the onerous Bush tax cuts disappear.

Problem solved!

WE NEVER KNOW WHAT’S AROUND LIFE’S BENDS AND CURVES 

— BECAUSE LIFE ALWAYS HAS SURPRISES!

And, that’s the joy and sorrow of our lives.  The ‘good surprises’ that life offers up are gifts that suddenly appear and that we celebrate — thinking that we somehow deserve them;  the ‘bad surprises’ also suddenly show up, but we tend to think of them as ‘interruptions’ of our lives.  But, in reality, I think that life is actually about all of it — the good and the bad of it, and what we choose to do with what we’re handed.

Our beautiful son took a serious fall in mid-February and was in the hospital for six weeks, struggling each day to come back to us.  And he has!  Back is his keen sense of humor and wit, his love for his boys and his wife (a.k.a. his soul-mate), his love and talent for the web design business he created (check out Village Green Studios at www.villagegreenstudios.com), and his deep appreciation for the loyalty and love of his many friends and clients. 

And, so we’ve been away from CLN business for a couple of months while we focused on our son’s recovery.  This is our first post since the incident, and our readers can take it as a sign of good news that we’re back on line!  

WELCOME BACK HOME, SON!

A GLORIOUS DAY OF JOY AND SMILES!

Even the most hard-hearted had trouble yesterday keeping the corners of their mouths under control.  That vision of multitudes of people standing firm for freedom in Egypt was so inspiring and uplifting that the sun seemed to be shining a tad bit brighter and warmer all day.

Okay we’re idealists here at Center Left Nation.  We plead guilty.  And, in reality, no one really knows what happens next in Egypt and the Middle East.  But we here at CLN do have some predictions (picture Carnac the Magnificent). 

Freedom and Liberty Is Unleashed and Contagious.  Some countries will become thriving Democracies, some will take years to figure it all out — but in the end, the curve of history has been bent toward the good.

Good Days Ahead for Anti-Terroism.  Al Qaeda sees its best days in the rear-view mirror.  Why would people overthrow a dictator for freedom and Democracy, only to replace him with another authoritarian regime like the Taliban?  Tsk, tsk Conservatives.  We know you like to scare Americans with your fear-mongering, but can anyone actually see Egypt saying, “Oh, yeah … give us The Muslim Brotherhood to rule over us!”???  Democracy in Egypt is the beginning of the end for Al Qaeda and affiliates, because people throughout the world want what they just saw on their televisions for the last few days in the heart of the Middle East, not the destruction they saw on 9-11 in New York.

People of the World Once Again See the Amazing Power of Achieving Political Goals by Non-Violence.  Martin Luther King changed our country, as did Ghandi in India, by disavowing violence.  For those Americans who ‘cling to their guns’ thinking that they may some day need them to overthrow a tyrant in America (a major justification for Conservative’s Constitutional interpretation of the Second Amendment), they now have been presented with the right way to oust tyranny.  If Egyptians had taken to the streets with guns we all know how it would have ended.  Mubarek would have ordered his military to ‘put down the violence’ and the military would have obeyed his order.  There you have the reality of a Second Amendment revolt.  Think about it.  How else could that approach possibly end?

The Middle East Will Become More Democratic and Capitalistic.  The people in the Middle East have not only suffered brutality under their dictators, but also deprivation.  The dictators took their country’s wealth for themselves, and their friends and families, leaving poverty for the rest of their people.  By demanding a voice in their government, Egyptians are reaching for fairness and an end to economic inequality.  For those who assert that the people of the Middle East can’t handle Democracy, we point them toward the example of Turkey — an Islamic nation that thrives with Democracy and Capitalism. 

We Can’t GIVE Democracy to Others, They Have to TAKE It!  Chris Mathews said that on Hardball yesterday.  We now have the examples of Iraq and Egypt in the Democratization of Nations, and we here at CLN hope that we have all learned the lesson of ‘people power’ versus the barrel of a gun in moving our world forward in this new century.  We’re so hopeful today!