Newt Gingrich, the GOP and the Real Problem

If you would like to know what’s wrong with Conservatives and the Republican Party all you have to do is look at Newt Gingrich’s remarks at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

I’m not talking about his labeling Obama a “secular socialist,” two words guaranteed to get the under 80 IQ Republican base all in a lather, I’m talking about his list of policies that he claims Republicans favor.

They were tax cuts, a lower deficit, fewer regulations and a sensible energy plan.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) in their latest report on the Federal budget have made it very clear that there is no realistic revenue projection model that addresses the growing federal budget deficit and National Debt.

The only possible solution is a drastic reduction of services, tax increases or some combination of the two. This conclusion lines up with similar analysis performed by non-partisan groups such as the Concord Coalition.

You cannot both cut taxes AND reduce the deficit UNLESS you are willing to make massive budget cuts including cuts in defense spending and Medicare. Since I suspect it will be a cold day in hell before any political party does that, these two policies, cut taxes and reduce the deficit, are contradictory.

As for fewer regulations, wasn’t the lack of regulations what got us into the most recent financial debacle? Didn’t we all say that we weren’t going to let that happen again? Do you REALLY want to trust the big corporations to look out for your best interests without the government riding herd over them? Let’s remember who outsourced all those jobs to East Asia shall we?

A sensible energy plan you say? I’m all in favor of that. What is it? The Republican Party has been fighting alternative energy source development for decades. You will excuse me but “drill, baby drill” is NOT a sensible energy plan. I’m willing to listen, but you’ve got to do better than catchy slogans.

The bottom line is this is a collection of what people want to hear and has about as much relationship to reality as Alice in Wonderland. Gingrich is no fool. He knows what he’s saying is a lot of crap. That means he’s lying and hoping his audience is too ignorant to catch him at it other than those that are “in the know” and laughing at the rubes cheering for their economic demise.

Face reality. The Republican Party is dependent upon the under 80 IQ trailer park set for votes but its corporate fat cats for funding. Once the election is over, money will win every time.

The Republicans keep the under 80 IQ trailer park set votes by pontificating about Christianity, Socialism, Abortion and homosexuality. In other words, by keeping the riff-raff focused on nonsense issues. In the meantime they “imply,” and sometimes more than imply, that the government is “redistributing income” from them, the white working class Americans, to Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Illegal Immigrants and any other minority they think they can get away with naming.

For those that aren’t working, the mantra switches to those Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims and Illegal Immigrants are taking their jobs away thanks to the nefarious left wing schemes of Democrats, Atheists, Liberals, Environmentalists and that reality biased media.

The reality is that the Republican elite could care less about the nonsense issues, other than as a means of securing the votes of the riff-raff, and they could care less about jobs for the under 80 IQ trailer park set. Once in office are going to take care of their corporate fat cat sponsors by cutting taxes primarily for the rich, crippling regulations so more profit can be squeezed out while ignoring things like environmental issues and the welfare of the work force actually producing the products, and making damn sure that a “sensible energy plan” means not allowing emerging Green Technologies to successfully compete with the oil industry.

Let’s please remember that it wasn’t the government that outsourced American manufacturing jobs to East Asia. Let's also remember that it hasn't been the government getting the unions to give back stuff in order to avoid even more plant closings.

The emergence of the Tea Party movement is causing some trepidation in the GOP. I mean, those yokels might actually manage to figure out that what they’re yelling about is merely a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself.

Yes the government is in the business of redistributing income. It’s in the business of taking it from the top 20% of income earners and redistributing it as services and subsidies to the other 80% of Americans. The reason it has to do this is the nightmare disparity in income that has developed since 1980. It effectively has no other choice.

Now what percentage of the Tea Party yokels do you suppose are in the top 20% group and what percentage are in the 80% group? I’m willing to bet that 99% of Tea Party supporters are in the 80% group.

For the ubiquitous fictional family of four to be in the top 20% of income earners their household income would have to exceed $142,400 based upon the Congressional Budget Office’s latest charts. If you’re making less than that, then you’re most likely a beneficiary of income redistribution and not a victim.

The fact is that the percentage of income tax liability of everybody except the top 20% has decreased since 1980. Everybody paid income taxes in 1980. Now those in the lowest two quintiles actually have NEGATIVE income tax liability. In other words they get money rather than pay.

The tax liability of the middle quintile has decreased from 10.8% in 1980 to 4.4% in 2006. The tax liability of the fourth quintile has decreased from 20.2% in 1980 to 12.9% in 2006. In the meantime the percentage tax liability of the highest quintile has gone from 64.9% in 1980 to 86.3% in 2006.

Let me make sure that this is perfectly clear. The top 20% of wage earners pays 86.3% of ALL Federal Income Taxes. The rest of the country, 80%, pays only 13.7% of the Federal Income Taxes.

Why you ask? Is this the result of the unfair socialistic tax practices of those well known left wing radicals Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W, Bush? Or perhaps Slick Willy managed to bring this all about in his 8 year term by dramatically raising taxes on those hard working rich folks?

Nope, this is the natural fallout of the upper 20% of the income earners monopolizing the economic benefits of the past 30 years. While the real income of the bottom 80% of American wage earners has increased by 19% over the past 30 years, the real income of the top 20% has increased by 88%, the top 5% by 245% and the top 1% by a whopping 345%.

In 1980, the bottom 80% of American wage earners made 54.5% of the income. By 2006 that number had dwindled to 44.3% of the income. You got that? 80% of the people make less than 50% of the income and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better any time soon.

Big government is a symptom rather than the root problem. The root problem is the massive wealth and income disparity that has developed in the United States. How long do you figure it’s going to take for even the morons of the Tea Party to figure this out?