Democrats must push back by Norman Solomon
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Marin Voice: Democrats must push back
By Norman Solomon
Guest op-ed column
Posted: 08/15/2011 02:35:00 AM PDT
THE NEGATIVE TRENDS in the Nation's Capital are mostly due to extreme GOP ideologues in Congress. But they've been enabled by too many Democrats who keep giving ground while Republican leaders refuse to give an inch.
Many a political truth can be spoken in jest, and that was the case with a mock news item that appeared in The Onion last week.
"A day after signing legislation that raised the government debt ceiling and authorized steep budget cuts," the satirical magazine reported, "President Obama thanked Democrats as well as Democrats for their willingness to make tough, but necessary, concessions during negotiations."
The Onion went on: "Obama added that while it may look ugly at times, politics is about Democrats giving up what they want, as well as Democrats giving up what they want, until an agreement can ultimately be reached."
Compromise is one thing, but capitulation is another — especially when core principles of decency and fairness are at stake.
We must stand our ground on behalf of seniors, children, the disabled and other vulnerable Americans. All the rhetoric about "shared sacrifice" rings hollow when the vast majority of us are being sacrificed to the financial benefit of big banks and large corporations.
There are plenty of sensible and effective ways to reduce the deficit — including a transaction tax on Wall Street, closure of tax loopholes for big companies,
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an end to the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy and a major reduction in the military budget.
Instead, the bipartisan dealmakers in Washington are slashing the safety net that's essential for vast numbers of Americans.
One of the most dangerous aspects of the recent budget deal is that it explicitly sets the stage for future actions to undermine Medicare. This scenario strikes at the heart of precious values. I'm committed to defending Social Security and Medicare on the campaign trail and as a member of Congress.
I fully agree with Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey's explanation for why she voted against the new budget deal.
Woolsey pointed out that the deal "puts virtually the entire burden on working families and the middle class while asking nothing from billionaires, millionaires and companies that send jobs overseas."
In Washington, job one should be creating jobs. And that won't happen by continuing to give tax cuts to the wealthy while imposing benefit cuts on the rest of us.
Corporations are sitting on huge quantities of cash. But rather than expanding the workforce, they're hoarding the money — and stretching workers in the name of "productivity" — while often posting record profits.
Three years ago, on this page, I wrote a column opposing the Wall Street bank bailout then being debated in Congress. Unfortunately, my concerns were borne out by later events.
Banks took the bailout money and largely used it to buy other banks — instead of making loans to small businesses and helping homeowners keep their homes.
With the new budget deal, Congress again acted in the financial interests of the rich instead of the vast majority of us.
With chronic unemployment at historic highs and personal savings in the tank, fewer and fewer Americans have the buying power that can pull the economy out of its deep ravine.
Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in the vital lessons of the New Deal. Many millions of good jobs must be created — and that will require well-funded federal jobs programs on a large scale.
Trickle-down economics, relying on the tender mercies of powerful corporations, won't get it done.
Norman Solomon of Inverness Park was co-chair of the Commission on a Green New Deal for the North Bay. He is a Democratic Party candidate for Congress.
4 Attachment(s)
Re: Democrats must push back by Norman Solomon
A Challenge to Norman Solomon
Quote:
We must stand our ground on behalf of seniors, children, the disabled and other vulnerable Americans. All the rhetoric about "shared sacrifice" rings hollow when the vast majority of us are being sacrificed to the financial benefit of big banks and large corporations.
There are plenty of sensible and effective ways to reduce the deficit — including a transaction tax on Wall Street, closure of tax loopholes for big companies, an end to the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy and a major reduction in the military budget.
Dear Norman,
On behalf of seniors, children, the disabled and other vulnerable Americans, I would suggest that if you really intend to make a difference in Washington D.C. - and a difference in History, that you familiarize yourself with the words and the works of the late Jerry Voorhis, Congressman from Whittier, California from 1936 until 1946; the man who was Richard Nixon's first hit on his road to power.
Like Wright Patman, and the late Henry Gonzalez, Jerry Voorhis was a Progressive Democrat who took it upon himself to wrestle with Behemoth, i.e., the Money Trust... During World War Two, he attempted to pull the plug from the Bank for International Settlements. Repeatedly, he put forth Bills and Legislation on the floor of the House that called for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act, and its replacement with a sane and just Monetary System - one that that would not loot the Masses, while fattening the Fat Cats; those who are already quite Fat enough...
Here, Norman, are a few tidbits, that I encourage you to study and peruse - and also to Comment on, Once you have become sufficiently familiar with the Concepts and Principles within the Screeds:
Thank You, kindly,
Mark Walter Evans
Re: Democrats must push back by Norman Solomon
Mair, on the Man, Jerry Voorhis:
The Old Left always knew that the establishment of the Federal Reserve System, in 1914, represented a kind of bloodless financial coup by Wall Street over Constitutional money. That is the reason that Jerry Voorhis and Robert LaFollette Jr., two prominent old leftists with political clout on the Hill - who both wanted to Nationalize the Federal Reserve Bank - were booted out of office in 1946, by the instrumentality of two young Mob Lawyers fresh from the Navy and the South Pacific - Richard M. Nixon & Joe McCarthy - both of whom were financed by Big Money. Here is what Jerry Voorhis, a bona fide Old Leftist, wrote about the Federal Reserve:
Jerry Voorhis On The Federal Reserve:
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES SAYS:
"Congress shall have power to Coin money and regulate the value thereof."
Congress does no such thing, which is the heart of our trouble. Private banks
coin our money and regulate its value. In doing so they take from the government
and people of the United States a large chunk of their sovereignty, a large chunk
of the taxing power, and the key to a prosperous economy without inflation.
For example, in testimony before the Banking and Currency Committee
of the House of Representatives in 1935, Marriner Eccles,
then Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board itself, said:
"In purchasing offerings of Government bonds, the banking system as a whole
creates new money, or bank deposits. When the banks buy a billion dollars of
Government bonds as they are offered - and you have to consider the banking
system as a whole as a unit - the banks credit the deposit account of the
Treasury with a billion dollars. They debit their Government bond account a
billion dollars; or they actually create, by a bookkeeping entry, a billion dollars."
Mr. Eccles' statement is exactly as true today as when he made it.
Here is how it works : The private banking system of our country creates
our money in the form of demand deposits on the banks' books.
The reason it is able to do this is because no bank is required
to have in its vault anything like the amount of money
which its depositors think they have in the banks.
Banks are only required by the Federal Reserve System,
which the banks are sure they own, to have in their vaults
anywhere from $1 to $1.50 for every $10 of demand deposits on their books.
That is for every $1 or $1.50 which people - or the government -
deposit in a bank, the banking system can create out of thin air
and by the stroke of a pen some $10 of checkbook money or demand deposits.
It can lend all that $10 into circulation at interest just so long as it has the $1
or a little more in reserve to back it up.
This is, of course, the "fractional reserve system" of banking.
It is more or less controlled by the Federal Reserve System,
whose only stock is held by the private banks of the Federal Reserve System.
Not a single share of such stock is held by the government
or people of the United States, although if "national sovereignty"
means anything at all, these banks of issue should be the property
of the nation.
But what actually happens when our government engages in deficit financing?
The obvious way the government can get more buying power into the people's
hands is by itself putting more money into the stream of commerce than it takes
out in taxes. The tragedy of the situation is that, up to date, the only way our
government has enabled itself to spend more money than it takes in has been
by forcing this sovereign nation to borrow its own credit from private sources.
This has been true, despite the fact that if deficit financing accomplishes its
purpose at all it will increase production and trade, enhance tax revenues,
and broaden the base of government credit.
To the extent that government bonds are sold for cash to individuals,
or institutional purchasers other than banks,
the government is taking out of circulation approximately as many dollars
as it will put back in when it spends the money.
To accomplish its purpose, deficit financing must result in the creation
of new money, and the use of it to increase mass buying power.
Only if this happens will there be any stimulation of idle plants
to go back into production, or more employment.
Under these circumstances what ought to happen is that the credit
of this great nation should be drawn upon directly by the government,
not that it should go more deeply into debt.
For the credit of this or any nation is squarely based upon and derived from
the production of wealth by the nation plus the power of the government to tax.
A nation like the United States thus possesses an almost unlimited amount of credit.
Otherwise it could not possibly have persuaded investors to buy $480 billion
of government securities.
By whatever percentage it can be anticipated that production and hence potential
tax revenues will increase as a result of deficit spending, by that same amount
the credit of the nation and its government will be increased.
This same percentage of the volume of money previously in circulation should appear
on the books of the Treasury as a credit entry to be drawn upon just like tax revenues.
To do that would he nothing more than rational and proper bookkeeping.
It would also be morally right bookkeeping.
And it would make some sense of Mr. Nixon's
"Full employment budget" idea.
But this is not what happens at all. Instead the sovereign government
of the United States goes hat in hand to the private banking system
and asks it to create the new money that the economy needs.
The government gives - the word is used advisedly -
it gives to the banking system, including the Federal Reserve banks,
government bonds, the debt of all the people.
Interest-bearing bonds, that is,
bonds bearing as high an interest rate under today's regime
as the banks decide to demand. Else they won't buy the bonds.
The banks "buy" the bonds with newly created
demand deposit entries on their books - nothing more.
It is fountain-pen money and considerably more inflationary
than would be the same amount of dollar bills created by the government.
The deposits the banks create with which to own the people's debt
are backed by nothing except the bonds themselves!
In other words, they are backed by the credit of the American people.
What the government has "borrowed" from the banks,
what the people must for years pay interest on,
is nothing more nor less than the credit of the nation,
which obviously the nation possessed in the first
place or the bonds themselves would be no good!
At long last, a few years ago the Federal Reserve made tacit acknowledgment
of these facts. As a direct result of logical and relentless agitation by members
of Congress, led by Congressman Wright Patman
as well as by other competent monetary experts,
the Federal Reserve began to pay to the U.S. Treasury a considerable
part of its earnings from interest on government securities.
This was done without public notice and few people,
even today, {1973} know that is being done.
It was done, quite obviously, as acknowledgment that the Federal Reserve Banks
were acting on the one hand as a national bank of issue, creating the nation's money,
but on the other hand charging the nation interest on its own credit -
which no true national bank of issue could conceivably,
or with any show of justice, dare to do.
But this is only part of the story. And the less discouraging part, at that.
For where the commercial banks are concerned, there is no such repayment
of the people's money.
When the commercial banks create money, as they do when they acquire government
bonds, they levy a tax on every person in the United States. This is so because
every new dollar that is created makes every dollar previously in existence worth
somewhat less than it was worth before. This is the very heart of inflation.
It is also taxation without representation with a vengeance. Until this system is
changed, our debt will continue to skyrocket without limit and the fixing of debt
limits by the Congress will continue to be an exercise in utter futility.
More, Including
a Progressive Solution...
https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png Iolchan wrote:
https://waccobb.net/forums/images/bu...post-right.png
Jerry Voorhis On The Solution
To The Federal Reserve/Debt
Quandry
:
What ought to be done?
https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png Iolchan wrote:
https://waccobb.net/forums/images/bu...post-right.png
Amendment XXVIII & Apologia
https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png Iolchan wrote:
https://waccobb.net/forums/images/bu...post-right.pngExcerpts from:
The Key to World Peace - and Plenty,
by
Elsa Peters Morse
Very Sincerely,
Mark Walter Evans
