Viewpoint


My name is Patrick M McCormick and I have created this blog as a platform for my political views as well as those of select contributors.

I believe that American Politicians have lost sight of their goal: To uphold the Constitution and protect the rights of the people of the United States. They argue and bicker on the floor of their respective houses, positioning themselves for the next election, while they accomplish very little business for the citizens of this country.

Meanwhile our economy is sliding downward. Millions of our precious jobs have have been exported overseas. Our social safety net and other public services are being cut. Our middle class is rapidly disappearing and the numbers of citizens existing below the poverty line is increasing dramatically.

I plan to examine the causes of these terrible changes to our American way of life. Your comments will help us all arrive at some important conclusions.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

American Citizens Sold Out One Job, One Farm, One Factory and one Brick at a Time!

Russ Limbo
As I see it
June 22. 2012

American citizens are being sold out one Job, one vote and one brick at a time by our major corporations and our political leaders are doing nothing but counting their campaign contributions while it happens. Not only jobs, but whole industries, farms and our precious resources have been steadily moving overseas. This represents more than a threat to our economy; it represents a threat to the security of the nation and its entire people as well. We, The People of the United States of America, are in serious trouble.

Let’s go back two years…

President Obama was quoted in The Washington Post as saying: (Published: Aug. 21, 2010 at 6:01 AM WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (UPI):

U.S. President Barack Obama Saturday warned of a "corporate takeover" of democracy and said Republicans want the public kept "in the dark" on campaign funding.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, the Democratic president found fault with a Supreme Court ruling that permits corporations, unions and other organizations to spend "unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections."

"They can buy millions of dollars’ worth of TV ads -- and worst of all, they don't even have to reveal who is actually paying for them," he said.

"A group can hide behind a phony name like 'Citizens for a Better Future,' even if a more accurate name would be 'Corporations for Weaker Oversight.'"

He blamed GOP leaders for killing legislation this summer that would require "corporate political advertisers to reveal who's funding their activities."
(The remainder of this article is listed on Aug 21 in this blog)

That was an extremely serious warning by our President, but two days later I was saddened to read that a vote had failed to pass the “Disclose Act” designed to protect US, the citizens of the United States. It was a “Low Blow” dealt the people of America by their own elected officials. Let me include the following article:

Today in the Washington Post:
Senate Democrats again fail to pass campaign disclosure law

By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 23, 2010; 11:10 PM

Senate Democrats failed again Thursday in their attempt to require corporations, unions and other interest groups to provide more details about their political spending.

The measure, known as the Disclose Act, fell one vote short of the 60 needed to break a GOP filibuster in the divided Senate, with Republicans uniformly opposed to the bill. The legislation had also been blocked by Senate Republicans during an earlier vote in July.

The 59-39 vote marks a bitter defeat for Democratic leaders and President Obama, who has repeatedly urged Congress to pass the bill in response to a Supreme Court ruling lifting restrictions on corporate and union political spending.

The outcome represents a major victory for Republicans and major business groups, which lobbied hard against a proposal that they said was an attempt by Democrats to silence GOP-leaning business groups.

Since then President Obama and The Democratic Party have remained mysteriously silent on the issue. Did the “Threat” simply vanish with the vote? I think not! But obviously, The Republican Congressmen and Senators have remained silent as well.

Why should we view this as a serious threat to US, Our American Republic and our unique way of life?

Let’s talk about corporate taxation.  Oh, I know what all of the so called “Shock Jocks” and ultra-right wing media pundits will say, “We have the highest corporate tax rate in the free world”. That may be true on paper, but which fortune 500 company pays their full taxes? There are so many loopholes in the Federal Tax Code, if there are any that actually pay the full amount; I’d be willing to bet you could count them on one hand.

In the old days, when America used to manufacture things, it was not a critical issue. There were so many blue collar middle class workers dumping their withholding taxes into the Federal coffers the government functioned smoothly.  It did not matter that those large employers paid little or no taxes, their workers did. In those days we could afford to contemplate “The Great Society”. True, there was a lot of waste; but we were the wealthiest nation on the planet and had the money to waste.

In the good old days, we had social programs for everybody in need, we gave ungodly amounts of money as foreign aid and we policed the world with our mighty military forces. We were also the leader in the exploration of space. Scientific innovation was our forte because our educational system was excellent and our government could afford to fund hundreds of ambitious research programs.

Then, some accountant figured how much money their company could save by manufacturing overseas in third world countries. America began exporting those high paying middle class blue collar jobs to extremely inexpensive labor markets. It was great for a while… we got some really great deals on radios, cars, television sets and all sorts of great consumer goods.

Today… we are paying the real price for those great discounts: our economy is failing. Our children can’t find jobs when they graduate college. We import so many of the goods we use in our daily lives that our Trade Deficit has skyrocketed. Still, our elected leaders are oblivious to the painful cries of the people: nothing is being done about it.

Yesterday I read in the Washington Post:
By Tom Hamburger, Published: June 21

Mitt Romney’s financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.

During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission

While economists debate whether the massive outsourcing of American jobs over the last generation was inevitable, Romney in recent months has lamented the toll it’s taken on the U.S. economy. He has repeatedly pledged he would protect American employment by getting tough on China.

“They’ve been able to put American businesses out of business and kill American jobs,” he told workers at a Toledo fence factory in February. “If I’m president of the United States, that’s going to end.”

Speaking at a metalworking factory in Cincinnati last week, Romney cited his experience as a businessman, saying he knows what it would take to bring employers back to the United States. “For me it’s all about good jobs for the American people and a bright and prosperous future,” he said.

For years, Romney’s political opponents have tried to tie him to the practice of outsourcing American jobs. These political attacks have often focused on Bain’s involvement in specific business deals that resulted in job losses.

But a Washington Post examination of securities filings shows the extent of Bain’s investment in firms that specialized in helping other companies move or expand operations overseas. While Bain was not the largest player in the outsourcing field, the private equity firm was involved early on, at a time when the departure of jobs from the United States was beginning to accelerate and new companies were emerging as handmaidens to this outflow of employment.

Now that Mitt Romney is running for President He thinks that outsourcing all of those jobs was a “Bad Idea”. Ten million Americans will agree whole heartedly on that issue. Of course he has changed his mind… he wants our votes, but can we believe him when he says he wants to fix the problem”?  Personally I believe we would we be electing “The Fox to guard our Henhouse?”




Now we face a situation where our government has created a huge debt load… and guess what folks… there isn’t enough money to pay it down. In fact the interest on that debt is killing us. This tremendous financial burden is forcing Uncle Sam to make some serious cuts in expenses

Our military, NASA, education, Social Security, Medicare and a host of other vital social programs have already felt the knife. Our vaunted right wing shock jocks and media pundits are pointing the finger of blame at the recipients of benefits from those programs; as if it were their fault the country was going broke.

It’s true; we don’t have the money to pay for it all. But I have to ask this question “Is it fair for US, working class Americans, to suffer while those giant companies are still soaking up the profit from their cheap overseas manufacturing?”  Isn’t it logical that the entities responsible for the problem pay their fair share? Think about how many of the above programs could have been kept “As is” if those great corporation had been paying their taxes?

The average American is already suffering. Many small companies and workers are dealing with reduced incomes. The number of private homes being sold for tax liens is steadily climbing. All of this suffering is due, in a great part, to the export of our manufacturing jobs.

Large corporations have the ear of our elected officials because they finance the greater part of political campaigns. All we, the citizens of the United States, have is our vote and our voices. It is time that we make ourselves heard. We are after all, “A Government of The People, by The People and for The People” and not “A Government of The Corporation, by The Corporation and for The Corporation”; aren’t we?

We still have time to fix our problems and we need to start at their root cause. We need complete transparency in political campaign funding. We need to seriously limit the amount any individual or corporation can donate to any campaign. We need to protect our markets as strictly as Japan, China, Germany or any of our other so called “Trading Partners” do. We have not been playing on “An even field” for decades. It’s time we played by their rules.

Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, you had better look hard at these issues. Our factories and our farms are being moved overseas while we, US, sit back and do nothing. It’s time we spoke out… No… It’s time we cried out! “Enough… Let’s rebuild America… Not sell it for scrap to the highest bidder!

Or… some day in the not too distant future… there will be nothing left to sell!

And this is how I see it,

Russ Limbo

First published in The e-Buffet Online Magazine: http://www.e-buffet.org

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