GOP LEADERSHIP OUTCOMES ARE BASED ON THEIR STRATEGIC PLAN FOR AMERICA
Summarizing the facts set forth in the following, it is my opinion that the Republican party has set in motion a plan to persuade the American people to provide them with the seat in our white house and a majority of seats in Congress.
This plan tells the American people that their Federal Government is bad, and that the conservative approach to limited bureaucracy, lower taxes and limited regulatory structure is what America needs.
The facts bear witness that the Republican Party (GOP) Policy implemented from 2001-2009 produced outcomes that are in stark contrast with their talking points.
Fact is, the Federal Government is for the most part is good, that reasonable taxation does the peoples work and regulation prevents industry excesses that harms our nations gross domestic product, its economy and our greater collective good.
Historic facts are being drowned out by a strong concerted effort by the GOP to manage the national conversation by using a premeditated political plan to obtain a majority of the seats in both houses of Congress and to win the next Presidential Election.
All while the only true opposition party does a poor job communicating, period!
GEORGE W BUSH & GOP CONTROLLED CONGRESS FISCAL HISTORY
George W. Bush sat in the White-house for 8 Years; from 2001 through 2009. George W. Bush inherited a $236 billion surplus from William Jefferson Clinton when he stepped into the oval office.
- During this period, the Republican Party controlled the United States Senate at the start of 6 out of the 8 Bush Presidential years.
- During this period, the Republican Party controlled the United States House of Representatives at the start of 6 out of the 8 Bush Presidential years.
According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), between 2001 and 2009, spending (outlays) rose from $1.9 trillion to $3.5 trillion – an increase of 89 percent.
According to Office of Management and Budgets (OMB) the fiscal year ending 2000 we had 20.6 Trillion in receipts when George W Bush took the oval office and we had 14.8 Trillion in receipts at year’s end 2009 the year he left the oval office.
Fact is, during GWB’s presidency, from 2000 to 2009 receipts, our country lost $5.8 Trillion in tax income while spending rose by 89%.
The Republican Party administered the legislative policy during the majority of the years 2001-2009 as our countries debt exploded. The day before George W. Bush assumed the presidency in 2001, the public debt was $5.7 trillion. On the last day of President Bush's presidency in 2009, the debt stood at $10.6 trillion, almost $35,000 of debt for every man, woman, and child in America.
In order to finance George W Bush and the Republic Party record budget deficits, the United States of America has had to borrow at unprecedented rates from foreign governments. It took 42 men serving as President of the United States over 224 years to build up $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. President George W. Bush more than tripled that amount under his watch, with total foreign held outstanding debt at somewhere over $3 Trillion as he left office.
The Republican Party passed tax cuts multiple times under President Bush in the 2001–2003 time periods (commonly referred to as the "Temporary Bush tax cuts").
The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA). Most of these tax cuts were scheduled to expire December 31, 2010.
In August 2010, CBO estimated that extending the tax cuts for the 2011-2020 time periods would add $3.3 trillion to the national debt: $2.65 trillion in foregone tax revenue plus another $0.66 trillion for interest and debt service costs.
The Republican Party line during the 2010/2011 congressional periods is that our small business owners need certainty. This is another Republican Party euphemism used to distract citizens from the real historical facts. If ever was a period of tax certainty for corporations creating three and five year business plans it was during the Republican Party control of congress in the Bush years.
Historical facts tell us that George W Bush created only 1.1 million jobs in his 8 years in office which is an annual increase of 0.01%.
Fact is, the “so called” certainty our GOP created for our businesses by lowering corporate federal income taxes twice, lowering the estate tax, personal income taxes for all small business owners created a measly 1.1 million jobs over the 8 year period.
Adjusted for population growth GWB lost jobs.
Break out the champagne, let’s have a celebration, a parade, let’s do something special. Did you realize that that poor display of certainty and job growth did not create enough jobs for our countries growth in working population during those years!
Fact is the market plan of the GOP telling the American people that the Federal Government is bad, that we need lower taxes and that we do not need regulations on our corporations because this hampers job creation appears to be nothing but talk, would you agree? Are you ready to let go of your emotional tie to the sales tools which the GOP uses to grab you emotionally? Not yet? Okay.
Remember, the GOP worked hard perusing defund and deregulate policies. They succeeded, allowing corporations to create products and services which created unnecessary risk throughout our economy at a sufficient level to bring down our entire financial system.
These risks were routinely presented to citizens in a fraudulent or misrepresented manner having a major effect on our countries commercial real-estate and/or housing industries. The financial chicanery caused the world’s money supply to dry up sending many sound small and medium business owners into bankruptcy.
As a consequence, many people lost their savings in the stock market. Many retirement investment accounts, 401k and IRA’s were cut in half. Financially conservative people whose past decisions left them with savings after the market crash have been rewarded with bank interest rate earnings of less than one-half of one percent.
The factors laid upon us by our politicians who contributed to the “Financial Crisis – 2007”include but are not limited to: defunding regulators and the deregulation of our corporate financial wizards. These political decisions left easy credit conditions with weak and fraudulent underwriting practices that provided homeowners to increase debt burden which contributed to our housing bubble.
The Wall Street financial wizards created an environment which fueled the sub-prime and predatory lending through the creation of instruments such as “Credit Default Swaps which were sold to banks, pensions and other financial institutions throughout the world.
All of these events took place in a weakened regulatory environment created by GOP political policies.
During September 2008, the crisis hit its most critical stage. There was the equivalent of a run on banks and money market facilities which normally invest in commercial paper issued by corporations to fund their daily operations and payroll. By year’s end nearly one-third of the U.S. lending mechanism was frozen.
There is a direct relationship between declines in wealth, and declines in consumption and business investment, which along with government spending represent the economic engine.
At its peak the country’s total home equity was valued at $13 Trillion, from 2006 to the middle of 2008 value had dropped to $8.8 Trillion and falling fast. It has been said that Americans 2nd largest household asset, retirement funds dropped by 22%, from $10.3 Trillion to $8 Trillion in the same time frame.
During the same period, savings and investment assets (not including retirement savings) lost $1.2 Trillion while pension assets lost $1.3 Trillion. All together, the total losses suffered as a result of the recession which occurred under the Presidency of George W Bush with a GOP controlled Congress for 6 of the 8 years was a staggering $8.3 Trillion. And since the peak of the 2nd quarter 2007, household wealth is down $14 Trillion.
Fact is the market plan of the GOP telling the American people that the Federal Government is bad, that we need lower taxes and that we do not need regulations on our corporations because this hampers job creation appears to be nothing but talk, would you agree?
Fact is we have had more government spending with less government receipts while regulators stood helpless to stop corporate fraud in an economy which job creation is non-existent.
Still hanging onto the GOP market plan which is designed to grab you emotionally? While you’re busy rationalizing your emotional acceptance, I tell you it gets worse.
TARP
Toward the end of the George W Bush Presidency, he initiated the “Troubled Asset Relief Program”, commonly referred to as TARP, a program of the United States of America government to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector. TARP was signed into law by GWB on October 3, 2008. Once thought to cost the U.S. taxpayers as much as $300 Billion, may now cost as little as $25 Billion.
Remember the Regan/George Herbert Walker Bush era “Savings and Loan Crisis”? The GOP talks a good game but their actions speak the whole and nothing but the truth. Taxpayers cleaned up these frauds perpetrated by a few good Republican bankers while few were ever held to account.
Today, TARP was to allow the United States Department of the Treasury to purchase or insure up to $700 Billion of "troubled assets", defined as "residential or commercial mortgages and any securities, obligations, or other instruments that are based on or related to such mortgages and/or any other financial instrument that the Secretary, after consultation with the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, determines the purchase of which is necessary to promote financial market stability.
On October 14, 2008, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and President Bush separately announced revisions in the TARP program. The Treasury was going to buy senior preferred stock and warrants in the nine largest American banks. The Treasury also bought preferred stock and warrants from hundreds of smaller banks, using the first $250 billion allotted to the program.
According to Wikipedia:
“As of February 9, 2009, $388 billion had been allotted, and $296 billion spent, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Among the money committed, includes:
- $250 billion to purchase bank equity shares through the Capital Purchase Program ($195 billion spent);
- $40 billion to purchase preferred shares of American International Group (AIG), then among the top 10 US companies, through the program for Systemically Significant Failing Institutions ($40 billion spent);
- $20 billion to back any losses that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York might incur under the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (none spent);
- $40 billion in stock purchases of Citigroup and Bank of America ($20 billion each) through the Targeted Investment Program ($40 billion spent)
- $12.5 billion in loan guarantees for Citigroup ($5 billion) and Bank of America ($7.5 billion) through the Asset Guarantee Program (none spent);
- $25 billion in loans to automakers and their financing arms through the Automotive Industry Financing Program ($21 billion spent)
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders' (VT) amendment to the Wall Street Reform Bill required the Federal Reserve to reveal the names of companies that received "backdoor bailouts" through a program that used liquidity and credit programs and other monetary policy tools to respond to the financial crisis in the summer of 2007. According to Sanders, Goldman Sachs received nearly $600 billion; Morgan Stanley received nearly $2 trillion; Citigroup received $1.8 trillion; Bear Stearns received nearly $1 trillion, and Merrill Lynch received some $1.5 trillion in short term loans from the Fed. In addition, some of the largest corporations in the country also received substantial bailouts, including General Electric, McDonald's, Caterpillar, Harley Davidson, Toyota and Verizon. Huge sums also went to foreign private banks and corporations including Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse.”
This legislation passed in haste without sufficient checks and balances and the United States Treasury was permitted to offer a federally backed corporate social program to prevent major corporate failures in our free market system.
Fact is these events happened after implementation of the GOP market plan with stellar results; they policies crashed our economy, effectively crashing the world financial markets. Further evidence exists this triggered the start of massive layoffs which were the result of a collapse in our countries economic activity.
STIMULUS BILL – RECOVERY ACT
In February 2009 after an almost 48% drop in the United States of America stock market indices a Democratic controlled congress and the George W Bush Presidency with his executive branch representatives proposed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA.
This is also known as the Stimulus Bill or the Recovery Act.
The house passed a version of the bill. The Senate then began consideration their version of the bill which started with a $275 billion tax cut provision. One significant difference between the House and Senate version was the inclusion of a one-year extension of alternative minimum tax policy which added $70 billion to the bill's total.
Senate Republicans demanded acceptance of several amendments to the bill increasing the share of tax cuts and reducing spending to decrease the size of the bill. And the party of “NO” demanded almost $150 billion in changes to the House or threatened to hold the United States of America hostage.
This forced severe restrictions to the Stabilization Fund, hurting States and low income workers with major gains for the elderly and upper income tax-payers.
Meanwhile the #GOP Stimulus Talking Points were:
- Our nation is in a recession and millions of Americans are hurting.
- Congress and the President are right to call for decisive action but the only thing the Democrat bill will stimulate is more government and more debt.
- House Republicans unanimously opposed this bill for one reason: it won’t work.
- Opposition to the House Democrat bill was bipartisan because it is a wish list of wasteful spending that will do little to put Americans back to work.
- Republicans are on the side of the American people.
- Some say public opposition centers on less than one percent of this bill but this bill goes 100 percent in the wrong direction.
- Republicans have a better solution - fast acting tax relief for working families and small business.
- The Republican solution will create twice the jobs at half the cost and put Americans back to work.
- Congress should put everyday Americans first, put politics aside and take the time to get this right.
Is your head spinning yet?The implementation of these very GOP talking points is a big part of the reason why we are in our present economic funk today.
SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENTS - PAY-OFF FOR GOP
Two of the job he created was for Supreme Court Justices.
A Jan 2010 court ruling in Citizens united versus the Federal Election Commission in a 5 to 4 ruling overruled two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, as a bitterly divided court ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.
The seating of two conservative justices to the Supreme Court of the United States created an environment today where we have two or three justices whom routinely set off the “Appearance of Impropriety” ethical alarms.
Republicans say they believe in the constitution then agree with the court that corporations are equal to citizens as it relates to freedom of speech.
Corporations are man-made entities, not citizens with the full rights bestowed upon us by our constitution.
Even so, the very corporations and special interest institutions can now spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns. These same organizations have funded political campaigns and in return have received political favors for years. The political favors come in the form of tax breaks or special incentives that sometimes reduce corporate/industry tax payments to our federal Government to zero.
So as you know the #GOP has been lowering taxes on our corporate entities, while increasing the corporation’s ability to place political marketing advertisements to sway citizen’s public opinion as they do daily to convince you to use their product and service.
Market advertising appeals to people in various ways: it can be based on humor, fear, and scarcity of time, sex, music, and scarcity of supply. Further advertising appeals to both the rational and emotional part of human beings.
But people you must know that we do not buy based on rational thought. People buy for emotional reasons and then justify our decisions with rational thought.
The GOP plan thus far has been to reduce federal taxes and remove burdensome regulations on America’s job creators. And as you have read here they succeeded in accomplishing both of those tasks using a variety of legislative techniques.
Are you happy with the results of the Republican Party politics being implemented in the mainstream of United States Government operations?
I ended my rationalizing three years ago as he GOP marketing plan dawned on me. Are you ready to revisit your emotional connection to the GOP?
Their agenda is not a liberal agenda, it is not a conservative agenda, it is a radical agenda.
During the #111th Congress, the GOP has accomplished their objectives by acting as the party of “NO”. Strategically threatening failure to move anything in the Senate, including a budget agreement, all meant to create an environment where President Barack Obama receives no successes.
At the end of the #111th Congress our politicians agreed to an extension of the "Temporary Bush tax cuts". This added another $1 Trillion to our national debt.
We now have a new set of GOP euphemisms:
- They blast the Obama administration as “radical” and “reckless” and the “most politically obsessed White House in history.”
- They say “The budget is a radical proposal that will change the character of our nation, trampling on freedom and liberty.”
- They tell us that “The only approach that has not been tried is the conservative approach – limited bureaucracy, lower taxes, and responsible regulatory structures.”
- They shout “The administration is disingenuous, unfocused, and reckless.”
What has changed?
The song remains the same: here is a chart which displays the outcome of 8 years of GWB with 6 of 8 of those years with a GOP controlled Congress.
Nothing has changed!
The GOP market Playbook remains intact, the song remains the same: They profess to the American Citizenry that the GOP approach to limited bureaucracy, lower taxes and responsible regulatory structures is the way they will govern.
I implore you to look at the facts I laid out before you, and demand better of our government.
The GOP lowered revenues creating greater debt. The GOP increased spending creating greater debt. The GOP reduced corporate regulations and those corporations defrauded American citizens and crashed the economy.
The GOP speech is very nice with pretty words and if you let them they will tug on your emotional heart strings. Don't forget the facts, they own partial responsibility for putting us where we are today.
When you increase spending and lower taxes spending more than you receive then debt rises. That is just what they've done to us.
Keep in mind that I firmly believe in balancing our income with our expense. And seek small & effective government.
I simply REJECT the Republican Party plan to starve government of income to force massive cuts in services so temporary tax cuts can be extended.
I simply REJECT the Republican Party plan to end regulations to free corporate America from their responsibility to the general welfare of our nations people, property and our environment.
- Don’t let this market plan play with your emotions.
- The GOP does not have the right solutions to solve our economic problems.
- They have been a creator or major contributor to the evolution of many existing problems.
- They created huge deficits to call for spending cuts in order to reduce the size of Federal Government to something that better fits their ideas for America.
- The opposition party is incapable of communicating a single unified action plan for the party is more diverse than the GOP and therefore has more than one single unified point of view in these matters.
- And media is owned and operated by corporate America who has a natural bias toward the GOP plan and self preservation.
Don't buy what the GOP is selling!
