I remember those days too. Thanks for reminding us that money is power and the wealthiest among us have used their influence and lobbying power to support politicians who sell their ‘trickle’ down bullshit for all these years. Believing that corporations and rich people are going to spread their wealth to their workers or those in need has always been nonsense. MAKES ME SO MAD! 🤬
The billionaires and multi-millionaires who fund the Republican Party are opposed to being part of a progressive income tax system that would require them to pay a tax based upon a substantial share of the range of their vast wealth and compensation, allow environmental and corporate regulation, and live in a democracy they can't fully control. They want to be free to plunder, pollute, and corrupt our government until it functions almost exclusively for their benefit. I'm referring to many of the 10% of Americans who own 90% of America's corporate wealth, and the relatively few billionaires and multi-millionaires who fund and control the R Party. It may come down to not more than 100 people.
When you realize the 2017 Republican Tax Act is still in place, and analyze the radical, anti-undemocratic, legislative function of the Republican majority of the Supreme Court over the last few decades, they are closing in on achieving their objectives. The SCOTUS has gutted existing voting laws which allow State's to execute laws that allow voter suppression and gerrymandering. Slim majorities in the Senate , and now the House, plus the Electoral Collage make R influence hard to overcome, despite Dems consistently winning the popular Presidential vote over the last 20 years.
This brings us to the nature and composition of the R Party and why Republicans have more recently focused on detailed group and individual data targeting of religious, racial populations, and
minorities, increased radio and T.V. platforms covering all 50 states 24/7, fictional school grievances, totalitarian social control solutions like book banning and the autocratic idealization over democracy (a word Trump never used), rather than their traditional positions of lower taxes, a balanced budget, and limiting the size of government which they obviously never really believed and can no longer trick most Americans with given their behavior when in power.
Most Americans would agree that Trump's promise of a middle-class tax cut that would "hurt the wealthy", cause unrealistic economic growth, pay for itself, and eliminate the Fed debt and the deficits in eight years was a lie of equal magnitude to his lie he won the election. The R Party is on record as the party that consistently underfunds and attempts to privatize public education. Moreover, Republicans view a well-educated and informed society as a threat to their autocratic goals, right-wing propaganda, and misinformation. Their interest in education is limited to a trained workforce for business, downplaying the the importance of a liberal education, stratifying educational opportunity, and profiting off of education.
Contrary to recognizing Climate Change as an existential threat, Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, and did everything in his power to do away with environmental regulation, instead of addressing the existential imperative of transitioning from fossil fuel based economy to a green based economy. In fact, the R position on CC was that it is a "hoax." and infrastructure is only something you talk about but never address. Thousands of American families will pay the price of death, cancer, respiratory diseases, and birth defects as a result of Trump turning the EPA into a chemical war machine that attacked Americans, while ignoring the clean-up of past catastrophes.
Despite Republican ideology, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations have been shown to have no relationship to economic growth and always end in a range of corporate welfare programs, higher debt, inflation, recession, widening income and wealth gaps, unaddressed or under addressed critical challenges, and more and bigger billionaires funding a plutocratic State. If the truth were told, by addressing our critical challenges like infrastructure investment, climate change mediation, affordable healthcare, and immigration reform, we would have a thriving and sustainable economy instead of living on the brink of catastrophic disasters. The failure to address these critical issues should be quantified and factored into our Federal debt total so we would have a better idea of our direction, progress, and the quality of the leaders we are electing, rather than judging them by their bluster and Party identity. Ron DeSantis, the Governor of Florida, is a perfect example of a Republican billionaire owned puppet. His entire State budget is 105 billion, but Hurricane Ian just caused 258 billion in estimated damages. While the State feuds with Disneyland, bans book, and supports every right-wing idea that comes down the pike. What used to be a purple state is now an R gerrymandered state. Moreover, in Florida the poor pay the highest income tax rates and the rich pay the lowest. Their Plan B is to mooch off the Fed government when any disasters strike, and for DeSantis is to pray the next hurricane misses his billionaire infested paradise, before the 2024 Presidential election. In the meantime a lot of Floridians will be distracted by the fictional culture threats DeSantis repeats, to keep people distracted from their increasing insurance premiums, if they can get insurance.
There's a reason Trump put his school records, business failures, and taxes under legal lock and key and it wasn't because he was proud of them. Clearly, any business success he experienced was largely the result of his vast lifetime inheritance, inflation, and Russian money laundering, and after he blew all of that as a "star" in a TV show where he played a successful business boss who fired people. He undoubtedly made more as POTUS through grifting and corruptly trading American Foreign Policy for
"goodwill" funds for his family and himself.
As Thom pointed out there are many reasons for the Republican embrace of racism, anti-Semitism, and what ever anti-isms Republican politicians think will fly. However, in all cases their prejudices are rewarded by their sponsors and utilized in place of constructive policies. If they told the truth about who they represent Republicans would have no chance of being elected. When a politician doesn't address major issues and/or calls them hoaxes it is their tell that their agenda is to ignore the interests of Americans, by appealing to our the worst instincts and spreading misinformation, while they funnel our tax dollars to their sponsors and themselves. Trump created 10 trillion of new debt without addressing our critical challenges and while undercutting our allies, breaking our commitments, trying to hide a Pandemic, and appeasing Russia, to our and our allies detriment. The Republicans required another 10 trillion Fed "backstop" to avoid a Great Depression, in just four years of their reign. Additionally, there are the messes, deferred maintenance, and greater divisiveness they left. For example, Russia wouldn't have pursued a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, if Trump had not given Putin a free pass in the Middle East and control over the global oil price, to bolster his reelection chances:
Trump's foreign policy failures require further investigation. No one can make the case he was good for America or our relationship with the rest of the world except Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and the American Oil and Chemical Industries, and their multi-billionaire owners.
Thank you. I’m a few years older and during my teens in the 60s, I was able to save money for college at a part-time minimum wage job. My state offered enough scholarship funds to cover most of the cost of a private college. By the mid-70s, a 3rd shift full time job covered a nice apartment, car and state college tuition. I graduated not only debt-free, but with savings in 1979. I had my pick of decent jobs on graduation, and then was laid off in time for Reaganomics to plunge the US into recession…being self-employed for over 40 years has given me an acute grasp of the deterioration of the commons affecting all but the wealthy.
First off, glad you're feeling better. I too remember those days. I was born in 1960, months before JFK's election (or maybe erection?) & a whole new generation began making some inroads with construction, women not settling just for marriage & kids, my school, too, was pristine (Lawn Guyland, here) lowering the voting age, raising the drinking age, & people paid their correct amount of taxes. I also remember the great migration from the boros of NYC to the suburbs & to this day we still curse Robert Moses for our shitty roads. We sat in gas lines, protested Viet Nam & when pay phones went from a dime to a quarter & they double bagged our groceries. But then, one day in 1980 I was watching TV & saw a commercial. It was titled "Morning in America" & the Reagan era of fear, lies, inequity & "conservatism" was rammed down our throats. Nothing has been the same since. And I remember how anti stem cell research was seen thru their eyes....till Ronnie got Alzheimer's & "Just Say No Nancy" became a proponent for it. So yeah, we who remember the hypocrisy are dying off & going from worrying about what to wear or eat has now morphed into "Will I get shot at CVS?" That has become my new mantra. We left home & didn't return till the 3rd streetlight came on. We didn't have to worry about the things kids today do. We had relationships past our phones. Now, the people who created those schisms are riding high on our tax dollars while finding loopholes to avoid theirs. The worst is the Social Security threats. Has anyone told the R/Qs that it's OUR money? It's like paying into a savings acct for a rainy day then the bank tells you they spent it so you can't afford an umbrella. For the life of me I can't understand how some of the poorest, reddest states continue to vote for the party that could care less if they live or die & feel grandma & grandpa deserve to work till they die before they give them what's due. Add in our ridiculous health care costs & we have to make the most difficult decisions of all. I really hate the R/Qs, their insane supporters & rapidly feeling our country is so fucked it won't right itself till way after I'm gone. So much for my Golden Years.
I also remember those days. Kurt Andersen really digs through this in detail in "Evil Geniuses". I'm fed up with the horseshit that betrays what this country, this rich rich country, could be.
Hi Jeff, At 71, I remember those days, 90%+ tax rates for the wealthy, of course no company or individuals paid that %, since we had something called deductions, such as tax on food, interest on loans, interest on car loans, interest on home loans, charitable donations.......my tuition at a state college in Washington was 225.00 per quarter. I could go on, but you and fellow travels all know what I’m saying.
I remember as a small child when everything was new (in the mid 60s). I've had the chance over the decades to live and work in Germany, Canada, the UK, France, Japan. There's so much money sloshing around the US there's no excuse in the universe for the decrepitude that is our landscape. Even places with a lot of "old shit" in "developing" nations sometimes have superior transit, airports, highways to almost anywhere in the US. The airport in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, comes to mind. I don't know what answer is either, but there's sure to be a lot of misery in the not too distant future if we don't rebuild. A lot. Fast.
I remember those days too. Thanks for reminding us that money is power and the wealthiest among us have used their influence and lobbying power to support politicians who sell their ‘trickle’ down bullshit for all these years. Believing that corporations and rich people are going to spread their wealth to their workers or those in need has always been nonsense. MAKES ME SO MAD! 🤬
The billionaires and multi-millionaires who fund the Republican Party are opposed to being part of a progressive income tax system that would require them to pay a tax based upon a substantial share of the range of their vast wealth and compensation, allow environmental and corporate regulation, and live in a democracy they can't fully control. They want to be free to plunder, pollute, and corrupt our government until it functions almost exclusively for their benefit. I'm referring to many of the 10% of Americans who own 90% of America's corporate wealth, and the relatively few billionaires and multi-millionaires who fund and control the R Party. It may come down to not more than 100 people.
When you realize the 2017 Republican Tax Act is still in place, and analyze the radical, anti-undemocratic, legislative function of the Republican majority of the Supreme Court over the last few decades, they are closing in on achieving their objectives. The SCOTUS has gutted existing voting laws which allow State's to execute laws that allow voter suppression and gerrymandering. Slim majorities in the Senate , and now the House, plus the Electoral Collage make R influence hard to overcome, despite Dems consistently winning the popular Presidential vote over the last 20 years.
This brings us to the nature and composition of the R Party and why Republicans have more recently focused on detailed group and individual data targeting of religious, racial populations, and
minorities, increased radio and T.V. platforms covering all 50 states 24/7, fictional school grievances, totalitarian social control solutions like book banning and the autocratic idealization over democracy (a word Trump never used), rather than their traditional positions of lower taxes, a balanced budget, and limiting the size of government which they obviously never really believed and can no longer trick most Americans with given their behavior when in power.
Most Americans would agree that Trump's promise of a middle-class tax cut that would "hurt the wealthy", cause unrealistic economic growth, pay for itself, and eliminate the Fed debt and the deficits in eight years was a lie of equal magnitude to his lie he won the election. The R Party is on record as the party that consistently underfunds and attempts to privatize public education. Moreover, Republicans view a well-educated and informed society as a threat to their autocratic goals, right-wing propaganda, and misinformation. Their interest in education is limited to a trained workforce for business, downplaying the the importance of a liberal education, stratifying educational opportunity, and profiting off of education.
Contrary to recognizing Climate Change as an existential threat, Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, and did everything in his power to do away with environmental regulation, instead of addressing the existential imperative of transitioning from fossil fuel based economy to a green based economy. In fact, the R position on CC was that it is a "hoax." and infrastructure is only something you talk about but never address. Thousands of American families will pay the price of death, cancer, respiratory diseases, and birth defects as a result of Trump turning the EPA into a chemical war machine that attacked Americans, while ignoring the clean-up of past catastrophes.
Despite Republican ideology, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations have been shown to have no relationship to economic growth and always end in a range of corporate welfare programs, higher debt, inflation, recession, widening income and wealth gaps, unaddressed or under addressed critical challenges, and more and bigger billionaires funding a plutocratic State. If the truth were told, by addressing our critical challenges like infrastructure investment, climate change mediation, affordable healthcare, and immigration reform, we would have a thriving and sustainable economy instead of living on the brink of catastrophic disasters. The failure to address these critical issues should be quantified and factored into our Federal debt total so we would have a better idea of our direction, progress, and the quality of the leaders we are electing, rather than judging them by their bluster and Party identity. Ron DeSantis, the Governor of Florida, is a perfect example of a Republican billionaire owned puppet. His entire State budget is 105 billion, but Hurricane Ian just caused 258 billion in estimated damages. While the State feuds with Disneyland, bans book, and supports every right-wing idea that comes down the pike. What used to be a purple state is now an R gerrymandered state. Moreover, in Florida the poor pay the highest income tax rates and the rich pay the lowest. Their Plan B is to mooch off the Fed government when any disasters strike, and for DeSantis is to pray the next hurricane misses his billionaire infested paradise, before the 2024 Presidential election. In the meantime a lot of Floridians will be distracted by the fictional culture threats DeSantis repeats, to keep people distracted from their increasing insurance premiums, if they can get insurance.
There's a reason Trump put his school records, business failures, and taxes under legal lock and key and it wasn't because he was proud of them. Clearly, any business success he experienced was largely the result of his vast lifetime inheritance, inflation, and Russian money laundering, and after he blew all of that as a "star" in a TV show where he played a successful business boss who fired people. He undoubtedly made more as POTUS through grifting and corruptly trading American Foreign Policy for
"goodwill" funds for his family and himself.
As Thom pointed out there are many reasons for the Republican embrace of racism, anti-Semitism, and what ever anti-isms Republican politicians think will fly. However, in all cases their prejudices are rewarded by their sponsors and utilized in place of constructive policies. If they told the truth about who they represent Republicans would have no chance of being elected. When a politician doesn't address major issues and/or calls them hoaxes it is their tell that their agenda is to ignore the interests of Americans, by appealing to our the worst instincts and spreading misinformation, while they funnel our tax dollars to their sponsors and themselves. Trump created 10 trillion of new debt without addressing our critical challenges and while undercutting our allies, breaking our commitments, trying to hide a Pandemic, and appeasing Russia, to our and our allies detriment. The Republicans required another 10 trillion Fed "backstop" to avoid a Great Depression, in just four years of their reign. Additionally, there are the messes, deferred maintenance, and greater divisiveness they left. For example, Russia wouldn't have pursued a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, if Trump had not given Putin a free pass in the Middle East and control over the global oil price, to bolster his reelection chances:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/08/wagner-group-libya-oil-russia-war/
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/10/17/donald-trumps-betrayal-of-the-kurds-is-a-blow-to-americas-credibility
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trump-betrayed-us-fleeing-kurds-condemn-u-s-decision-to-leave-syria
https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/steve-chapman/ct-column-trump-oil-deal-gas-pricesi-chapman-20200415-iwwn3cpegngo5krsm6tfdycqvy-story.html
Trump's foreign policy failures require further investigation. No one can make the case he was good for America or our relationship with the rest of the world except Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and the American Oil and Chemical Industries, and their multi-billionaire owners.
Thank you. I’m a few years older and during my teens in the 60s, I was able to save money for college at a part-time minimum wage job. My state offered enough scholarship funds to cover most of the cost of a private college. By the mid-70s, a 3rd shift full time job covered a nice apartment, car and state college tuition. I graduated not only debt-free, but with savings in 1979. I had my pick of decent jobs on graduation, and then was laid off in time for Reaganomics to plunge the US into recession…being self-employed for over 40 years has given me an acute grasp of the deterioration of the commons affecting all but the wealthy.
First off, glad you're feeling better. I too remember those days. I was born in 1960, months before JFK's election (or maybe erection?) & a whole new generation began making some inroads with construction, women not settling just for marriage & kids, my school, too, was pristine (Lawn Guyland, here) lowering the voting age, raising the drinking age, & people paid their correct amount of taxes. I also remember the great migration from the boros of NYC to the suburbs & to this day we still curse Robert Moses for our shitty roads. We sat in gas lines, protested Viet Nam & when pay phones went from a dime to a quarter & they double bagged our groceries. But then, one day in 1980 I was watching TV & saw a commercial. It was titled "Morning in America" & the Reagan era of fear, lies, inequity & "conservatism" was rammed down our throats. Nothing has been the same since. And I remember how anti stem cell research was seen thru their eyes....till Ronnie got Alzheimer's & "Just Say No Nancy" became a proponent for it. So yeah, we who remember the hypocrisy are dying off & going from worrying about what to wear or eat has now morphed into "Will I get shot at CVS?" That has become my new mantra. We left home & didn't return till the 3rd streetlight came on. We didn't have to worry about the things kids today do. We had relationships past our phones. Now, the people who created those schisms are riding high on our tax dollars while finding loopholes to avoid theirs. The worst is the Social Security threats. Has anyone told the R/Qs that it's OUR money? It's like paying into a savings acct for a rainy day then the bank tells you they spent it so you can't afford an umbrella. For the life of me I can't understand how some of the poorest, reddest states continue to vote for the party that could care less if they live or die & feel grandma & grandpa deserve to work till they die before they give them what's due. Add in our ridiculous health care costs & we have to make the most difficult decisions of all. I really hate the R/Qs, their insane supporters & rapidly feeling our country is so fucked it won't right itself till way after I'm gone. So much for my Golden Years.
I’m about your age Jeff and I remember those days well.
I also remember those days. Kurt Andersen really digs through this in detail in "Evil Geniuses". I'm fed up with the horseshit that betrays what this country, this rich rich country, could be.
Hi Jeff, At 71, I remember those days, 90%+ tax rates for the wealthy, of course no company or individuals paid that %, since we had something called deductions, such as tax on food, interest on loans, interest on car loans, interest on home loans, charitable donations.......my tuition at a state college in Washington was 225.00 per quarter. I could go on, but you and fellow travels all know what I’m saying.
I remember as a small child when everything was new (in the mid 60s). I've had the chance over the decades to live and work in Germany, Canada, the UK, France, Japan. There's so much money sloshing around the US there's no excuse in the universe for the decrepitude that is our landscape. Even places with a lot of "old shit" in "developing" nations sometimes have superior transit, airports, highways to almost anywhere in the US. The airport in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, comes to mind. I don't know what answer is either, but there's sure to be a lot of misery in the not too distant future if we don't rebuild. A lot. Fast.
Sounds like Covid to me. That’s what happened to me as well. Couldn’t read a research article and remember anything. It was terrible! Feel better!