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Friday, December 12, 2008

Republicans want YOU to make less money
Posted by Jill | 6:51 PM
Remember during the campaign when John McCain made the claim that he wants EVERYONE to get wealthy? So...was he full of shit, or is he really not a Republican? Because it's clear that the LAST thing Republicans want is more wealth for everyone. In fact, the Republicans are making clear that they want Americans to join their overseas counterparts in the race to the income bottom.

John Aravosis notes how bizarre, and how, well, anti-American the Republican doctrine of race-to-the-bottom is:
Since when is an American political party behind the proposition that it's unfair for Americans to make more than foreigners? And that if we do make more than foreigners, we need the government stepping in to cut our salaries? Is this really the position the Republicans want quoted back at them during the next election? Not to mention, what will the impact be on an already anemic economy of cutting the wages of hundreds of thousands of American workers?


And Michael Moore, who now looks like a seer instead of a blowhard, having made the cri de coeur for the rust belt nearly twenty years ago with Roger and Me, also points out what the Republicans stand for:
They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers start building only cars and mass transit that reduce our dependency on oil.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers build cars that reduce global warming.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers withdraw their many lawsuits against state governments in their attempts to not comply with our environmental laws.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the management team which drove these once-great manufacturers into the ground resign and be replaced with a team who understands the transportation needs of the 21st century.

Yes, they could have given the loan for any of these reasons because, in the end, to lose our manufacturing infrastructure and throw 3 million people out of work would be a catastrophe.

But instead, the Senate said, we'll give you the loan only if the factory workers take a $20 an hour cut in wages, pension and health care. That's right. After giving BILLIONS to Wall Street hucksters and criminal investment bankers -- billions with no strings attached and, as we have since learned, no oversight whatsoever -- the Senate decided it is more important to break a union, more important to throw middle class wage earners into the ranks of the working poor than to prevent the total collapse of industrial America.

We have a little more than a month to go of this madness. As I sit here in Michigan today, tens of thousands of hard working, honest, decent Americans do not believe they can make it to January 20th. The malaise here is astounding. Why must they suffer because of the mistakes of every CEO from Roger Smith to Rick Wagoner? Make management and the boards of directors and the shareholders pay for this.


And so we return to where we were this morning, when I wrote about how this is the culmination of nearly thirty years of Republicans getting away with fostering class warfare within the very class it's been systematically decimating for the past three decades. The only question is just how much economic ripple effect Americans are willing to put up with for the pleasure of seeing their fellow workers suffer through the holidays.

What kind of people are we, anyway?

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1 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
No wonder the Neoconservatives hold dear articles of faith such as these, when applied to the so-called "Fundamentals of the Economy" (the Working Classes, so to speak) ...
12/13/08, 3:41 PM  
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