Are We All Idiot Dolts?
By Tim Gatto
15 March, 2013
Countercurrents.org
I just read the most blatant and insidious transformation of this “Progressive” President since he signed the NDAA. Not only does this man claim the right to execute Americans overseas and right here in the United States (under exceptional circumstances), now he’s agreeing with the GOP that this country needs to start cutting “entitlement” programs like Medicare.
According to Carrie Dann and Mike Viqueira, NBC News:
“I think we all felt that it was a very good meeting,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who told reporters after the luncheon that the group had a “great” discussion largely focused on reforming entitlement programs.
And
“He certainly understands that you can’t fix the country without adjusting entitlements to fit the demographics of our country,” he said. “We’ll see where we go from here but it was a great meeting.”
So..Medicare is indeed an “entitlement” program, according to Big O. I thought we paid into this program. From what I know, Medicare has nothing to do with the reversal of Federal revenue. Maybe Medicare is in jeopardy because the Obama Administration has taken Medicare funding to support “Obamacare”. According to The Heritage Network in an article written by Alyene Senger;
A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report updated the amount of money Obamacare robs out of Medicare from $500 billion to a whopping $716 billion between 2013 and 2022.
According to the CBO, the payment cuts in Medicare include:
A $260 billion payment cut for hospital services.
A $39 billion payment cut for skilled nursing services.
A $17 billion payment cut for hospice services.
A $66 billion payment cut for home health services.
A $33 billion payment cut for all other services.
A $156 billion cut in payment rates in Medicare Advantage (MA); $156 billion is before considering interactions with other provisions. The House Ways and Means Committee was able to include interactions with other provisions, estimating the cuts to MA to be even higher, coming in at $308 billion.
$56 billion in cuts for disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments.* DSH payments go to hospitals that serve a large number of low-income patients.
$114 billion in other provisions pertaining to Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP* (does not include coverage-related provisions).
*Subtract $25 billion total between DSH payments and other provisions for spending that was cut from Medicaid and CHIP.
In total, Obamacare raids Medicare by $716 billion from 2013 to 2022. Despite Medicare facing a 75-year unfunded obligation of $37 trillion, Obamacare uses the savings from the cuts to pay for other provisions in Obamacare, not to help shore up Medicare’s finances.
Gee, that’s a lot of money. That’s money that could have been provided to the government by making some of the largest corporations pay something in taxes. According to Pat Garafolo from Think Progress;
Last year, Citizens for Tax Justice found that 30 major corporations had made billions of dollars in profits while paying no federal income tax between 2008 and 2010. Today, CTJ updated that report to reflect the 2011 tax bill of those 30 companies, and 26 of them have still managed to pay absolutely nothing over that four year period.
So maybe I’m just a whiner. Gee, corporations give people jobs and allow Americans to live decent lives with salaries that keep up with profits, right?
Wrong. From CNN:
Incomes for 90% of Americans have been stuck in neutral, and it's not just because of the Great Recession. Middle-class incomes have been stagnant for at least a generation, while the wealthiest tier has surged ahead at lightning speed.
I’ve written about this before but I’ll mention it again;
In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2010, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 35.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 53.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 89%, leaving only 11% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). http://ww2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
So now I want to ask the question: are we just idiotic dolts in this country? For the entire period from 2008 to 2010, 30 major corporations paid no taxes! Meanwhile CEO salaries have risen over 300%
It's even more revealing to compare the actual rates of increase of the salaries of CEOs and ordinary workers; from 1990 to 2005, CEOs' pay increased almost 300% (adjusted for inflation), while production workers gained a scant 4.3%. http://ww2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html (Same article)
The President and Congress are calling Medicare and Social Security “Entitlements”, meanwhile Americans have been paying into these things all their working lives. So now that the American government is broke because last year the basic military budget was 711 Billion dollars (without more appropriations for the 12 “Defense Intelligence Agencies” and not including additional appropriations for Wars in Afghanistan, Sudan and other places we don’t belong, the working underclass of the American people now have to foot the bill for the overspending on the military and the Trillions of dollars from all the bank bail-outs that the banking CEO’s got fabulously wealthy on!
The government’s broke. Believe that and I’ve got some stock tips I’ll sell you. This is just a scam to get every last dollar out of every working class stiff, while the rich are enjoying the highest wages ever! The corporations are recording record profits! Who are the idiotic dolts in this country? Well, I guess they’re you and me. We don’t seem to do anything about it.
This might sound like a rant, but I’ve offered up some really revealing pieces of information here. It’s not just me saying this. Check the links. Everything I’ve said is verified. It’s sad that we are idiot dolts. Now we can go back to what Snookie was wearing today.
Tim Gatto is former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. He is the author of "Complicity to Contempt" and "Kimchee Days" available at Oliver Arts and Open Press. Tim Gatto's new book "Contempt to Outrage" will be available soon from Oliver Arts and Open
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