well, I don't know what its like in your area- I think you are east coast right? Out here on the west we have a globalization problem, all the good white collar professional tech jobs have gone to india, and then the manufacturing has gone to china or mexico. Companies like Sun are actually manufacturing companies (I'm not sure how the government characterizes them) - but in the 90s we had something of a manufacturing boom in the US with tech manufacturers Cisco, Sun etc. So that is disintegrating, the giant sucking sound just like Ross Perot said. Advocates of globalization say that the US has dealt with globalization since the 70s, which is a falsehood because the real global force is China and they came into being around 95/96 or so (prior to that communist)- and then there was a delay in the late 90s in asia with the "asian flu" and then SARS. So right about now they are ramping for the first time from a globalization perspective and we are feeling it.
The thing is, for the past 20 years republicans have managed to characterize "passive income" as something that should be essentially tax free. Meanwhile wageearners pay more taxes than ever. The problem with this inequity is showing itself now, where republicans don't have a clue as to how to reign in government (nobody republican or dem has ever been able to do this)- they are relying on "growth" to get the budget balanced. But the problem is, unless we get jobs and wage growth it doesn't much matter, passive income is barely taxed.
As far as welfare and medi-cal are concerned, there is a public health question where below a certain bar, average citizens are better off paying for these programs than not having them. We can't have hemopheliacs bleeding to death on the street for example. So you really can't cut these programs completely, but you can probably cut somewhat from funding levels now. OK- so say we do that. So what, its too little money. |
