Immediately upon returning from my vacation, I rushed over to the Johnson County Library in Overland Park to see what I could do to protest billionaire hedge fund mogul Peter G. Peterson’s sham town hall meetings, which were set up in twenty cities yesterday for the purpose of undermining Social Security and Medicare benefits.  It was pleasing to see contingents from the Older Women’s League and MoveOn.org carrying on a great protest in front of the library where “delegates” with passes to the event entered the meeting.  THANK THE OLDER WOMEN’S LEAGUE AND MOVEON.ORG FOR BEING ON THE CASE!  THESE GROUPS DESERVE OUR SUPPORT!

Sharon Lockhart (with OWL) helped me find a pass for entering the event (only selected applicants were allowed in the meeting and one of the protesters let me have his pass).  This meeting could only be tolerated by the most wonkiest of wonks.  It was hours of working through the U.S. budget and coming up with ways of reducing the Federal deficit by 1.3 trillion dollars.  Of course, the program was set up to lead participants in the direction of whacking Social Security benefits.  It was a very cleverly and deviously designed affair.  In fact, it is scary to see what these people can do with unlimited resources for fancy PR and manipulation of the masses.

All twenty cities were connected by video.  Leaders of the affair were in Philadelphia.  They provided a lot of very slick hoopla, which gave the whole thing a sort of festive atmosphere.  Every now and then they would pop up with some blathering from politicians like senators Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Gregg Judd of New Hampshire, both of whom told us that it was our responsibility to find ways reduce the budget deficit.  I found that rather interesting.  Both of these guys voted for the senseless war in Iraq, deregulation of the financial industry, Bush Tax Cuts, and the Medicare Part D give away to the Pharmaceutical Industry – all of which is responsible for our current budget deficit. 

This is serious stuff.  As does President Obama, Conrad and Judd have a commission working on the budget deficit.  It was made very clear that these sham town halls are working in conjunction with these commissions.  Alice Rivlin, OMB director in the Clinton Administration, is acting as their expert/lackey in residence.  The House and Senate will use these commissions as cover for doing to the elderly poor what they did to poor families during the Clinton Administration.

I WILL BE BLOGGING ABOUT THESE SHAM TOWN HALLS AND DEFICIT REDUCTION COMMISSIONS IN THE DAYS AHEAD.

Chrysler Corporation is doing its part for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  The company has announced that the all new Jeep Cherokee will now get 23 miles per gallon.  Isn’t that great!  With mileage like that, we will keep the oil drillers in business.

Everyone Needs One of These Big, Powerful Jeeps

 I have seen plenty of the more affluent college students (usually those in sororities and fraternities) tooling around in one of these with all of their friends aboard.  We need to drill deeper to keep American humming along.  So “drill baby drill” – its the American thing to do.  Of course, if Chrysler can’t sell enough of these things because more and more people are beginning to see the insanity of SUVs, the taxpayers will need to gear up for another bail out.

A Supreme Court justice once said he could not define pornography but knew it when he saw it.  I think I have seen quite a bit of it.  For instance, if you just look at the forty or so volumes of the U.S. Tax Code, you will notice that obscenity abounds.  Consider this for X-rated:   Right now, in the year 2010, we have millions and millions of poor mothers and children who are unable to obtain even a modicum of assistance through the obscenely mean spirited Temporary Aid to Needy Family (TANF) program while at the same time very rich people can leave everything to their heirs who will not be taxed one penny for their inheritance.

For instance, a billionaire by the name of Dan L. Duncan died in late March and left an estate worth about $9 billion to his children.  His wife received several hundred million dollars worth of stock and his ranch.

Mr. Duncan could do this because of a section in the Bush sponsored tax bill that eliminated estate taxes altogether for the year 2010.  The Democrats, who control Congress, don’t seem to be overly incensed about this state of affairs.  We will probably lose as much tax revenue from this gift to the rich as the Federal government appropriates to the TANF program, which is $11 billion – a large part of which pays bureaucrats to make it nearly impossible for poor mothers to get any aid at all.

Dan L. Duncan Liked to Hunt and Kill African Wildlife

HR 4213, the so-called “extenders bill,” passed the House Representatives last month but only after the Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans were able to force House leaders to eliminate $31 billion worth of COBRA subsidies and Medicaid funding.  By bowing to the Tea Party – a political movement of fools and idiots – the House Blue Dogs have been able to put the states in a horrifying position.  They badly, very badly, need the $23 billion in Medicaid funds that were lopped off of the bill.

The Senate can restore these cuts but will need the House to go along with the restoration in conference committee.  Where does Congressman Dennis Moore stand on restoration of these cuts?  I can’t say because a call to his Washington office and a discussion with his communications director left that question unanswered.  All he would tell me is that the Congressman voted for the bill.  Yes, but that was after elimination of the $31 billion.  Where did he stand on eliminating it?  All the communications director would say is that he was not part of the negotiations.  Will he fight to restore these funds?  No answer.

CALL CONGRESSMAN MOORE AND TELL HIM TO FIGHT FOR BADLY NEEDED MEDICAID FUNDS:

Overland Park Office – 913-383-2013

Kansas City, KS – 913-621-0832

Lawrence, KS – 785-842-9313

Washington, DC – 202-225-2865

Here is a nasty little piece of ageism appearing in the op ed section of the New York Times this morning:

“If anyone should be complaining about deficits, it should be the 20-somethings who will have to pay for all those meds-popping boomers moving into the comfort of Medicare and Social Security.” (Timothy Egan, “Save Us, Millennials”)

This nonsense is promoting inter-generational conflict.  It is reminiscent of the inter-class, racial conflict promoted by the Neo-cons in the 1970s and 1980s that led to cruel welfare changes in the 1990s.  Poor folks – mostly women and children – were sterotyped as lazy, shiftless, and dependent (and visualized as being African American).  Most people who knew nothing about welfare recipients – and that was most people – bought into all of the stereotypes.  You have probably heard the one about the welfare mom standing in line at the super market with expensive steak.  Everyone had heard a horror story about some welfare mother.

Meds popping, in the comfort of Social Security and Medicare Boomers indeed!  The generation approaching retirement now is quite diverse.  A large portion will be poor (at least a third).  Many have lost a big share of their hard earned retirement funds due to a corrupt relationship between Congress and the financial industry.  Most have paid their FICA and MICA taxes throughout their working careers.   Who were they paying for? 

Comfort?  What comfort?  Social Security doesn’t even provide enough to afford the minimal needs of elderly citizens.

With cuts in resources for public education these days, teachers are being fired.  Many “liberal” older listeners to NPR might think that public radio would be tuned into the types of negative stereotypes and discrimination that accompany employment actions.  No so.  On June 2nd, NPR correspondent Larry Abramson presented a segment entitled “In Teacher Layoffs, Seniority Rules.  But Should It?”

The report bemoaned the layoff of younger teachers due to seniority.  The implication of the entire segment is that seniority laws unduly protect older “slugs” who just happen to have been around a long time.  Below is a picture of Christa Krohn, described in the report as “one of those perky, vivacious teachers every parent wants for their child.”

Hey what parents want a 50 something old person with 25 years of teaching experience around their kid.  How about this:  there are many promising young teachers graduating from college who should have a fair chance to fulfill their career goals in education.  It isn’t about old or young teachers.  Due to budget cuts, we are cheating our children by laying off teachers.  Period.  End of story.  It is on the social justice of offering all children a decent education that NPR should be focusing.

See the last post on the growth of the child population in the U.S.

Given all the palaver about “Baby Boomer” hordes about to descend upon the health care system, you might think that the rest of the U.S. population is shrinking.  That would be wrong – way wrong.  In fact, the overall growth of the population in this country presents real problems to a political-economic system with disappearing jobs, shrinking educational resources, diminished government services, and an increasingly polluted and wasted environment. 

The demographic information presented in this post has come mostly from the U.S. Census Bureau.  One would be hard pressed to find a professional demographer who disagrees with it.  The graph at the bottom of this post displays U.S. population growth in millions (Y axis) for the years 1950 to 2050 (X axis).  As you can see the population between 1950 and now, practically doubled – from 161 million to 312 million.  However, in the next 30 years, another 128 million people – roughly one and one-half Irans – will be added to the U.S.  Only 48.3 million of this growth will be in the 65+ age category.  That leaves a population growth of nearly 80 million in the under 65 age category.

The “Baby Boom” child cohort peaked at 70 million in 1964.  The under 18 population remained at about 70 million for a few years and then declined gradually until the mid-80s when it bottomed out at 64 million.  This was a “dip” but not a bust.  There was never a “Baby Bust.”  Neither was there an echo.  The child population began to grow again and reached 70 million again in the mid-90s and has never quit growing.  As the table immediately below indicates, there are now 75 million children in the U.S.  This will grow to 101 million by 2050!  WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS?

*The 85+ group is counted twice – as part of the 65+ category and broken out as a separate group.

It is easy to be misled by the difference between absolute growth and relative growth.  In relative terms, the 85+ group will grow by 231% by2050 while the 0 to 18 population will grow by 35%.  However, in absolute growth (absolute numbers), the 85+ population will add 13.2 million while the 0 to 18 population will add 26.3 million.  Approximately 63% of the population growth will come in the under 65 age categories.

I will leave the readers of this post with the following question:  “Why is the press, the government,and just about every other influential institution ignoring the unsustainable population growth thatwe are now experiencing?”  It is unsustainable in the current U.S. living and governing mode.

U.S. Population Growth – 1950 to 2050

Poor Billy Nungesser.  Every evening on the national news Billy is presented as the quintessential suffering Louisianan.  There he is, day after day, often with “drill, baby, drill” Jindal, moaning and wailing about the fragile ecosystem of the Gulf Coast and the Obama’s Administration’s indifference to their desire to tear up the environment even more by building berms to stop the oil from entering marshes.

Who is Billy?  Billy is the son of the late Billy senior Nungesser.  Daddy Nungesser  is best known for being the powerhouse in the Republican Party that played a major role in changing Louisiana politics from Democrat to Republican.  Billy, Jr. is carrying on his daddy’s efforts to keep Louisiana Republican and pro-big oil.  Neither Billy Jr. or Billy Sr. have a history of opposing oil drilling in the Gulf as a threat to the environment. 

In fact, Billy Jr. has made a fortune providing catering services to off shore oil operations and by providing housing for oil industry workers.  If you listen closely to Billy’s remonstrations, you will note that he is not in the least bit a contrarian when it come to risking the environment he claims to love so dearly.  If anyone can find any evidence that Billy has ever demonstrated any opposition to drilling at 5000 foot depths, I would like to see it.

Only a feckless, corrupt, incompetent Democratic Party could let a bunch of reactionary, pro-oil, Republicans hang this disaster around President Obama’s neck!

I find it interesting that Republican governors of the reddest of the red states where government regulation and oversight are, to say the least, detested, are screaming at President Obama to fix a catastrophe caused by lax oversight and free rein for the oil companies.  In fact, preventative measures were ignored and no technology was in place for reacting to a possible blow out at 5000 feet under water. This is just the way the Republicans want it to be.  Furthermore, the 1300 off-shore wells in the Gulf of Mexico weren’t put there during the Obama Administration.  This drilling has taken place for decades without much, if any, protest from the on-shore business people now screaming about the loss of their livelihood.

It is really sickening to see the loony-tunes team of Carville and Matalin running around braying and bleating with Anderson Cooper about the poor job President Obama is doing handling this crisis.  What the hell is he supposed to do?  He has obviously been told by oil industry moguls that technology was in place to prevent this type of catastrophe.  OK so he didn’t have time to run out and get his degree in petroleum engineering so that he could figure it out for himself.  Although he is very smart, perhaps he is human.

Mary Matalin is Dick Cheney’s pal.  She has been one of the leading Republican cheerleaders for “starving the beast,” otherwise known as disassembling the Federal government.  In addition, I can remember her laughing and cheering for the “drill baby drill” crowd at the last Republican convention.

We can destroy the oceans quickly or more slowly and systematically over a longer period of time as we are now doing. The red state Republicans who are derisive about global warming could explain to us how acidification of the oceans due to increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will eventually affect the fishing industry in the Gulf, amongst other places.  I suspect that efforts to reduce burning of hydrocarbons through major changes in mileage standards, speed limits, public transportation, etc., etc., etc., and so on and so forth will be vociferously, emphatically, and forcefully opposed by the likes of Bobby Jindal, and the other red state governors.   So let’s just let them figure out how we are going to save our oceans on which they appear to be so dependent.

I don’t think we should be drilling one damn oil well in the Gulf of Mexico or any other ocean. 

In his book Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our future and What Americans Can Do About It, billionaire hedge fund mogul Peter G. Peterson focuses much of the blame for U.S. fiscal profligacy on “entitlements,” which has become a pejorative term for Social Security and Medicare.  His polemics are aimed at programs for keeping tens of millions of U.S. citizens from sinking deep into poverty while he ignores the obscene personal income and corporate income tax structures that have become increasingly “rigged” to benefit the powerful, wealthy, class of which he is a member.

Mr. Peterson has funded the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank with inordinate clout in Washington, D. C.  It is from this power base – supported by the likes of Larry Summers, as well as most other influential players in fiscal policy – that Peterson and his cronies have launched a fiscal policy crusade.  A major issue for them is government debt, a major cause of which is, according to Peterson, “entitlements.” That deficit spending is such a bad thing is questionable and the subject of many Paul Krugman columns – who just happens to be my economics hero and guru.  Nevertheless, money in our economic system is finite.  The more money directed toward income classes below the super rich, the less available for them.  And that class doesn’t really like to share any more of the wealth than is absolutely necessary to keep the lid on things.

Hence, they skillfully and carefully propagandize in preparation for political moves to divert more resources from the middle and lower income classes to themselves.  For instance, after a long propaganda campaign against poor mothers on public assistance in the 1970s and 1980s, the Clinton Administration disgracefully pushed a so-called welfare reform program through Congress, which was nothing more than an assault on the poor.  At the same time, Congress was continuing to shift federal taxes from upper income classes and corporations to the middle class.

Much like the Peterson Institute is now launching an attack on the “Baby Boom” generation (more about that will be discussed on this blog in the future), Social Security, and Medicare, in the 1970s and 80s, a plethora of powerful, right-wing, think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Manhattan Institute supported Neo-Conservative academics and theorists who disseminated theories about the lazy, dependent nature of welfare recipients.  The influence of Charles Murray (bigot and co-author of the Bell Curve), George Gilder, James Q. Wilson, Edward Banfield and a host of other reactionary but highly influential social scientists prepared legislators and the public for passage of Clinton’s punishing program – we have far more hungry and homeless children and their mothers because of it.

Having reduced their tax burden by stereotyping and punishing the poor, it is now to programs needed by millions of aging Americans that the wealthiest of the wealthiest are turning their attention.  A message to “Baby Boomers” is you can ignore these people, but you do so at your own peril.