McCain Slams Stimulus – Joins GOP Leaders to Attack Stimulus Package. Well, okay. I’m all for healthy debate, even if it is with a party that turned itself inside-out during the last decade to become the unaccountable, freedom-snatching, bloat-ridden, free-spending, debt-driven, war-mongering party it is now. It would be unfair to hold every Republican responsible for the failure of the Bush administration even if, like McCain, their Senate votes supported Bush 90% of the time.

Putting aside the fact that the majority of Americans voted against furthering the Republican agenda, elected representatives from the Republican party still represent millions of Americans. Their voices need to be heard, and their ideas deserve serious consideration.

However, when an idea is not just flawed, but based on a pervasive lie, it needs to be called out until facts overcome propaganda and truth rings from the rafters. In McCain’s case, the lie is that businesses are overwhelmed by taxes, and that a business tax cut is necessary to stimulate the economy.

“We need to make tax cuts permanent, and we need to make a commitment that there’ll be no new taxes,” Mr. McCain said. “We need to cut payroll taxes. We need to cut business taxes.”

While McCain was hawking lower business taxes during his run for President, many of us had already learned the ugly truth. I wrote an article about it in October 2008.

In a stunning report released by the United States Government Accountability Office in July 2008, Americans learned that many corporations, including those with assets over $250M, reported no tax liabilities. In fact, from 1998-2005, 72% of foreign-controlled domestic corporations (FCDC’s), and 55% of US-controlled corporations (USCC’s), reported zero tax liability for at least one of those years. In total, two-thirds of the corporations doing business in the U.S. paid no taxes from 1998-2005, while collectively reporting $2.5 trillion dollars in sales.

In that article, I pointed out that the cuts McCain wanted were something of a manufactured myth, not just because so many corporations paid no taxes at all, but because the majority of those who did pay, paid nowhere near the 35% McCain claimed.

McCain and other Republicans continue pushing the mirage of high corporate taxes despite the nuts and bolts of facts as presented by the government’s own accounting office. At a time when they should be demanding an end to the loopholes and special breaks that allowed so many corporations to exist tax-free, they are instead pushing for more corporate tax breaks.

One has to wonder what America’s bottom-line might look like if all the corporations in question paid taxes at even 10% during the last decade. My guess is that it might have been enough to fund the $700B+ business bailout that the Senate voted for, despite the the fact that the majority of Americans disapproved. We’re tired of paying the price for corporate negligence and greed, a point that is driven home every time we hear about multi-million dollar bonuses, million dollar office makeovers, or lavish parties.

There are small businesses — those without teams of attorneys and accountants at their disposal — who might benefit from tax breaks and other incentives. If the corporations that paid no taxes at all paid their share, we might be able to give relief to those small businesses that are struggling due to the economy, and not their own bad business practices.

With our country in crisis, this is not the time for smokescreens, mirages, and propaganda. It is time to face the truth, hold businesses and people accountable, and give relief where it is needed — and not just where it’s politically expedient or advantageous to do so.

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As a registered Democrat, this is the first time I have been targeted by the right-wing campaign machine. In my mail today there were nine political ads — six from the Republican Party of Minnesota, two from the Republican-supporting “Associated Builders and Contractors Free Enterprise Alliance”, and one from a Republican state representative running for re-election.

I remember reading the novel Clockwork Orange as a teenager, and being bewildered by the “Nadstat” language Stanley Kubrick created for his characters. The 2008 campaign literature of the Republican party is much like Kubrick’s experiment, except in this case the words are recognizable, but make entirely no sense given the reality of the situation. It’s the same kind of language that was recently employed by both Sarah Palin and Ted Stevens. Palin, upon reading a report that clearly stated she abused her power, insisted that the investigation found “no abuse of power there at all”. Stevens, after being convicted last Monday on fraud charges, stated on Thursday that he had not yet been convicted.

Denial in the face of reality would seem to be a poor strategy, particularly in politics, but even stranger than the alternative realities proffered by Palin and Stevens are the gaslighting slogans being offered up by the Republican party, seemingly designed to make rational people feel crazy .

Who can fix our economy? Only one party will fix the damage and prevent another crisis. Vote Republican.

Jobs lost. Spending up. Economy down. Energy prices Up. Vote (Republican) to end America’s economic crisis.

Vote Republican & Restore Balance to Our Economy.

Republicans will eliminate wasteful spending, balance the budget and regain the trust of the American taxpayer. [Emphasis added].

In these uncertain times, Americans have many questions….Republicans have real answers.

Help Republicans revive our economy.

Today’s financial crisis requires more than just a band aid. Vote Republican. Help fix a broken Washington and an ailing economy.

The Republican Plan: End wasteful spending for special interest projects not in our national interests and regain the trust of taxpayers. [Emphasis added].

There’s more, but you get the drift. Somehow, the crises wrought by eight years of a Republican administration is not the fault of Republicans, or of right-wing ideology. Somehow, even though our economy crashed while under the control of Bush and company, and the public’s trust was shattered, only more Republicans, sharing the same philosophies, can fix the damage. Only Republicans know, as Dick Cheney surely did when he decided to fill Halliburton’s coffers, which “special interest projects” are worthy of wasteful spending in the name of our national interests.

By way of some magical thinking, McCain didn’t support Bush with 90% of his votes, and the ultra right-wing Palin has no stake in the pro-war, corporate-pandering, pro-deregulation ideas that got us into this mess. As for all those Republican governors, representatives, and senators who refused to criticize their puppeteer, and instead spent the last four to eight years pulling strings and punches to ensure Bush’s will was done? Well, either those years never happened, or those politicians have been reborn, with only a scant memory of their lives before reincarnation.

It’s really a zammechat raskazz that the Republicans have vareeted, but my rassoodock just doesn’t buy it. And if that makes absolutely no sense to you, then I am surely worthy of your consideration — at least according to Republican logic.

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While most of America is ready to move forward from the Bush administration, there seems to be a division over what “moving forward” should entail. A substantial number of people would like to see Bush and company held accountable for the sins of their administration. The call for impeachment, even at this late date, is still very much alive, at least on the left. Barring that, and crossing ideological lines, many want this administration held accountable for what they believe were purposeful lies foisted on the American public, abuses of power and privilege, and an unlawful usurping of Congressional authority.

Beyond that, they want the doors flung open to what they believe was Cheney-sanctioned war profiteering by companies like Halliburton, which has yet to account for millions of missing tax dollars, despite the damning evidence discovered during DNC hearings held several years ago.

Yet we also want out of the middle East. We want to distance ourselves from the sanctioned torture of Cheney and Bush, and repair the global rift caused by our seven year lapse into democratic imperialism. We want to make sure that our future leaders cannot perpetrate a run-end around the Geneva Convention or our Constitution again.

We’re desperate to lower the nine-trillion dollar debt that the Bush administration has left us with. We need to stave off the worst of the recession we’re now in — we need to save our jobs, and save our homes from foreclosure. Many of us are lacking health insurance, and support a universal health coverage plan. There are immigration issues that need better solutions. Our infrastructure is in need of repair. Our educational system continues to be toppled by other countries.

America is in a crisis, globally and domestically, and all the issues have become urgent. The question facing us in 2009 will be one of priorities. There’s no doubt that the next administration will be responsible for an almost total rehaul of government. This is not, unfortunately, a time when the main function of a President will be to maintain the status quo or keep us on an even keel — this is a time calling for major repairs, steady rebuilds, complete tear-downs, and making anew.

And if the worst should happen — if America is attacked while in the vulnerable position of new leadership — what then? What issues would we move to the back burner while addressing our defense, and at what price?

The next President is going to face some of the most daunting challenges in the history of government. There is virtually nothing in our present day sphere that does not need to be urgently addressed by Congress and the next administration.

However, can we really move forward without holding the past administration accountable? Even if we could, should we?

I don’t believe that any move towards rebuilding our tattered government will be complete or effective without holding the present administration accountable for the damages they have caused. I believe Congress and the next administration should move swiftly and precisely in launching investigations, and not only hold the appropriate feet to the fire, but create policies to ensure that no future administration can run roughshod over the checks and balances of democracy under the guise of privilege and Presidential authority.

Without addressing the excesses, abuses, and misuses of power of the Bush administration, America places itself in danger of a repeat. Next time, it could cost us more than 4000 lives and nine trillion dollars. That possibility, even if slim, is not acceptable to me, or to the thousands of other Americans who believe that no elected officials should be immune from accountability, including the President.

The next administration has almost too much to do. Whoever our next President is will likely be one of the hardest working Presidents in history, and the pressures they will bear will be weighted not only with the hubris of the past, but with the fervent hopes of a better future.

I support Hillary Rodham Clinton because I believe she has the fortitude, experience and knowledge to not only move this country forward, but to protect it from further assault, both from inside and outside our own borders. I believe that Barack Obama lacks both the national and domestic experience this country needs in a time of crisis, and that John McCain will only prolong the agony of the Bush administration.

I see the three candidates as a choice between substance, mystique, or more of the same. Substance, for me, is the only rational choice. In my opinion, Hillary Rodham Clinton should be the 44th President of the United States.

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