For the record I am NOT one of those Americans who
want a compromise on the debt ceiling. For one thing, compromising with the republicans is like a rape victim compromising with their attacker. For another thing, how come President Obama is
the only President who has to jump through hoops to get the debt ceiling extended? Never mind.
We know why. The republicans want to keep President Obama from doing anything. Strike that. republicans want to keep President Obama from doing anything for black/brown/poor people so we can be accused of
standing around wanting a hand out.
SnarkThat's right (pun intended). Whites are getting richer while black and brown folks are getting the shaft, but it's not racism.
Snark Before you start whinning about this being
RedEye hollering racism again, you might want to check out the findings of a recent
Pew Research study
From “Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics”, a study released on July 26 by the Pew Research Center
The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.
These lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago and roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession that ended in 2009.
The Pew Research analysis finds that, in percentage terms, the bursting of the housing market bubble in 2006 and the recession that followed from late 2007 to mid-2009 took a far greater toll on the wealth of minorities than whites. From 2005 to 2009, inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66% among Hispanic households and 53% among black households, compared with just 16% among white households.
As a result of these declines, the typical black household had just $5,677 in wealth (assets minus debts) in 2009; the typical Hispanic household had $6,325 in wealth; and the typical white household had $113,149.
And NO. An African American, democratic President cutting social programs does not make it more
palatable for blacks because when
white America get a cold, non white America gets pneumonia....and die because you know, we are the ones without access to quality affordable health care. I guess the plan is for us to
die quickly.
The
black middle class is on the verge of extinction. So don't think it's not your problem.
If you are black in America it is your problem too.
As has been the case for more than half a century, the black unemployment rate, which is understated, has been running at twice the rate of white Americans. Black teenage unemployment rates are particularly dismal. They have been hovering around 40 percent, and the rate for both teenage males and females is currently more than 35 percent. High teenage unemployment, as well as a dismal job market for new college graduates, suggest that attaining or maintaining middle-class status is increasingly difficult for black youth, and the three paths that earlier generations of African-Americans took — work in the unionized manufacturing sector, public sector employment and more recently college and graduate education — either no longer functionally exist, or are much less reliable conduits to social mobility than they were even a decade ago.
We can't depend on
the media we have to tell us what we need to know, because they are too busy telling us what they want us to know. That's why
we don't know what we don't know. I sure do miss the good old days when the
media kept our government from misleading us to enabling our government to mislead us.
It's been said many times. But it's never enough: the conventions of journalistic 'objectivity', as currently defined, frequently make journalists violate their biggest duty, which is honesty with readers. The top headline running now on CNN reads: "They're all talking, but no one is compromising, at least publicly. Democratic and GOP leaders appear unwilling to bend on proposals to raise the debt ceiling."
By any reasonable measure, this is simply false, even painfully so. It might be right to say they are not agreeing, that's demonstrable. But I don't think any observer -- one who has actually watched the specifics of the debate -- honestly believes that neither side is compromising. Indeed, even the firebreathers on the Republican side aren't suggesting this. Their argument is that the nature of the 'crisis' is so great that there can be no compromise on their basic demands. That is what it means when they say they will not support any new taxes as part of a global deal.
Compromising with the
TeaPublicans is like a chicken compromising with Colonel Sanders.
House Speaker John Boehner often attacks the spendthrift ways of Washington.
“In Washington, more spending and more debt is business as usual,” the Republican leader from Ohio said in a televised address yesterday amid debate over the U.S. debt. “I’ve got news for Washington - those days are over.”
Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nation’s debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry.
Enough!
You didn’t create Social Security and Medicare, the American People did – working their will through the efforts of Democratic Party leadership over the course of a 40 year struggle. You were not there. The blood and tears and courage it took to create these programs were not yours.
Americans who have paid their dues and paid their taxes for a lifetime expect it to be there when they need it. That was the promise. That is the cornerstone of our social contract as a nation.
Stop what you’re doing, now. You have no right. You have no mandate. Social Security and Medicare do not belong to you.
RedEye Rant over and out.
