The Republican Credo: The Haves vs. The Have-Nots

"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people–The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government."–Debates of the Federalist Convention (May 14-September 17, 1787).

[Beneath The Spin]

Shortly before the end of World War II, with his “New Deal” in place, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a so-called “bleeding-heart liberal” led this country out of the worst Republican-generated crisis that this country has ever faced; he also played an instrumental role in leading the free world in defeating Hitler in WWII.

Roosevelt then ushered in the most sustained prosperity that America has ever known.

One would think that conservatives would have seen the light; but their passion to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower income classes seems to supersede all logic. Indeed, from the moment that the New Deal was put in place, conservatives have been determined to dismantle it. The closest they’ve come to succeeding began during Ronald Reagan’s administration, with the advent and implementation of supply-side economics — also termed “Reaganomics” — and the battle is currently raging in Washington D.C. as we speak.

Supply-side economics was a scheme hatched by USC economist Arthur Laffer and the Reagan crowd. It was supposed to cut the deficit and balance the budget. The theory behind Reaganomics was, ostensibly, that if taxes for businesses and people in the upper tax brackets were cut, and said businesses were deregulated of “nuisances” such as safety regulations and environmental safeguards, the beneficiaries would invest their savings into creating new jobs; and with such a system in place, the money would eventually “trickle down” to the rest of us.

Theorists of Reagonomics asserted that the resulting broadened tax base would not only help to bring down the deficit, but also subsidize the tremendously high defense budget. When the plan was first floated, even George Bush, Reagan’s vice president to be, called it “voodoo economics.”

Reaganomics, for the most part, sought to undo many of the safeguards put into place during the Roosevelt era and create a business environment similar to that which was in place during the Coolidge administration. What actually took place, however, was even more like the Coolidge era than planned.

Instead of taking the money and investing it into creating new jobs, the money was used in wild schemes and stock market speculation. One of these schemes, the leveraged buy out, involved buying up large companies with borrowed funds secured by the company’s assets, then paying off the loan by selling off the assets of the purchased company.

This practice cost the citizens of this country its industrial base. In addition, the bottom fell out of the stock market. On Monday, October 19, 1987, the Dow-Jones Average fell 508.32 points. It was the greatest one-day decline since 1914; 15 years before the Great Depression.

History is clear — conservative Republicans don’t mind spending money. They just don’t want to spend it on those who need it — us. Remember, they’re the party of Alexander Hamilton, one of this country’s founding fathers, who believed that only those who owned property should even be allowed to vote.

Hamilton also said in 1787 at the Debates of the Federalist Convention: “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.”


“Speaking Truth To Empower.”

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