During his third State of the Union address on January 24, President Barack Obama called for millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes:
“Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes…Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.
We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich. It’s because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don’t need and the country can’t afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference – like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That’s not right. Americans know it’s not right.”
“Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress. By attempting to gratify their desires we have in the results of our legislation arrayed section against section, interest against interest, and man against man, in a fearful commotion which threatens to shake the foundations of our Union. It is time to pause in our career to review our principles, and if possible revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of compromise which distinguished the sages of the Revolution and the fathers of our Union.”
~ Andrew Jackson quote - Veto of the Second Bank of the United States 1832
“We have become and will become ever more so a nation in which a vast economic underclass caters to a tiny upper class that possesses the lion's share of the wealth, which it gains to selling goods with built-in obsolescence to that underclass, which still believes, wrongly, that it can approximate the middle class lifestyle by falling into debt in order to purchase consumer goods which create the shared illusion of superficial prosperity.
In the Middle Class Museum rests the sarcophagus of a mother and father with public high school educations who raised a family and sent their children to college and retired at 65 and did not die in debt. History is full of wonders.”
“They have waged class war on us. It is time for our class to fight back. It's time for us to reach out to one another to fight for the right to organize, to fight corporations that would fight us, to demand that trade agreements protect workers and workers' rights, children, our environment, and our quality of life, and to fight for human dignity.”
Watch the full video of the press conference here.
TRANSCRIPT PRESIDENT OBAMA PRESS CONFERENCE JUNE 29, 2011
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good morning, everybody. Have a seat, please. I just want to say a few words about the economy before I take your questions.
There are a lot of folks out there who are still struggling with the effects of the recession. Many people are still looking for work or looking for a job that pays more. Families are wondering how they'd deal with a broken refrigerator or a busted transmission, or how they're going to finance their kids' college education, and they're also worrying about the possibility of layoffs.
The struggles of middle-class families were a big problem long before the recession hit in 2007. They weren’t created overnight, and the truth is our economic challenges are not going to be solved overnight. But there are more steps that we can take right now that would help businesses create jobs here in America.
In response to the anti-Democratic martial law being enacted in Michigan, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) fired back, calling the bill unconstitutional, emphasis mine:
Worse yet, this bill raises serious constitutional concerns. Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits any State from impairing a contract, which is exactly what this legislation does. As the Supreme Court has held in Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934), the sanctity of contracts cannot be impaired by a state law “which renders them invalid, or releases or extinguishes them . . . . Not only are existing laws read into contracts in order to fix obligations as between the parties, but the reservation of essential attributes of sovereign power is also read into contracts as a postulate of the legal order.”
Rep. Conyers also inferred that some parts of this bill may be racially motivated, something Karoli at Crooks and Liars has also suggested:
The takeover provision of the legislation – allowing the dissolution of locally elected bodies — implicitly targets minority communities that are disproportionately impacted by the economic downturn, without providing meaningful support for improved economic opportunity.
Finally, Conyers also pointed out that by forcing a community in to bankruptcy (which will likely be done to force union consessions for public sector workers or just to break the collective bargaining contracts which the EMF also has the legal authority to do), the financial situation of the community will actually become worse.
Further, the bill empowers this financial czar with the Governor’s approval to force a municipality into bankruptcy, a power that will surely be used to extract further concessions from hardworking public sector workers. And, by making the risk of bankruptcy a reality, the bill will make it more not less expensive for municipalities to obtain financing given this risk, which will make the financial circumstances of municipalities even worse.
Taking it through the courts could take years. In the meantime, thanks to the Republican controlled House and Senate in Michigan, along with our new Dictator Republican Governor Rick Snyder, the people of Michigan will suffer, because this bill is the most draconian, the most un-Democratic piece of legislation in this country right now.
This is what‘s coming for you [referring to the protests in Wisconsin & elsewhere], because the people aren’t going to take it any more.
The people are going to demand justice. They‘re going to demand that your ass is in jail.
You have taken the money, we want the money back.
You have taken our jobs overseas, we want those jobs back. Those are a national resource. Those are not yours to do with as you please. They affect all of us as a society.
We have a right to those jobs. We have a right to that money that used to belong to the people of this country.
A million people evicted from homes, foreclosed this year. Another million expected this year. How many—I just wonder again, if I can, just address the Wall Streeters and banksters out there—how many more people do you think you can throw out of their homes before they do revolt? How long do you think this is going to go on?
Exactly how I feel about it. I’ve had enough, and I hope you have too.
While Wisconsin’s family farmers are not union members, they are members of the American middle class, and they recognize class warfare when they see it. This tractorcade in Madison today is in solidarity with all those fighting the corporate power represented by Corporate Shill, Gov. Scott Walker.
From Minnesota blogger, Mike McMahon, on why a Minnesota group is participating in the Wisconsin tractorcade today, emphasis mine:
The Land Stewardship Project is here today participating in the Farmer-Labor Tractorcade being led by Wisconsin farmers because of the actions taken by Gov. Scott Walker. Walker and his allies have enabled a power-grab by big corporations to the detriment of the land, and people, of Wisconsin.
We know what happens under unchecked corporate power – the people suffer. That’s why family farmers across the Midwest organized in the 1890s, and the 1910s, and the 1930s, and the 1980s – building farmer co-ops, passing public policy that reined in corporate power and assisted family farms, and establishing farm organizations to fight for the well-being of family farmers, rural communities, and the land.
Today is another such time, in which predatory corporations like Monsanto, Dean Foods, Smithfield, and the Koch Brothers, are grabbing control over our seeds, our milk, our livestock, our land, our public assets — even our democracy. And now their political allies in Madison are attempting to pass and implement extremist legislation that breaks the power of working people to organize on their own behalf. They believe it will greatly diminish the power of people to rein in corporate greed that knows no bounds. They further this attack on the middle class by attempting to divide portions of the middle class against one another, alleging that the fight is between a unionized worker and someone who is not in a union. All of this to advance a pro-corporate agenda of business tax cuts, public asset fire-sales, reduced corporate accountability, and increased profits for the biggest of the big.
LAST NIGHT, MAR. 9: As you likely already know, last night Republicans illegally rammed through the portion of Walker’s budget that deals with collective bargaining, enacting, in effect, the end of collective bargaining for public workers in Wisconsin. Congrats, Koch Bastards.
After that happened, the Wisconsin state capitol was closed, and according to a metro bus driver, his bus was commandeered to take Republican legislator – fascists, out of the immediate area.
TODAY, MAR. 10: Today, the capitol was closed to everyone, with the remaining (unresisting) protesters being dragged out of the building, leading to thousands chanting “Let us in!”
The capitol police were replaced today by Wisconsin State Police troopers. The image below, via @ACLUMadison, is of riot gear being unloaded—wonder if the tear gas is even made in America?
Also today, Wisconsin firefighters went in to the Capitol Square/Madison branch of M&I bank as a group, and withdrew $190,000. M&I was the largest of the banks to back Gov. Scott Walker. That branch was closed for the day shortly thereafter Image below via @mariyastrauss
Additionally, there is a boycott of M&I planned if they don’t publicly oppose Walker’s efforts:
Teachers, firefighters and police officers said they would begin a boycott of M&I Bank if the bank does not begin publicly opposing Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to curtail collective bargaining for public workers.
Unions representing those groups said they would start other boycotts of businesses that backed Walker in his campaign.
The letter to M&I President Tom Ellis said the boycott would begin March 17 if the bank hasn't opposed Walker's efforts by then.
Stay tuned. I’ll be updating until sometime tonight.
5:07 PM Update: Wisconsin lawmakers voted to approve the measure to strip collective bargaining rights from public employees.
Police state (Wisconsin capitol building). Via @thinkprogress twitter stream.
5:45 PM Update: About an hour ago, Wisconsin Minority Assembly Minority Leader , Peter Barca (D), addressed the crown in Madison:
We think this vote will not stand. We believe it violates the law.
6:02 PM Update: We just learned that about 5 hours ago, hundreds of students at Madison West High School walked out of school and began marching to the capitol building, with a Madison police escort.
In the capitol building, Wisconsin state troopers deny media access to the Assembly.
8:00 PM Update: A general strike in Wisconsin? Not yet, it seems.
Calls for a general strike are growing among union members and supporters as the state Legislature advanced a law stripping public sector unions of almost all bargaining rights, but it remains unclear whether strikes or pickets will appear soon.
Union leaders say the Republicans' fast-track passage of the bill has fueled strike talk, but for now most are urging legal measures such as recall of Republican legislators as a way to repeal the law.
"A general strike would be playing the trump card, and you don't play the trump right away, you build up to that," said Jim Cavanaugh, president of the 45,000-member South Central Federal of Labor in Madison.
Michigan is in deep trouble. What makes me really angry is that people voted for this TrojanCorporateBastard, even though he told them that he would “run the state as a business”. What did they think that would look like? (in the next week or so, I’ll be doing a piece on Snyder’s campaign, including the financing-stay tuned) And, more critical now, why weren’t we paying attention?
While we were venting our outrage at shenanigans in Wisconsin politics, in fact while Republicans were planning last night’s attempted coup, the Michigan state legislature quietly passed a bill giving the Governor of Michigan martial control over the state. Except instead of using actual military, the Governor is more likely to use private security. But make no mistake–rights would be suspended.
Here’s how it works:
The governor, on his own initiative, can declare an economic emergency in any town and appoint an administrator. The administrator can be any person, including a corporate person.
The administrator has the power to do anything in the name of economic stability, including void contracts, void collective bargaining agreements, dissolve the town council, dissolve the school board, fire anyone including elected officials, hire private security, unincorporate the town, and sell off public property.
The people of the town have no say in this. They can neither demand nor turn away the administrator. That is because this provision is meant to be used against the people.
What might constitute an emergency in the Governor’s eyes?
A labor strike is the first thing that comes to mind. Too many foreclosures. Crime! In short, anything he wants it to be–and with billionaire backers, any controversy can be created.
What might the administrator do in that emergency?
First, privatize everything. Fire public workers and take over all public functions–running schools, police and fire service, and so on. Michigan just made this legal.
Second, imprison dissidents, shutter businesses, and seize property by eminent domain. This is not legal, but hey, that didn’t stop the Wisconsin Republicans.
In short, take over control and turn it into a corporate town.
We need to pay attention to Michigan because they are farther along the road to corporate statehood–to where the Republicans want to take all of us.
Privatization is going to happen first. And they aren't going to play around. They will go after towns en masse, with people unable to catch their breath long enough to fight back.
Still having never learned to be calm, retract their claws, and sit around and act rationally in a situation that calls for panic, Wisconsin’s Republicans and their Corporate Puppeteers tonight guaranteed themselves an unprecedented and disastrous recall next January.
More over, they also guaranteed themselves that any cloak of stealth under which they have operated in their attacks on teachers, firefighters, policemen, unions, and the settled law of collective bargaining, has been stripped away. If you pass a supposedly urgent “budget repair” bill with key budget components cut from it, you forfeit the fiction that you are doing anything remedial, anything essential, anything except a naked power grab on behalf of corporations who will get the money stolen from organized labor – civic or private.
And further, when you accomplish all this by parliamentary trick – after your national party has spent two years and more decrying Congressional reconciliation – when you deny the minority the right to participate in the outcome whether by compromise or protest, you cut through the cacophony of political-speak in this country and you transmit your sneering indifference towards democracy to ordinary citizens who do not normally pay attention.
Bastards. Hard to know how this will pan out. Keith Olbermann says that Republicans have committed suicide. We’ll see.
I will say that next up for reversal will be minimum wage laws, the 40 hour work week, and so on. This is what they’re working toward at the direction of their corporate masters.
Republicans in the Wisconsin state Senate passed the most controversial portions of Governor Scott Walker's budget repair bill late on Wednesday, stripping out the sections that required the presence of their 14 absent Democratic colleagues in the upper chamber.
In an 18-to-1 vote, the Senate approved the curbs on collective bargaining by public employees that Walker has insisted are needed to help the state's cash-strapped municipalities deal with a projected $1.27 billion drop in state aid over the next two years.
Adding….Twitter is going crazy over this news. The hacker group known as “anonymous” appears to have decided to stand with the workers. The link on that tweet is to a chat room, currently inundated with 7000+ people.
The Republican controlled Senate passed the emergency financial manager bill today, and the Republican controlled House passed a version of the same bill yesterday.
Gov. Rick Snyder did an end run around the people by forcing cities, towns and school districts closer to financial emergency via his own state budget cuts. This is nothing more than a union busting power play, no matter how Snyder tries to spin it.
The powers of the emergency financial managers, who would be appointed by Snyder at his whim, since the law does not require that an entity actually be in dire financial straits, are so broad it is likely that they are unconstitutional.
From my previous post, EFM powers include the following:
~ Authority to dismiss all or any elected officials ~ Authority to privatize all or any city services, including schools ~ Authority to break any and all contracts entered in to by your city via your elected officials, including collective bargaining contracts ~ Authority to disincorporate a town or city ~ Authority to merge one school district with another school district
LANSING -- The Senate has passed a bill to give much broader powers to emergency managers appointed to overhaul the finances of cities or schools facing collapse.
The 26-12 vote capped two days of debate, punctuated by protests from union supporters in the halls of the Capitol who object to giving emergency managers authority to nullify employee union contracts in municipalities or school districts where they're appointed. All Republicans voted for it; all Democrats voted against.
A demonstration Tuesday filled the inside of the Capitol and was called the largest protest ever seen inside the usually decorous building.
Democrats blasted the bill as a government power grab that would undermine collective bargaining in targeted communities with appointed, high-paid managers that have almost unlimited authority.
What makes this law so unique is its extensive reach.
Not only can an emergency manager wipe out collective bargaining agreements, he or she can literally push aside duly elected city officials and prevent them from doing the job they were elected to do.
Clearly, this raises some questions of constitutionality and state overreach.
Be sure to watch Rachel Maddow discussing this travesty with Naomi Klein, and stay tuned.
Today, the Republican controlled Michigan Senate will vote on a bill giving newly elected Governor Rick Snyder, unprecedented power to:declare any town, city, or school district in fiscal emergency, and to appoint a fiscal manager to such a town or school district.
The fiscal manager, which can be a corporation, then gains the following powers:
Authority to dismiss all or any of your elected officials
Authority to privatize all or any city services, including schools
Authority to break any and all contracts entered in to by your city via your elected officials, including collective bargaining contracts
Authority to disincorporate your town or city
Authority to merge your school district with another school district
Critics argue that the deep cuts in school funding and revenue sharing proposed by Snyder and Republican legislators could push many cities over the brink into bankruptcy, dramatically increasing the number of cities under the control of state-appointed emergency managers that will, after the passage of this bill, have unprecedented and — many argue — unconstitutional powers.
Rachel Maddow discusses this situation, and Republican plans for disaster capitalism with Naomi Klein. Watch:
For reference purposes, it may be helpful to note that Rick Snyder is a former CEO of Gateway, the same guy who sold it to the Chinese.
Personally, I never, ever, ever watch Fox News. Watching the clips of people such as Megan Kelly, Bill O"Reilly, et al, is more than enough for me. It makes me feel like I need brain bleach. Gah....
Jon Stewart compares teachers to Wall Street and highlights the utterly disgusting hypocrisy of Fox.
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