For most of my adult life I have considered myself an independent voter looking at all things from all sides and have voted for both Democrats and Republicans but I can't for the life of me figure out how the government thinks many if any of their plans to fix the economy will work and how we got so far off track in the first place.
Back in the 60s, 70's and 80's many of the factories were full of workers making decent wages had pension plans and good medical plans.
Companies were making good profits and people for the most part were happy and the government wasn't in debt.
Back then corporations and most of the very rich were paying almost double the tax rate that they see today.
Was it fair for them to pay that much in taxes I don't believe so but as I said the government wasn't in debt and most corporations were making a good profit.
Back then when we went to buy gasoline we would have several people come to your car, one would pump the gas, one would wash the windshield while yet another would check the oil.
Thinking about the past I just can't understand why so many oil companies today claim they can't make a profit without a government subsidy.
Considering most gas stations now a days we pump our own gas while one person sits in a booth and collects our money.
These companies are making huge profits while still taking government handouts but why does this happen.
I believe the government and big business has gotten us into this mess and I don't think anyone is more to blame than the other.
I also don't point my finger at Republicans or Democrats because Republicans aren't the only big business owners and billionaires in the country.
Here is how I believe we got into the mess we are in.
Between the 60's and the late 90's the government cut the taxes for corporations and the rich year after year.
While at the same time business sent good paying jobs overseas and those jobs were replaced with much lower paying jobs, both things created less revenue coming in for the government to pay its bills.
Now is where I start pointing fingers as the big tax decrease was due to the Republicans who at the time kept talking about the trickledown theory which meant if the corporations and the rich have more money to use because of paying less taxes they will create more jobs.
The problem is it never happened because the money went into different kinds of investments rather than going to create new jobs.
This has been happening for over 40 years with the same result of nothing.
So why do the Republicans think that something that hasn't worked for over 40 years will all of a sudden start working now, I don't know.
Even with the lower tax rates we were still able to stay out of debt for a while however and this is where many Republicans constantly complain about and that is the Government kept getting bigger and bigger.
But why did the Government keep getting bigger.
Most of the reason was because big business and big banking kept doing more and more illegal things which in turn was causing great damage to the environment, the economy and to people.
A prime example of this is the famous love canal in Ohio which was so polluted by the illegal dumping of chemicals it caught on fire.
This kind of thing wasn't only happening in Ohio but everywhere, big corporations as well as small business didn't want to properly dispose of its waste because it would cut into its profits.
Government thought at the time if we pass a law the businesses will obey them but as always it didn't happen.
In turn more and more money had to be spent on new government agencies to keep corporations in check not only in the chemical industry but in many others as well as spending many billions of dollars in toxic waste cleanup.
This kept happening over the years with sending jobs out of the country and collecting less in taxes due to the lesser paying jobs and lower corporate and wealthy peoples taxes.
Jump ahead to the 2000's where corporate taxes and taxes for the rich were cut even more and we have even less to spend.
Tie this in with the housing fiasco which happened because of a bill not being written in a way to keep misuse and corruption from happening and there weren't enough government regulators overseeing this to keep it from happening.
The bill was intended to help lower income people reach the American dream of owning a home and not what it turned into which was for people who could barely afford a home in their price range to buy double the house whether it be a person getting a $200,000 house rather than a $ 100,000 house or someone getting a $1,000,000 dollar house rather than a $500,000 house.
This was all about greed from the person who wanted a bigger house to the bankers who knew the people wouldn't be able to pay the loan but only cared about their commission.
Here we are with a big mess that we are in and some of the new republicans calling themselves the tea party think the only thing we need to do is spend less.
The problem is we already have so much to pay off we can't spend less.
The fact is we need to take in more money and we can't keep letting the rich pay less thinking the trickledown theory will start working.
We need corporations to start paying their employees better with good medical coverage and have some kind of pension plan.
The rich and the corporations need to share in solving the problem rather than always reaping the benefits of everything.
I once heard a corporate CEO say something so incredibly ignorant that I couldn't believe it and what he said was, we aren't in business to hire employees we are in business to make a profit.
In a small part I understand but in another part how could he be so stupid to not realize that without employees there Is No Business, without employees who will make the products you sell to make your profits.
With kind of mentality no wonder we are in this kind of mess.
Why lower their taxes if they aren't going to create new jobs because their job is to make money not create jobs.
These are the same people who say their employees should be happy they even have jobs but would be the first people to complain about paying for any kind of medical insurance or any kind of retirement benefits.
These people would think we will pay them a wage just over minimum wage for 40 years and wonder why they didn't save for their retirement.
This is the mentality we need to get away from which is the people who think, they meaning the business owners and stock holders are the only people who should benefit from the work performed by the employee.
These people should also pay the full income tax that they should be paying not the hokey way corporations pay people to avoid paying taxes.
The practice of hiring a CEO for a salary of 10 million dollars a year but paying taxes on a salary of only 3 million because the rest of his money came from selling stocks given to them when hired and calling it a capital gain should be stopped.
This is what everyone hears on the news when no one understands how people keep getting a big bonus when the company they work for lost money.
How do we solve all our problems? We solve them the only way we can which is by trying to find people to elect that has at least some idea of what they are doing and not let themselves be pushed around by the corporate lobbyists.
My problem right now is who to vote for.
Republicans I talk to want to blame Obama for the whole mess even though the mess was already here when he was elected.
Others blame him for not solving the problem already like he said he would but how could he.
If I were told that there was a problem before I was elected then found out after I was elected that the problem was far bigger then I was told how could I fix it in a short time.
How could I fix the problem when the other parties agenda seems solely to do everything it can to stop me from doing anything and to gridlock everything it can to stop any kind of progress.
Even before the election most of the best economists were already saying it could take upwards of 8 to 10 years before things would be back the way things were and to expect things to happen without any cooperation is ridiculous.
Over the past 40 years I have watched both the Democrats and the Republicans constantly pointing their fingers at each other blaming them for everything but I feel the Republicans do the most of the blame game as well as trying to take credit for what the Democrats have accomplished.
With the Florida Republican primaries just being over I find it funny that one of the candidates claims responsibility for the prosperity which happened while Clinton was president because it is always the President that gets the credit for what happens during his term.
The same candidate was also thrown out of congress for ethics violations.
Oddly enough the other candidate was in charge of a company that defrauded the Governments Medicare system which was fined over 100 million dollars.
The same candidate also worked for a company that put businesses out of business thus losing jobs not creating them.
With all the Republicans in office this is the best they can offer their own people to vote for are people who are unethical and people who's companies were charged with fraud.
These facts weren't brought up by Democrats they were brought up by people in their own party.
No wonder our government doesn't work if the only people we can find to vote for are dishonest how can we ever trust them.
Being only 55 and with both parties being in such a gridlock I don't see our government working together well in my lifetime and I feel very sorry for the younger people coming up behind us.
The only way I see things becoming better and fare is through drastic changes in tax law and how the government works.
I really don't care who wins the next election I am just so tired of watching each party doing everything it can to block what the other party is doing even it is a great idea just because it wasn't their parties ides.
We need term limits.
Back in the 60s, 70's and 80's many of the factories were full of workers making decent wages had pension plans and good medical plans.
Companies were making good profits and people for the most part were happy and the government wasn't in debt.
Back then corporations and most of the very rich were paying almost double the tax rate that they see today.
Was it fair for them to pay that much in taxes I don't believe so but as I said the government wasn't in debt and most corporations were making a good profit.
Back then when we went to buy gasoline we would have several people come to your car, one would pump the gas, one would wash the windshield while yet another would check the oil.
Thinking about the past I just can't understand why so many oil companies today claim they can't make a profit without a government subsidy.
Considering most gas stations now a days we pump our own gas while one person sits in a booth and collects our money.
These companies are making huge profits while still taking government handouts but why does this happen.
I believe the government and big business has gotten us into this mess and I don't think anyone is more to blame than the other.
I also don't point my finger at Republicans or Democrats because Republicans aren't the only big business owners and billionaires in the country.
Here is how I believe we got into the mess we are in.
Between the 60's and the late 90's the government cut the taxes for corporations and the rich year after year.
While at the same time business sent good paying jobs overseas and those jobs were replaced with much lower paying jobs, both things created less revenue coming in for the government to pay its bills.
Now is where I start pointing fingers as the big tax decrease was due to the Republicans who at the time kept talking about the trickledown theory which meant if the corporations and the rich have more money to use because of paying less taxes they will create more jobs.
The problem is it never happened because the money went into different kinds of investments rather than going to create new jobs.
This has been happening for over 40 years with the same result of nothing.
So why do the Republicans think that something that hasn't worked for over 40 years will all of a sudden start working now, I don't know.
Even with the lower tax rates we were still able to stay out of debt for a while however and this is where many Republicans constantly complain about and that is the Government kept getting bigger and bigger.
But why did the Government keep getting bigger.
Most of the reason was because big business and big banking kept doing more and more illegal things which in turn was causing great damage to the environment, the economy and to people.
A prime example of this is the famous love canal in Ohio which was so polluted by the illegal dumping of chemicals it caught on fire.
This kind of thing wasn't only happening in Ohio but everywhere, big corporations as well as small business didn't want to properly dispose of its waste because it would cut into its profits.
Government thought at the time if we pass a law the businesses will obey them but as always it didn't happen.
In turn more and more money had to be spent on new government agencies to keep corporations in check not only in the chemical industry but in many others as well as spending many billions of dollars in toxic waste cleanup.
This kept happening over the years with sending jobs out of the country and collecting less in taxes due to the lesser paying jobs and lower corporate and wealthy peoples taxes.
Jump ahead to the 2000's where corporate taxes and taxes for the rich were cut even more and we have even less to spend.
Tie this in with the housing fiasco which happened because of a bill not being written in a way to keep misuse and corruption from happening and there weren't enough government regulators overseeing this to keep it from happening.
The bill was intended to help lower income people reach the American dream of owning a home and not what it turned into which was for people who could barely afford a home in their price range to buy double the house whether it be a person getting a $200,000 house rather than a $ 100,000 house or someone getting a $1,000,000 dollar house rather than a $500,000 house.
This was all about greed from the person who wanted a bigger house to the bankers who knew the people wouldn't be able to pay the loan but only cared about their commission.
Here we are with a big mess that we are in and some of the new republicans calling themselves the tea party think the only thing we need to do is spend less.
The problem is we already have so much to pay off we can't spend less.
The fact is we need to take in more money and we can't keep letting the rich pay less thinking the trickledown theory will start working.
We need corporations to start paying their employees better with good medical coverage and have some kind of pension plan.
The rich and the corporations need to share in solving the problem rather than always reaping the benefits of everything.
I once heard a corporate CEO say something so incredibly ignorant that I couldn't believe it and what he said was, we aren't in business to hire employees we are in business to make a profit.
In a small part I understand but in another part how could he be so stupid to not realize that without employees there Is No Business, without employees who will make the products you sell to make your profits.
With kind of mentality no wonder we are in this kind of mess.
Why lower their taxes if they aren't going to create new jobs because their job is to make money not create jobs.
These are the same people who say their employees should be happy they even have jobs but would be the first people to complain about paying for any kind of medical insurance or any kind of retirement benefits.
These people would think we will pay them a wage just over minimum wage for 40 years and wonder why they didn't save for their retirement.
This is the mentality we need to get away from which is the people who think, they meaning the business owners and stock holders are the only people who should benefit from the work performed by the employee.
These people should also pay the full income tax that they should be paying not the hokey way corporations pay people to avoid paying taxes.
The practice of hiring a CEO for a salary of 10 million dollars a year but paying taxes on a salary of only 3 million because the rest of his money came from selling stocks given to them when hired and calling it a capital gain should be stopped.
This is what everyone hears on the news when no one understands how people keep getting a big bonus when the company they work for lost money.
How do we solve all our problems? We solve them the only way we can which is by trying to find people to elect that has at least some idea of what they are doing and not let themselves be pushed around by the corporate lobbyists.
My problem right now is who to vote for.
Republicans I talk to want to blame Obama for the whole mess even though the mess was already here when he was elected.
Others blame him for not solving the problem already like he said he would but how could he.
If I were told that there was a problem before I was elected then found out after I was elected that the problem was far bigger then I was told how could I fix it in a short time.
How could I fix the problem when the other parties agenda seems solely to do everything it can to stop me from doing anything and to gridlock everything it can to stop any kind of progress.
Even before the election most of the best economists were already saying it could take upwards of 8 to 10 years before things would be back the way things were and to expect things to happen without any cooperation is ridiculous.
Over the past 40 years I have watched both the Democrats and the Republicans constantly pointing their fingers at each other blaming them for everything but I feel the Republicans do the most of the blame game as well as trying to take credit for what the Democrats have accomplished.
With the Florida Republican primaries just being over I find it funny that one of the candidates claims responsibility for the prosperity which happened while Clinton was president because it is always the President that gets the credit for what happens during his term.
The same candidate was also thrown out of congress for ethics violations.
Oddly enough the other candidate was in charge of a company that defrauded the Governments Medicare system which was fined over 100 million dollars.
The same candidate also worked for a company that put businesses out of business thus losing jobs not creating them.
With all the Republicans in office this is the best they can offer their own people to vote for are people who are unethical and people who's companies were charged with fraud.
These facts weren't brought up by Democrats they were brought up by people in their own party.
No wonder our government doesn't work if the only people we can find to vote for are dishonest how can we ever trust them.
Being only 55 and with both parties being in such a gridlock I don't see our government working together well in my lifetime and I feel very sorry for the younger people coming up behind us.
The only way I see things becoming better and fare is through drastic changes in tax law and how the government works.
I really don't care who wins the next election I am just so tired of watching each party doing everything it can to block what the other party is doing even it is a great idea just because it wasn't their parties ides.
We need term limits.