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MUST SEE TV: David Cay Johnston... On The Budget Deal, The Poor, The TTP, And Our Future...
"Makes Absolutely No Sense": David Cay Johnston on Budget Deal That Helps Billionaires, Not the PoorAny Goodman - DemocracyNow
12/16/13
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, this deal is a—actually, I think, a big win for the Paul Ryan Republicans. They will avoid the embarrassment, shame and political damage of shutting down the government, and they will obtain this from the—they obtained this from the Democrats without, as Congressman Pocan pointed out in his statement, touching at all the major issues. The corporate loopholes aren’t being closed. The tax-avoidance techniques of billionaires, who can legally live tax-free if they choose to, are not being shut down. The hedge fund and private equity managers will continue to be advantaged. And we’re going to kick 57,000 poor children out of Head Start, which means we’re going to narrow their economic futures and make all of us worse off in the future. We’re cutting a billion-and-a-half dollars from medical research to save lives. Why? Because the very richest people in America, those who have benefited most from being in this market, don’t want to pay for that kind of services. And by the way, being The War and Peace Report, the Pentagon is getting an extra $20 billion out of this deal. We already spend 42 percent of all the money in the world on our military. More money for the Pentagon? Seriously? While we are cutting off unemployment benefits and cutting medical research, reducing pensions for federal workers? This makes absolutely no sense. It will make us worse off.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the poorest Americans, David Cay Johnston? How are they affected?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, there is a war going on in this country, and it’s on the poor. And we have all sorts of ways that we are doing this. We are restricting their access to Medicaid. We are cutting food stamps dramatically in this country, or will be very soon. There is a 90-day fix for doctors who treat people who are on Medicaid. That, I suspect, will not be continued. And why would we be cutting fees to doctors who provide healthcare to people, unless, of course, you just, as Congressman Grayson once said, want them to die?
AMY GOODMAN: What about the poorest Americans, David Cay Johnston? How are they affected?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, there is a war going on in this country, and it’s on the poor. And we have all sorts of ways that we are doing this. We are restricting their access to Medicaid. We are cutting food stamps dramatically in this country, or will be very soon. There is a 90-day fix for doctors who treat people who are on Medicaid. That, I suspect, will not be continued. And why would we be cutting fees to doctors who provide healthcare to people, unless, of course, you just, as Congressman Grayson once said, want them to die?
And...
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get a comment from you to respond to this quote. You talk about the TPP, the largest-ever economic treaty, representing more than 40 percent of the world’s GDP. This is Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker explaining why she supports the TPP.
AMY GOODMAN: David Cay Johnston?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, trade, in theory, can make us all better off. I’m not arguing against trade. The deals we have made have been awful. Our trade deal with China has cost us 2.8 million jobs. That’s the equivalent of every job in greater metropolitan Philadelphia. We’ve had over 50,000 factories close simply because of that deal. Our trade deal with South Korea, we were told it will result in more trade. Well, it has: one dollar of exports of goods by us to South Korea for every $25 of increased imports from South Korea. The global capitalist class see to it that these secretive deals are written in a way that they benefit, that workers in America have their wages driven down.
And the Trans-Pacific Partnership is widely believed—and remember, it’s a secret agreement that they want to ram through Congress with no debate—it is widely believed it will cement current U.S. law, while allowing trading partners flexibility to alter their laws. That’s a prescription for absolute disaster. And, by the way, Penny Pritzker is a queen of corporate welfare. That she is out promoting this, that she is treasury—commerce secretary, is itself astonishing, given how much the operations that she owns have benefited and supped with a big spoon at the public trough.
SECRETARY OF COMMERCE PENNY PRITZKER: The TPP is a—meant to be a high-quality 21st-century trade agreement. And what we know from those trade agreements—take, for example, our trade agreement with Singapore—when we do a trade agreement of this quality, everyone’s economy grows. Trade has grown 60 percent with Singapore since we completed our free trade agreement. So this is a great opportunity.
AMY GOODMAN: David Cay Johnston?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, trade, in theory, can make us all better off. I’m not arguing against trade. The deals we have made have been awful. Our trade deal with China has cost us 2.8 million jobs. That’s the equivalent of every job in greater metropolitan Philadelphia. We’ve had over 50,000 factories close simply because of that deal. Our trade deal with South Korea, we were told it will result in more trade. Well, it has: one dollar of exports of goods by us to South Korea for every $25 of increased imports from South Korea. The global capitalist class see to it that these secretive deals are written in a way that they benefit, that workers in America have their wages driven down.
And the Trans-Pacific Partnership is widely believed—and remember, it’s a secret agreement that they want to ram through Congress with no debate—it is widely believed it will cement current U.S. law, while allowing trading partners flexibility to alter their laws. That’s a prescription for absolute disaster. And, by the way, Penny Pritzker is a queen of corporate welfare. That she is out promoting this, that she is treasury—commerce secretary, is itself astonishing, given how much the operations that she owns have benefited and supped with a big spoon at the public trough.
Link (w/Full Transcript): http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/16/makes_absolutely_no_sense_david_cay
8 replies
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It's getting so there's so much to watch that it's overwhelming. And that's a sad thing or a good thing. But, so many folks are just struggling by these days. Where do THEY have time to parse all this out...with family and jobs.
But, K&R!
Might have been a Greatful Dead meme too.
Or...
