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dajoki's JournalDeMint's deficit-cutting plan targets poor
DeMint's deficit-cutting plan targets poor
Posted on Tuesday, 12.20.11
By JAMES ROSEN McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/20/2554475/demints-deficit-cutting-plan-targets.html
A plan by Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina to slash the federal budget deficit would hit the poorest Americans especially hard, directing 70 percent of its $4.2 trillion in spending cuts at safety-net programs intended to help tens of millions of low-income people.
The plan proposes $20 billion in cuts that would affect the affluent. It suggests almost $3 trillion in cuts that would affect low-income Americans, leading one liberal economist to call the plan "cruel."
But DeMint, a leading figure in the national tea party movement, says the cuts - including eliminating the earned income-tax credit and child tax credit for Americans who don't earn enough money to owe federal income taxes - are needed.
"During the Clinton years, during the Bush years, even when the economy was booming, we were still adding to the welfare rolls," DeMint said. "We have not helped the people we're supposedly helping. Poverty has gone up in America.
"We have trained several generations of Americans to be dependent on government rather than trying to get them off welfare."
DeMint's plan won't pass this Congress. Democrats, who control the Senate, easily could kill it if it came up for a vote.
However, the budget cuts proposed by DeMint - known as Sen. Tea Party - provide insight into the thinking of one of the Senate's most archconservatives and his tea party allies. DeMint helped raise money for many of the tea party-backed GOP freshmen in Congress.
DeMint released the plan last month alongside Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, though the bulk of its spending cuts would come from the Welfare Reform Act, a bill that DeMint also introduced last month.
Paul and Lee are first-year senators who are indebted to DeMint because he helped them win election by contributing a combined $603,520 to their campaigns from his Senate Conservatives Fund.
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Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/20/2554475/demints-deficit-cutting-plan-targets.html#storylink=cpy
Sen. Bernie Sanders: Corporations Are Not People and They Shouldn't Be Allowed to Buy Our Elections
AlterNet / BySen. Bernie Sanders
Sen. Bernie Sanders: Corporations Are Not People and They Shouldn't Be Allowed to Buy Our Elections
Bottom line: Corporations should not be able to go into their treasuries and spend millions and millions of dollars on a campaign in order to buy elections.
December 9, 2011 |
http://www.alternet.org/news/153391/sen._bernie_sanders%3A_corporations_are_not_people_and_they_shouldn%27t_be_allowed_to_buy_our_elections
The Constitution of this country has served us well, but when the Supreme Court says that attempts by the federal government and states to impose reasonable restrictions on campaign ads are unconstitutional, our democracy is in grave danger. That is why I have introduced a resolution in the Senate calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
I did not do this lightly. In fact, I had never done it before. The U.S. constitution is an extraordinary document. In my view, it should not be amended often. In light of the Supreme Court's infamous 5-to-4 decision in the Citizens United case, however, I saw no alternative.
I strongly disagree with the ruling. In my view, a corporation is not a person. A corporation does not have First Amendment rights to spend as much money as it wants, without disclosure, on a political campaign.
Corporations should not be able to go into their treasuries and spend millions and millions of dollars on a campaign in order to buy elections.
The ruling has radically changed the nature of our democracy. It has further tilted the balance of the power toward the rich and the powerful at a time when the wealthiest people in this country already never had it so good. History will record that the Citizens United decision is one of the worst in the history of our country.
At a time when corporations have more than $2 trillion in cash in their bank accounts and are making record-breaking profits, the American people should be concerned when the Supreme Court says that these corporations have a constitutionally-protected right to spend shareholders' money to dominate an election as if they were real, live persons. If we do not reverse this decision, there will be no end to the impact that corporate interests can have on our campaigns and our democracy.
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