More on the Poor People’s Campaign: A Call for Civil Disobedience

By paulgibson51 on December 10, 2017 • ( 0 )

Today’s blog includes a scathing review of Donald Trump and the GOP by conservative commentator David Brook–worth forwarding to GOP friends. Blog also includes an update on the Poor People’s Campaign and a preview of GOP plans for Medicare–the next assault.

For a Conservative view on the rotting GOP Party and Trump administration, take a moment to review this David Brook NYT Op-Ed. It is a scathing review of the Republican Party from a mainstream conservative commentator and is very worth forwarding to any of your Republican friends and family. 1 David Brooks The G.O.P. Is Rotting – The New York Times.

More on the Poor Peoples’ Campaign

And for today, a few quotes from a Washington Post report on the Poor People’s Campaign and then a video describing the campaign. If you want to find out more and be kept up to date on the New Mexico Poor People’s Campaign, click here to get to the Poor People’s Campaign Facebook page. From the Washington Post:

“Today, there are 95 million poor or low-income Americans. Fifty-eight million work for less than $15 an hour, meaning they are denied a living wage. More than 30 million children currently live at or below twice the federal poverty line, according to Institute of Policy Studies, which is “considered the minimum for meeting basic family needs.” Income inequality is growing, and the toxic combination of tax breaks for the rich and devastating cuts to the social safety net threatens to make the problem much worse.”

And another Post excerpt:

King argued that the United States would “never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube.” Fifty year later, King’s words still ring true. In 2016, IPS reports that “military spending was almost four times the investment in people’s lives at home — $630 billion for the military versus a paltry $183 billion for education, jobs, housing and other basic human needs.” Click here to read the full Post article.

In the 60’s the Democrats were finally able to overcome GOP opposition and created Medicare. To give you an idea of the ideology of the right that framed their opposition, this from Ronald Reagan: “If Medicare should pass, Reagan warned, “behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country. And one of these days we are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.” Wow.

In the 60’s the budget squeeze was created by the vast funding for Viet Nam, but today the budget crunch will not be from a foreign war or from a failing economy, but rather from the self-created deficit inflicted on us by the tax plan and the shrinking revenues resulting from tax cuts to major corporations and the 1%. And if there was ever any doubt that Phase II of the GOP wealth transfer plan was to gut the social safety net, Paul Ryan let the cat out of the bag yesterday when he was quoted as saying. “Frankly, it’s the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt,” he said — just days after happily adding a trillion to the tab with tax cuts. Click here for the full CNN report on Ryan and is plans.

The GOP almost seems to be begging for resistance, almost as if they are saying: Let me see what ya got. What do you do about this tax theft? What more will you let us do? Answers coming.

That’s it for today.

In solidarity,

Paul & Roxanne