By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Community Forum: Democrats want more government control
Placeholder Image

Memo from the Democratic Leadership to the American people: Drop dead!

The Democratic majority Congress has a favorable rating of 9 percent, lower than President Bush, but they don't like the American people, either.

House Republicans are protesting the Democratic leadership and anti-energy policies most Americans want reformed. Eighty-one percent of Americans favor new sources of energy that includes offshore drilling, according to a Rasmussen poll. However, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid adamantly refuse to let our representatives vote on a bill that would include "the language of drilling."

The reason? It is an election year. Presidential candidate Barack Obama must "appear" to be pro-energy without having to "be" pro-energy. A vote now could cost him the election. For the same reason, other Democratic candidates must convince their constituents that they are pro-energy, despite past records to the contrary.

The Democratic leadership is frustrating the will of the American people because it is an election year. But there is another explanation. Democrats under Pelosi and Reid have embraced extreme environmentalism to advance the federal government's control of the American economy; that's socialism.

Obama demonstrates the common Democratic attitude in Congress: "We can't just keep driving our SUVs, eating whatever we want, keeping our homes at 72 degrees at all times ... and keep consuming 25 percent of the world's resources with just 4 percent of the world's population, and expect the rest of the world to say you just go ahead. We'll be fine ..."

Ten out of 10 liberals and socialists agree: the middle class standard of living is unfair, an inequality in comparison to the rest of the world. Nowhere in their Utopian philosophy is private ownership a natural right, nor do they accept that if someone drives an SUV, they earned it.

Sen. Marie Cantwell acknowledges the current policy to "wean Americans" off petroleum is Democratic, not Republican.

By "Americans," she doesn't mean herself and other anti-energy Democrats in Congress; she means the middle class. They aren't called "limousine liberals" for nothing. Only we "commoners" are supposed to sell our hard-won, three-bedroom ranch homes, move to a city high-rise on a bus line, and sign up for government services.

The same government that runs Social Security wants to run U.S. oil companies. Two Democratic Congress members, in May 2008, proposed socializing the oil industry (as Lenin did), and 37 percent of Democratic constituents agreed in a June Rasmussen poll. The Democratic leadership demonizes oil because they want popular support of a federal government takeover of an American industry.

Pelosi, Obama and Reid are far to the left of the American people, leading the Democratic Party and America on a course of "change" to a lower standard of living that comes with socialized energy in the name of environmentalism.

Pelosi's lifetime American Conservative Union rating is dismal at 2.95. Obama scores a stingy 7.67. Reid rates 19.08. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who campaigned as a self-described Socialist, scores 6.34, close to Obama.

Sen. John McCain, considered center-right, rates 80. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Rep. Nathan Deal, true conservatives, rate 94.19 and 96.68, respectively.

The Democratic leaders will not change. They hold firmly to socialism. American families and small businesses hurt by the high costs of fuel are merely collateral damage in their assault to "change" America.

Jill Putnam
Cleveland

Republicans don't want true economic justice
I am among those who are striving to discover some truth and reality in what the presidential candidates intend and how each party would govern.

The stream of whispers in my ear and daily inbox arrivals of beneath the radar information seems intended to arouse fear of Barack Obama. Prominent themes are race and the specter of Marxism. I have nothing to say about race, as words are not apt to influence a racist.

On the other hand, sand being thrown in the eyes to obscure the facts of the Reagan-Clinton-Bushes economic system is more pernicious and deserves some examination. An article de jour making the rounds is reputedly from a publication that targets those who accumulate wealth by capital investment.
It was, I think, framed to inflame emotions and evoke terror.

Whatever the source, it begins as Obama speaks passionately about something called economic justice. He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code -- socialist code. The author then goes on to define economic justice as socialism, punishing the successful. Claiming proof of the thesis, the author goes forward to quote an Obama book where he states he intends to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast. Obama has hardly been stealthy about this aim.

I am among those who believe FDR rescued capitalism. If you believe (as Republicans seem to) that FDR and LBJ were socialists, then you will believe Obama is a socialist. I would say Obama is simply a Democrat.

The notion of economic justice does raise similar moral and ideological debates as in the Depression Dust Bowl of the 1930s, a core cultural issue of what is the optimum level of collective responsibility to the welfare of our fellow humans and the planet which sustains us.

The Republicans of today are concerned that a Democratic government would restore a capital gains tax to equality with the current tax on money earned as wages and fees for services, etc. Yes, Obama has indicated he intends to advocate for just that. And decrease taxes on wage earners.

As to total percentage of income paid in taxes, the highest is on income of low and middle income earners. They pay (in most states) also a sales tax of about 7 percent and as well Social Security, gas taxes, etc.

Which is more practical: to tax need or to tax profit? Which is more fair?

In my opinion, the ordinary person will see moral injustice in capital investment rewards taxed at 15 percent and lower middle earned income at 30 percent and more.

Republican ideology rejects the validity of the governed as judge of fairness of outcome as appropriate. However I persist in directing attention to outcomes. What has been the outcome of global dominance by Reagan-Bushes-Clinton economics? These anti-government folks have had their way unrestrained for some 30 years.

Are Republicans any happier? Any less fearful? Any more tolerant of diversity? Any more contented with their wealth and standard of living?

Why is Obama such a happy warrior?

W. Lorraine Watkins
Dawsonville