*Quick economics lesson to be learned from today:

*

by Mike Stachewicz on Friday, **December 17, 2010** at 8:08pm

Today, Obama extended tax cuts for 2 more years. This means in December 2012 (lolz), he will have the final say in another potential extension as his last act in office, even potentially as a lame duck President.

I believe that America's collapse is coming fast. Let's paint a big picture here because a lot of people focus only on what's going on right now and don't look at anything that's not in front of them... History was one of my bad subjects in school, and it was only as I matured as an adult that I realized that there really is a very important reason to learn it:

**Because it's not a fairy tale, it's real fucking life.**

So what's going on right now?

Well, we have this new breed of Republicans called "Tea Partiers" who are Republicans with either A) Screws Loose B) Balls C) Manipulative personalities D) any combination of the above. They also have too much money and time on their hands for their own good. They get their name from the Boston Tea Party, which is one of the very first acts of Americans being pissed off about taxes, but made it a cute acronym for modern day marketing purposes: Taxed Enough Already.

According to Wikipedia's quick blurb about it, it "was an act of protest by the American colonists against Great Britain for the Tea Act in which they destroyed many crates of tea bricks on ships in Boston Harbor. The incident, which took place on Thursday, December 16, 1773, has been seen as helping to spark the American Revolution." It's not a surprise to see a group like this not only get so much attention but able to rise to power because after all, it's during bad times that people with the aforementioned traits are able to stir up a frenzy and get people underneath them.

Fast forward from that time to the 1900's, when pop culture was first establishing itself, the world was getting smaller and smaller, and plenty of government aka tax payer funded programs are in place, such as the Post Office and public roads. The dark times of the Great Depression led to the American Golden Age of the 1950's and 60's. Tea Partiers love to clamor about how great their lives were back then, either as a child or young adult and how great it was then. Those were the good old days, the Ward and June Cleaver times. Dad went to work, Mom stayed at home and took care of the kids and the home. What a fantastic time to live in, but (oops) only if you were white, and especially if you were a male. The rest didn't necessarily have it so good.

One thing that they may not realize is that the top tier income levels were taxed 90% at that time. What does this mean? Does it mean a top tier executive would have have 90% of his paycheck deducted? No, it means that only every dollar earned above some figure (called a tax bracket), for example 100 million dollars, is taxed that much. So if he made 110 million dollars, then the difference of the amount earned and the tax bracket cutoff (which is 10 million dollars) is taxed at 90%, meaning the exec gets a nice $1 million dollar slice with his wallet, not pocket change by any standard, and the government takes a nice cake of 9 million dollars which at the time would likely go towards our increasing expenses, the foundation of which was paving our nations infrastructure, also known as highways (those roads didn't show up nor are they maintained for free) So you can see that it's easy to be misguided by our system of taxes when all you hear is talk about percentages without ever having it broken down, which is something you rarely see on a 24 hour station because it's easier to earn ratings to score ad space dollars by building rage than teaching a lesson to people who probably don't want to learn anyway.

Both the Democrats and Republicans try to build elections around the basic promise of "doing more for less" by introducing more and more socialist programs for the lower class while cutting taxes left and right and allowing tax breaks for corporations. In the 1960's, many socialist programs were introduced by Lyndon B Johnson in a well intentioned but misguided war on poverty. It was also likely easy to get these programs launched at this time because between two things... 1) everyone was paying attention to Vietnam and not necessarily caring what is going on at home (notice a pattern?) and 2) LBJ had a very strong personality. So really, these programs made life better for a lot of people and the rest forgot about it because the Vietnam War was certainly a much harder time than what we're having in the Middle East. These programs also started on a slippery slope of government handouts.

So why are tax breaks an issue then? Aside from making a balanced budget damn near impossible, some tax breaks allow businesses to import all their goods from China for a fraction of the cost of what it would cost to pay unionized American workers. So let's go back to Cleaverland for a minute here. Many men worked factory jobs as their main source of income for their single income households. Labor is one of, if not the greatest expense in any business. When corporate tax breaks made the people who are running corporations realize that they can pay next to nothing for labor of manufacturing goods elsewhere, they packed their shit up and never looked back. This removal of import tax was all wrapped up nicely in a little package people like to call "free trade". And don't be fooled, compared to what they have there, these American companies are giving them the good jobs. So it's because of American companies that the Chinese economy is booming and they will likely be the world's dominant power before we die.

Tax cuts also compromise spending on other public (not just poormouth) programs, such as education. It's a proven and embarrassing fact that we're bottom of the barrel in the industrialized world. It's no wonder people can't spell because they weren't taught to read phonetically. And in areas where tax dollars could be used towards improvement and better policing, we have to try and balance that with keeping their households afloat on the 1st and 15th.

So why can't we slam it in reverse? Well in the 80's, Ronald Reagan permanently buried high taxes by the time they were already at record lows them with his nonsensical views whimsically known as "Reaganomics", which although it created a short term economic boom under his administration, once power changed hands, it was playing a game of tax limbo, how low can you go? The reason why these philosophies are no longer relevant to today's (or arguably any) situation is that includes the trickle down theory that cutting taxes at the top bracket will give business owners more money to invest in their business to create jobs. Instead, it's been proven that this money gets tossed in personal coffers and business owners will continue to cut costs and not reinvest any of the money back into the company. Standing behind these theories, Republicans believe (and somehow convince other people) it's a good idea to keep cutting taxes for everyone while at the same time trying to keep up with a high standard of living and a greater population with more socialist programs than ever.

Also in the 1980's, more and more women demanded to be in the workplace. This led to legislation granting women the right to work, which on paper was not a bad thing. The problem that was exploited in practice is that it created and led to the standard of a two income household. So now, ladies, even if you wanted to stay at home with your child, you can't. It's just not possible unless you's a gold digger. The women before you decided that it would be better if you tacked on a job to the responsibilities of keeping a nice home. After all, June Cleaver was no slob, she occupied her day with making sure the kitchen was sparkling, while many people now are content to let their house run to shit because no one wants to clean up once they get home from work. No one. That includes you and me.

So now in 2010, both men and women are fighting for spots in the continually shrinking workforce, who also have to compete with seniors who are living and staying employed longer. So therefore, it's an employers market right now. There's a reason why people stay unemployed for so long because companies wait to find the perfect candidates for a few spots, jobs that people apply for to maintain their lofty standards set in the 1990's. And if you do make it past a hiring process, you better work your ass off twice as hard at this new job that pays less because there's 100 people right behind you ready and willing to do it. Once the safety net of unemployment breaks, people will be forced to take 2 jobs if they want to survive. After all, that can't continue forever.

So the spending vs collecting chart has looked like a giant X from the 40's (or even arguably before) to the present day where we continually tax less and allow tax breaks for businesses and corporations while creating more and more socialist programs all the time. There are 2 reasons why everyone is pissed at Obama. On one hand, he knows that this trend really needs to be reversed and fast, and half the people in this country with at least half a brain know this too, but Obama refuses to play hardball and let the Republicans take the heat for allowing both middle class tax cuts and unemployment programs to expire, noble for sure but not what this country desperately needs right now. (The reason I say this is because small riots now would probably open our eyes to a growing problem that could potentially explode byDec '12) On the other hand, you have the gluttonous wealth that looks out for self interest who can easily grease more and more politicians (for those of you who don't know what a "lobbyist" is, that's their job) and all they have to do is appeal to the lowest common denominator of the country including rednecks, seniors and women (Mama Grizzlies, lol) that somehow what they're doing is patriotic and the opposition is horrifically evil and against our way of life and a threat to it.