The rigger's log

Hi,

I’ve just sent out the November 2011 Capital Drain newsletter.  If you’re on the direct mailing list for that, you should be receiving it now.

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If you just want to read the letter, follow this link:  November 2011 CapDrain.

I hope you’ll enjoy it.  You can sample from the past several years of newsletters on this page.

-R

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This is not simply a partisan slap, it is history.  How did we get to the current US government stalemate and social turmoil?

Quote:
“The staggering economic inequality that has led Americans across the country to take to the streets in protest is no accident.  It has been fueled to a large extent by the GOP’s all-out war on behalf of the rich.  Since Republicans rededicated themselves to slashing taxes for the wealthy in 1997, the average annual income of the 400 richest Americans has more than tripled, to $345 million – while their share of the tax burden has plunged by 40 percent.  Today, a billionaire in the top 400 pays less than 17 percent of his income in taxes – five percentage points less than a bus driver earning $26,000 a year.  “Most Americans got none of the growth of the preceding dozen years,” says Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist. “  All the gains went to the top percentage points.” “

How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich

The inside story of how the Republicans abandoned the poor and the middle class to pursue their relentless agenda of tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent

by Tim Dickinson

Here’s a fascinating article by a retired Congressional staffer:

“A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption.  Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people.  By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

“A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. ”

Click the title to see the article:

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

by Mike Lofgren

(Photo: Carolyn Tiry / Flickr)

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