STRUGGLE OVER NEOLIBERAL IDEOLOGY

A Congressional report denying tax cuts for the rich promote economic growth was quietly withdrawn

By Florian Roetzer

[This article published 11/2/2012 in the German-English cyber journal Telepolis is translated from the German on the Internet, http://www.heise.de/tp/blogs/8/print/153105.]

In a study completed before the election, a Congressional study took up and analyzed the neoliberal dogma on which Mitt Romney depends. Tax cuts for the rich do not lead to the economy growing and unemployment decreasing. That was the conclusion of a study analyzing decades of data from US history [Is economic growth promoted by tax cuts? (1)]. The much-invoked trickle-down-effect does not exist, that the wealth of the upper class sometime or other inevitably trickles down and ensures more equality or at least less poverty.

That the republican camp adhering to this ideology would not idly allow such outrage to fundamental convictions of faith was foreseeable. The American dream would take a beating if the belief that the increasing wealth of a few benefits the rest of society collapses and envy for the rich multiplies.

On the quiet although recorded by the New York Times [2], the Congressional Research Service withdrew the report on pressure of republicans. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader of the republicans in the Senate, and other politicians criticized the report and probably took out its stitches. Charles Schumer, democratic Senator from New York, said this was like a banana-republic. "They didn't like the report. But instead of refuting it, they censored it." According to the New York Times, the republicans did not say they challenged the study but that was manifest. They only referred to errors. As a response, the CRS withdrew the study.

A source from the CRS should have told the NYT that the censorship of the report against the authors of the study occurred on September 28. Since tax policy was a primary theme of the election, the report and the CRS came under pressure from republicans who advocate tax cuts for the rich.

NOTES

[1]
http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/37/37667/1.html
[2]
link to http://www.nytimes.com


RELATED LINK:

McGovern, George, "A Letter to Barack Obama," September 2011
http://harpers.org/archive/2011/09/a-letter-to-barack-obama/


WILL CLIMATE CHANGE DECIDE THE US ELECTION?

By Franz Alt

[This article published 11/3/2012 in the German-English cyber journal Telepolis is translated from the German on the Internet, http://www.heise.de/tp/druck/mb/artikel/37/37935/1.html.]

Suddenly the US election campaign has a new top theme: climate change - in the US of all places! In the past, climate change was "socialist propaganda" and unproven scare-mongering for the Republican Party and their candidate Mitt Romney. Most US voters believed that. But then Hurricane Sandy came, killed 100 persons and inflicted over $50 billion in damage. A few years ago Hurricane Katrina left behind $100 billion of damage in New Orleans. Now Hurricane Sandy sets a sign that climate change is more than the invention of slammed climate researchers.

New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, once republican and now independent, even calls to the election of the democrat Barack Obama. His surprising reason is that "Our climate is changing. Whether the increase of extreme weather conditions that we have experienced in New York and the world is a consequence of that or not, the risk that it could be - given the destruction this week - should press all elected leaders to act immediately," the former republican Bloomberg wrote.

Suddenly many US voters remember the damage to nature in the US in the billions in August 2012: unusual dryness, droughts, bad harvests, and high wheat and soy prices. Was all this an accident?

Obama, the mayor of New York now writes, has taken the right steps in protecting the atmosphere in the last years. On the other hand, Romney failed with this theme. He was "disappointed." Romney regards protection of the atmosphere and disaster control as luxuries. Republicans basically deny climate change on principle. At least Obama has tried to work on solutions but was permanently stopped by the republicans. He had no majorities.

Both candidates are in a head-to-head race a few days before the election. Will this long-neglected theme decide the US presidency? This is at least possible according to the opinion of election researchers. The Obama administration has invested $80 billion in green technology. Even severe critics of the president in the ranks of republicans praise Obama in the last days for his crisis management in the natural disaster of New York.

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