MISC - La Cueva

From Thom Hartmann's Blog 7/23:

Voodoo Economics Partially Rolled Back....

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has announced that the Obama administration will let tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire on Jan. 1, despite calls from a small group of mostly millionaire conservadem politicians. Mr. Geithner said it's part of the effort to bring down the mounting deficit, although the White House does plan to extend tax cuts for middle- and lower-income Americans. With the exception of two world wars, for over two hundred years the debt of the United States rarely and only briefly surpassed what would be one trillion dollars in todays dollars. That long American history of fiscal sanity came to a screeching end when Ronald Reagan was elected and dropped the top income tax rate on millionaires and billionaires from 74% down to less than 30%. The result was an explosive tripling of the national debt to nearly three trillion dollars during Reagan's administration. George HW. Bush, afraid to raise taxes added another trillion or so, and George W. Bush - fully embracing Reagan's voodoo economics- added almost another five trillion to the debt. While letting tax rates rise back to Clinton era levels is a good start that will probably somewhat reduce our annual budget deficit, the real solution is to end the thirty years of voodoo economics insanity by rolling back the Reagan tax cuts.

Great show on KPFK's "The Lawyers' Guild" this week. Memorable question: Why is it that Republicans have no problem getting blatantly pro-corporate types--Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito--onto the Supreme Court but a Democratic President can't even consider nominating someone with a pro-consumer/labor background? It went on to say that since Thurgood Marshall retired almost 20 years ago there has not been anybody close to resembling him nominated--including Elena Kagan, who worked as a law clerk for him--and there likely won't be for at least another 20 years...