Below is an article written by Charles Ryan and published in ALBUM, the Chronicle on December 3, 2011 to provoke thought and action on today’s political system.
Where is Superman when we need him?
The “Super Committee” created by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives was recently forced to admit it was not so “super.”
The Democrats and Republicans on the committee were unable to reach a compromise on proposed budget cuts and tax reform so that the federal budget could be trimmed by a bit more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years.
Compromise, it appears is the new Kryptonite.
And, even though he was an illegal, or undocumented, alien, the real Superman, aka Clark Kent, was more of an American than the stumbleburns in Congress.
Republicans refuse to allow any tax increases, or tax reform that will force the wealthy to pay more taxes. And Democrats refuse to cut the federal safety net (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid).
I do know which side the real Superman would be on.
He stands for “Truth, justice and the American way” and that American way ain’t Broadway.
The American way is: We are all in this together. So we have to work together to solve the problem.
Superman never stood for the Republican way or the Democrat way, because neither is really American. Instead they are political myths that some fanatics have obsessed over so much they have become the enemy of the real Superman, with one caveat–none of them is qualified to be Brainiac.
The Republicans, for instance, remind me of Lex Luthor, who in the first Superman movie was perfectly happy to destroy California so all of his desert real estate would become waterfront property, making him a multimillionaire. Lex didn’t want to pay taxes either, like the Republicans.
By the way, the Republicans who refuse to tax the millionaires don’t really care about the millionaires (except when it come time to collect campaign contributions). They don’t want to increase the taxes on millionaires, I finally realized, because they all ran for office so they could become millionaires. And they want to make sure they won’t get taxed after they accomplish their goal.
Think I’m kidding.
Maybe that’s because you don’t remember that when former President George W. Bush “reformed” Medicare to provide prescription drug coverage, he and all of his Republican minions somehow forgot to negotiate lower prices because of the massive buying power the government would have in the pharmaceutical market.
According to the Center for Public Integrity:
“Since the 1998 election cycle, employees of the pharmaceutical and health product industry, their family members and industry political action committees have given $133 million in campaign contributions to candidates running for federal and state offices, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Since 2000, the top drug corporations and their employees and PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) gave more than $10 million to 527 organizations, tax-exempt political committees which operate in the gray area between federal and state campaign finance laws.
“Nearly $87 million of the contributions went to federal politicians in campaign donations, with almost 69 percent going to Republican candidates. Top recipients of the industry’s campaign money include President George W. Bush (upwards of $1.5 million) and members who sit on committees that have jurisdiction over pharmaceutical issues.
“According to a study done in October 2003 by Boston University professors Alan Sager and Deborah Socolar, 61 percent of Medicare money spent on prescription drugs will become profit for drug companies. Drug-makers will receive $139 billion in increased profits over eight years, the study predicts.
“A third of all lobbyists employed by the industry are former federal government employees, including more than 15 former Senators and more than 60 former members of the U.S. House of Representatives.”
Nothing has changed since then.
On Nov. 20, CBS’ “60 Minutes” reported a number of Democrats and Republicans in Congress benefited from insider trading while the retirement savings of everyone else in the country went into the toilet just before the market collapse of 2008. The information was from Peter Schweizer’s book “Throw Them All Out.”
The beneficiaries of the insider trading, a law Congress made itself exempt from, included Sen. John Kerry, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Rep. Spencer Bachus, among others. Some legislators actually sold the market short so they could profit from the collapse of the housing market and the stock market.
They all ought to be in jail.
It was also recently revealed that Newt Gingrich received about $1.6 million as a lobbyist (so now he doesn’t want to get taxed either) from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the period leading up to the collapse of the housing market. He now claims he warned them about bad loans, but officials at both agencies say have no record of those alleged warnings.
Gingrich, a Republican, is running for president.
Instead of being Superman, he is a sure contender to become on of the man of steel’s arch enemies — Bizarro.
In fact, it is beginning to look like all of the Republicans and Democrats in Washington, D.C., have turned this nation’s capital into Bizarro World.
I just hope the real Superman returns in time to save us all.