Posted on 03/07/2015 4:53:07 AM PST by Kaslin
Here’s a shocker. Rahm Emanuel may not be re-elected as mayor of Chicago. The reason? Emanuel has been siding with poor, minority children who want a better chance in life against Chicago teachers unions who view the public schools as a jobs program rather than a place to educate children. Guess which of these two groups is not allowed to vote?
When he was running for office, John Edwards reflected the way that many Democrats would probably like to think of themselves. Edwards talked about two Americas – which he characterized as the haves and the have nots. He promised to raise taxes on the richest two percent and spend the money on … well …. If you weren’t listening very carefully you might have assumed he was going to spend it on the poor.
But there is a problem with that.
The economist Aaron Director pointed out years ago that democracies do not primarily take from the rich and give to the poor. Director’s Law says democracies tend to take from the rich and the poor and give to the middle class. As the party of redistribution, it’s Democrats who mainly do the taking and the giving.
Taking from the rich mainly means taxes. But what does it mean to take from the poor and give to the middle class? It means five things:
1). Closing off job opportunities in order to protect the employment of solidly middle class workers from competition from people who would like to make it into the middle class.
2). Closing off education opportunities in deference to middle class teacher’s unions.
3). Closing off access to the marketplace for such essential services as housing, transportation, and medical care – again for the purpose of protecting entrenched (middle class) special interests.
4). Imposing regressive taxes which disproportionately fall on low-income families in order to fund services for people who are definitely not poor.
5). Catering to the bureaucracies that administer what we loosely call the “welfare state,” rather than looking out for the people who are supposed to be helped.
By the way, it’s only an occasional Democrat who even talks about helping the poor. Barrack Obama rarely ever does. His latest big push is for “middle class economics.” This isn’t a set of reforms for those at the bottom of the income ladder. It’s for those in the middle. Here is how the president’s three sets of initiatives were summarized by Josh Barro in The New York Times:
"The first consists of tax and regulatory provisions aimed at supporting middle-income workers. He would offer tax credits for child care and college tuition, and a tax credit for the second earner in households where both parents work. He’d also require employers to provide paid sick leave, and he’d raise the minimum wage. The second pillar is policies aimed at making workers more productive, so they can command higher pay. This includes proposals to expand access to community college. The third pillar is policies aimed at increasing overall economic growth, like infrastructure spending and trade deals."
What would all this do for the average middle income family? According to the Urban Institute/Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, the benefit for families in the middle would be a paltry $12 a year. According to the Treasury Department, the benefit would be closer to $150. Either way, that’s small potatoes.
What’s important though is that the president is talking to the middle class and the middle class alone. Director’s Law explains why.
People at the bottom of the income ladder tend not to vote or if they do vote they tend to always vote for the same party. There are a lot more middle income people and they are more likely to vote and they are more likely to be swing voters – switching parties whenever they find it in their self-interest.
Meanwhile, back to Chicago. Unlike the president, Rahm Emanuel really is doing things that affect lives in a major way. He is closing bad schools and using the money saved to expand privately run charter schools. He is overhauling the teaching profession by repealing tenure, trimming benefits and paying teachers in part based on how well their students score on standardized tests.
Stephanie Simon explains why all of this is so important to the Democratic Party nationwide:
"Democratic mayors and governors across the nation are increasingly standing up to their traditional allies in the teachers unions to demand huge changes in urban school districts — and labor is frantically, furiously fighting back. Local and national unions have made Emanuel a top target, pouring resources into the effort to oust him. If they succeed, they’ll gain momentum, not to mention a huge PR victory."
What Mayor Emanuel is doing is especially hard if the people you are trying to help don’t want to be helped. That was the problem with school reform in the nation’s capital. It’s also a problem in Chicago.
A Chicago Tribune poll last summer found 65 percent of registered voters, including 77 percent of black voters, disapprove of Emanuel’s handling of the public schools. Further, 62 percent side with the union and just 23 percent choose the mayor.
Plantation owners take it seriously when the slaves try to escape.
Rahm Emanuel has to swim in the same sewer he helped create. Chicago is headed to the same place Detroit and other liberal enclaves are at....they have run out of other peoples money. Union thugs and corrupt politicians have stolen their present and their futures. This is the reality of the liberal promise. The cause is not just the corrupt pols and union thugs but the class of voter that expects something for nothing....they are known as democrats!!!
—— Imposing regressive taxes which disproportionately fall on low-income families——
Such a politician is a regressionist. I’m a regressionist. I think the poor should be taxed more.
“Director’s Law says democracies tend to take from the rich and the poor and give to the middle class.”
Unless the middle class is referred to more and more as “The rich” by today’s left.
Funny - it looks like they don’t think Rahm is Leftist enough. If these folks were at Jonestown, they would be mixing their own Kool-Aid....
.....economist Aaron Director pointed out years ago that democracies tend to take from the rich and the poor and give to the middle class.....
REALITY CHECK Democrats brag about their tolerance and compassion and the high-sounding progressive remedy of "redistributing wealth".....
But history tells us they are not averse to making themselves wealthy in the process---taking most of it off the top for themselves.....
Whatever meager crumbs are left, Democrats make a big show of their "tolerance and compassion" for the less fortunate.
Calling Detroit a “Liberal Enclave” is funny. Portland, OR. Is a Liberal Enclave. Detroit is a black majority city. Lots of majority white cities are nice places to live, even after years of Democrat control.
One would think that the "urban poor" would side with Emmanuel and demand better education even if it meant raking over the featherbedding and incompetence-coddling teachers' unions.
The poor apparently value the unions as exponents of syndicalism and the right to organize against The Man, even if the unions have also failed to protect basic competence among their members. Somehow, the syndicalists have to overcome knee-jerk abreaction to proper demands by school boards that teachers perform to a standard. Unions need to stop extending syndical protection to failure cases.
The current crop of NEA and AFT teachers' unions won't discipline or weed out these godawful teachers we hear about, the ones organizing cheating on State-mandated student competency tests like Texas's TAAS/TAKS and its successors and resisting teacher-testing as a way around seniority arrangements that have failed to deliver for students.
That would be poor and minority students, by the way, who are trying to work their way up into the lower middle class.
Having driven by it,myself,many times I'd speculate that you've never been to the corner of 125th Street and Frederick Douglas Blvd in Manhattan.
SOURCE: cnn.com
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And let's not forget---Dem stronghold Illinois just elected (horrors) a REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR......
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Mayor Rahm "raised" and spent zillions of campaign monies.
BACKSTORY Since leaving the White House as President Obama’s chief of staff in 2010 to run for mayor the first time around, Emanuel (cough) raised about $30 million..... $15 million alone for this election-----an eye-popping four times as much as the total of his four challengers combined. Emanuel is spending freely, nearly $7 million to monopolize the airwaves with ads.
Rahm ran 4,600 TV ads since Nov.......while his opponents are nearly invisible.
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THIS MADE ME LAUGH OUT LOUD shortly after quitting his powerful WH job as Obama's COS, Rahm held a presser declaring he "just remembered" he really, Really wanted to be Mayor of Chicago. Then Rahm announced he had magically "raised" $30 million for his campaign in "just a matter of weeks." (waiting for hysterical laughter to die down).
Ya gotta wonder how much the cunning onetime Wall Streeter wired offshore when Obama put Rahm--in a dual role---as his COS....... AND in charge of the entire US Treasury.
WASHINGTON — Before Rahm (1) served four terms in Congress, (2) was Bill Clinton's senior WH aide, then (3) Obama's COS, (4)Mayor Rahm made millions as a Wall Street investment banker.
The Rahm Emanuel and Amy Rule Charitable Trust was formed in 2002, when the Chicagoan was first elected. The former Clinton White House aide and his wife, Amy Rule, are its only donors. Emanuel was an investment banker after serving in the Clinton White House.
Emanuel's charity gave nearly $25,000 to the Anshe Emet synagogue and school in Chicago, and $15,000 to the foundation run by ex-president Bill Clinton. It also gave $14,000 to Marwen, a Chicago charity that provides art classes and other educational help to low-income children. Rule is on Marwen's board.
--SNIP--
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, became wealthy investing in real estate and technology firms. It was with this money that ethese Democrats started a charitable foundation.
Emanuel and Nancy Pelosi are officers of tax-exempt foundations that carry their names----but they failed to disclose the fact on their official annual financial disclosure reports. Tax records show the foundations donated mostly to hometown charities. None of the lawmakers' foundations received donations from outside sources.
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<><> The oldest and most prominent of the n/p is the Paul and Nancy Pelosi Charitable Foundation. Created in 1992, the non-profit has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years. The charity reported having about $576,000 on hand at the end of 2005 after donating $316,000 to other charities that year.
<><> Georgetown University, Paul Pelosi's alma mater, was the biggest recipient of the foundation's giving. Georgetown received nearly $300,000 since 2003, including $10,000 to the university's Wall Street Alliance, a group that raises the university's profile in the financial community. Vincent Wolfington, a Georgetown classmate and business partner of Paul Pelosi, was vice chairman of the alliance at the time of the donation.
<><> The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art received more than $80,000 from the Pelosi foundation in recent years. Roselyne Swig, a longtime friend and financial backer of the House speaker, is on the museum's board of directors. The congresswoman has represented a part of San Francisco since 1987.
SOURCE http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-01-28-pelosi-side_x.htm
Taking from the rich mainly means taxes. But what does it mean to take from the poor and give to the middle class? It means five things:
1). Closing off job opportunities in order to protect the employment of solidly middle class workers from competition from people who would like to make it into the middle class.
2). Closing off education opportunities in deference to middle class teacher’s unions.
3). Closing off access to the marketplace for such essential services as housing, transportation, and medical care – again for the purpose of protecting entrenched (middle class) special interests.
4). Imposing regressive taxes which disproportionately fall on low-income families in order to fund services for people who are definitely not poor.
5). Catering to the bureaucracies that administer what we loosely call the “welfare state,” rather than looking out for the people who are supposed to be helped.
From my point of view it’s the middle class that gets shafted nearly every time. Too poor and working their butts off to make enough money to live on as well as pay their exorbitant taxes on everything associated with making an income as well as having a domicile and the ‘services’ to run it.
The ‘Rich’ are also heavily taxed too, don’t get me wrong there. But they can afford accountants to reduce their tax load and they have the ‘Leisure time’ to get involved in every cause they like as well as running for political office.
Best of all once in Political office or in a Non Governmental Agency/Association they are in the position to do ‘good’ things for those who aren’t in their position. Mostly that takes money though. They’ve got theirs and they want to keep it. The poor have time to scream and yell for more and aren’t afraid of being destructive to show they mean it.
The Middle class is worked to death, to tired to complain and have no time or energy to devote to causes and politics. Guess who gets shafted from both ends of the financial spectrum?
Look around you today... Do you see a vibrant middle class?
Me neither.
I suppose that, "nice places to live" is a matter of opinion. You may safely assume mine and many, many other folks here too.
Audit Mitch to see where the 27 million came from.
Looks OK on Google streets.
Chicago’s in an interesting dilemnma - it’s likely to go all Detroit on us no matter who wins, it’s largely a matter of timing and how broadly the pain will be spread around.
Most people hate Emanuel for the arrogant POS he is and he woulld be as dead as the fish he sends out to his opponents if it weren’t for the Machine and for his connections with the rich and powerful. He’s got so much campaign money the broadcast channels are almost non-stop with commercials that try to humanize him (with little success). But he is competent in a slimy sort of way, and with his buddy Rauner in the governor’s office, could probably keep the city on life-support until he tries to move on to the next target of his voracious ambition, which would probably be national in scope. My personal hope is that he dies a slow and lingering death at the polls.
His opponent Jesus “Chuy” Garcia is a hopeless lib on the scale of that moron who runs New York City (my favorite comment on a local blog: “Rahm is so bad that this Jew (the poster) is going to vote for Jesus”). With Chuy the slide into bankruptcy is likely to accelerate, as one can expect him to double-down on all the progressive idiocy that destroyed the city in the first place. But he had enough sense to promise to eliminate red light cameras the day he takes office, and that will win him a bunch of votes - but only among the living. Plus he’ll win Hispanics, some of whom may even be eligible to vote - but even that may not be enough.
On the plus side, popcorn sales are up.
Of course, obama has no intention of ever DOING anything to help the middle class or any other class, for that matter. Crushing the middle class is as necessary for obama's agenda as it was for Stalin's.
As for Emanuel, he reminds me of McGovern when McGovern bought into that hotel years ago his group wanted to renovate. They ran face first into a regulatory blockade he created. His only comment was, "Maybe we went a bit too far."
He didn't speak in reality, that is, "Liberal policies will always do much more harm than good and will fulfill the plan of keeping, so called, beneficiaries exactly where they belong because they trusted us."
At this point in time Black Majority and liberal is one and the same!!
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