How to break the gridlock - what Congress must do

Balanced Budgets or The End of the Republic

There are only two main factions in Congress - those who want "no new taxes" while demanding cuts in social and infrastructure spending, education, etc. and those who want only moderate replacements of tax base lost to the Neocons, while maintaining or increasing social spending, infrastructure, etc. 

Neither of these positions is rational or consistent with the political and economic "facts", yet they gridlock the country with their false dichotomy and "manufactured" information and analysis. 

So, here  is a strategy to stop this right here and now. 

Each party caucus will appoint a committee to construct A BALANCED BUDGET.  No voodoo economics.  No false and loaded assumptions.  Just the facts, ma'am.  How much do you want to spend on each and every part of federal spending?  And where is the money going to come from?  You must balance revenues and expenditures, prioritized to reflect the relative importance (or tax burden) of each item  - a rather simple idea which everyone used to believe in, but in the Age of Obama and Voodoo economics, everyone thinks it's all about pulling rabbits out of hats, or cranking up the printing presses so that we have 100% inflation in the past 12 years, while nominally "adjusting" Social Security and most other incomes by maybe 10%, with the banksters and foreign "investors" and racketeers pocketing the difference.  

When these two budgets are complete, an impartial "referee" committee will sort them out, and come up with some sort of real "compromise" or, better, synthesis which will prioritize each side's taxes and expenditures, and make them fit the facts. 

What we know for sure is that  neither caucus nor its plan will support the kind of military spending we have, today.  Nor the amount of police state and prison funding.  No one wants to pay for this stuff, yet both insist that they support it, and are more or less forced to do so.  Where is the gun at their heads?  Nearly every military officer and thinking soldier I've talked with agrees.  They don't want to be fighting asymmetrical wars.  They don't want to be killing kids and destroying other people's cities and infrastructure. But few understand that they can refuse to do this, and expose the massive fraud and corruption which supports these wars.  One who did understand and acted was Bradley Manning.  He should be a national hero, and for those of us with some remnant of justice and humanity, he is.

It's the CIA, NSA, DEA, Homeland  (In)security and other "black ops" which keep the pot boiling,  turning other peoples and nations against the United States.  It's the CIA which coordinates the Drone strikes - perhaps the most harmful and dangerous breach of international law which the US has ever practiced.  But those flying them are active duty military, and that should be illegal.
  
But even if it were, there is no more "legal" - it's just whatever the Executive and his staff says it is.   Obama is not the first President to do this, but he's done it more blatantly and comprehensively than any previous holder of that office.  In Reagan's day, they practiced "plausible deniability," thus shielding the President from blame.  There was always an Oliver North or some other "undersecretary" of something to take the fall, and then resigning or perhaps going through some sort of show trial to assure the public that this wouldn't be happening, again..  Now, we must give Obama credit for at least doing his murderous deeds openly and with full public scrutiny.  Isn't that what people want?  A strong and ruthless leader? 

People blame the Prison Guards Union for our massive prison system - 5 times greater, per capita, than any other country.  In Montana, they are represented by the AFT/SEIU, which is a very rich and powerful union, and the largest single contributor to the Democratic Party and its candidates.  But the military and quasi-military forces don't have unions.  Is there a Homeland Security Workers Union?  Perhaps, but I haven't heard of it.   No doubt, the SEIU covers the clerical, maintenance, and other HS employees.  

Is there a law which says that you can't belong to a union and have a security clearance?  It wouldn't surprise me if there were - a legacy of the McCarthy Era, but of course in those days, no government employees belonged to unions, except for a few police and fire-fighters.  The AFT goes back nearly that far, too, but the NEA wasn't even a union until the 1960's,  when the AFT first began calling strikes and thus competed with the NEA for membership and jurisdiction. 

The very reason for having private prisons is that they aren't unionized, hence "cheaper".  Some states have even turned their state prisons over to private companies, which insist that the states guarantee a high occupancy rate - to "save money," apparently.  It's totally insane. 

But the bottom line is that no one wants to pay for this stuff, and it is only by massive fraud and corruption in Congress and state legislatures, coordinated by ALEC, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, et. al. that this can happen.  These elements must be defeated or neutralized if we are to once again have balanced budgets and governments which respect the people and the freedom and self-determination of other nations. 

If unions really are the problem (and my experience with teacher's unions tells me that they are at least partially responsible for going along with and enabling all sorts of bad practice in teaching and education), then they, too, need to be reformed.  The whole "labor" element needs to be reformed, whether it is a legitimate movement or just institutionalized gangsterism.  

I am not a labor organizer, but I know a few, and I understand their problems.  What is still in dispute is the ownership and control over the economy.  Labor has been bribed or tricked into giving up its claims of ownership and equal political status with "capital" in exchange for "health insurance" (which they have to pay for with lower cash wages) and "respect for seniority" which ensures that the entrenched senior leadership will not be threatened by young "upstarts" who may want more than just higher wages and benefits for themselves (and which, for the rest of us, have actually been declining in real terms for several decades, now).  If we're going to be free and civilized, workers and taxpayers need to have a much bigger say in how their labor and taxes are employed and for what purposes and whose profit.  How could it be otherwise?   

Property rights are key, but they are not the "rights" of corporations or of banks and other institutions which presently claim them.  The basic property right is life.  We all have the right to live, and the right to maintain ourselves in some sort of civilized condition.  If we're not in a civilized condition, then all the other rules and practices of governments and societies mean nothing, and we will not recognize nor obey them.  (Is a fetus a person, and does it have the right to live?  That is wholly different question, and the answer to it need have no effect on the lives and well-being of the living, or of those about to die). 

Have you tried to teach "civics" or "government" to teenagers recently?  I did that 20 years ago, and it still seemed possible.  But today?  In a world gone totally insane, when the necessity to "live within our means" and balance revenues and expenditures is seen as being quite impossible?  When 18 CIA-trained "terrorists" with box cutters can start two wars costing trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives - just to make sure the Neocons stay in power?  The kids understand, and what they understand most of all is that our country has gone crazy, and cares nothing for the survival of the present generation, let alone future ones who are still in school, today.  Apparently, our "leaders" have descended to the level of primitive gangsters whose method is to fight, punish, control, and put away anyone and everyone who is "different" or recognizes the common humanity of atheists, Muslims, Maoists, and Republicans. 

"If  you're not with us, you're against us."  That's what our previous President, George W. Bush, told us.  If you don't submit to total corporate domination, you will be sent to die or left to rot in prison, no matter if you've committed any real crimes or not.  Le loi, c'est moi.  I am the law, he told us.  I am the "decider."  Some Republican.  Some Republic. 

========
Here's something I started a few months ago, which "adds value" to the above, and provides some more guides to what is important, and what isn't.

Protecting powerful interest-groups' budgets - is it still possible?

You can't "protect" powerful interest-groups' programs without massively raising taxes.  And that is what you have to do in order to discourage such programs, which are rarely better than 25% efficient, and often outright counterproductive, except for providing some stupid fat-ass with a job. 
Our government - the President, Congress, and just about everyone who owes their jobs to their political connections - keeps doing the same stupid stuff, over and over, again.  They claim our problem is lack of "stimulus" spending, or "too severe" cuts in the deficit, while such cuts are never prioritized or rationally applied to the programs or agencies which have the highest costs and lowest rates of social return - such as drones, the CIA, Homeland Security, bankster bailouts, etc., etc. 
Everyone's basic needs, as well as the larger social needs and investments, could be provided for probably a quarter of present federal spending.  The military is presently more than half.  And health care, which is normally about 5% or less of a nation's GDP, is approaching 20%.  So, there's 3/4 of spending, but the taxes to support them is half or less of what is needed to support them at these levels.  There are also massive subsidies to the nuclear and fossil fuel rackets ("mafia" is an accurate description of their methods and thinking) which could easily be eliminated entirely.  Indeed, it is imperative that we do so, and start taxing these "industries" to a level which approaches their social cost and damage to our lives and environment. 
We also spend far more, per capita, on education than our GDP peers, and yet get terrible results from our dumbed-down, politicized school systems and universities.  At the same time, we vastly underspend on other parts of the cultural infrastructure - public broadcasting, libraries, museums, community theater, music, and other organizations. 

But these are mere details in the larger scheme of things - simple administrative and organizational changes would easily correct these alleged "problems."  Obviously, they are mere smoke-screens or diversions from the real problems at hand - the fact that our government has been hijacked by FOG (the corporate Forces of Greed) and the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex, including the Nuclear Mafia.  Until that is corrected, nothing else will make any difference.  And we must do it by public pressure and acclaim, since we have no free media, free elections, or any other pre-requisites for a Free Republic.