Taxpayers pushed off 'cliff'

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

1/4/2013

Daily Tribune

The Establishment-controlled US and RP mainstream media make it appear that a great deal by Obama and the Republicans was achieved to keep the US operational without new debt, taxing only the rich and without increasing fiscal burdens on the people. But the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) itself says that the "deal" results in $620 billion in tax hikes over the next decade offset by $15 billion in spending cuts now" as many critical American blogs like Zero Hedge reports. This is happening because "millions of wage-earners, will see a smaller paycheck as a result of the lapse in the 2 percent payroll-tax cut, enacted in 2010, which lowered the employee portion of the Social Security tax from 6.2 to 4.2 percent." That's $125 billion annually taken from the tax cut intended to help beleaguered Americans after the 2008 Financial Crash. In the end, the people are being made to pay again.

The Philippine mainstream media have seen written opinions "welcoming" the "fiscal cliff" deal. The opinions range from claiming that the resolution should help keep US investments coming, to a sigh of relief that the Philippines will continue to benefit from the US "recovery." Such raw views based on deliberately half-baked news and information from US mainstream reports and analysis simply miseducate and mislead the Filipino public. The reality is, Obama and the Republicans just gave another, maybe final shove to the teetering US economy and the tail-spinning purchasing power of the US consumers (read "US Holiday Sales disappoint" — various business news) and further pressure on employment and economic recovery. US investment in the Philippines, the lowest in the region, will not see any uptick; that's an illusion as many RP commentaries believe about the US.

The Obama-Republican deal on the "fiscal cliff" was a big farce, a cliffhanger to enrapt the US public to portray a working democratic political system where debates on crucial policies are engaged, similar to the Bush versus Democrats drama over raising the debt ceiling earlier. But, as we see with the CBO's report, in the end the oligarchy controlled government will return to taxing the people, robbing the future of the working class and the nation to pay for their profligacy. What profligacy will see no cutback? The most vital issue that a fall of the US government (not the taxpayers) over the "fiscal cliff" would have been the cut back in "war spending" by the US government which will cost the US "at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project 'Costs of War' by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. – Reuters."

The US and Philippine governments are controlled by global financial and banking mafias, and their various alliances, intertwined with major transnational corporations into a whole gamut of industries, from the arms industry to giant pharmaceuticals. Archetypal of such mafias is the Carlyle Group which, Wiki reports, invests in "aerospace and defense, automotive, consumer and retail, energy and power, health care, real estate, telecommunications, media." In the US Carlyle will benefit again from the fiscal cliff deal as taxes from US working classes will go up while the defense budget stays as is (US will not leave Afghanistan voluntarily, strategic goals are at stake) while in the Philippines Carlyle lurks somewhere behind the labyrinth of contraceptives and tobacco companies that will rake in P10 billion annually from the new Reprodcutive Health laws and billions more from cigarette smuggling to the RP.

They, the oligarchy, when they control government will always tax the people, US or RP or in the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) to feed the corporate financial and banking beast. They will always push the people off the cliff, lest they themselves be made to jump over the chasms they create. Mainstream media are the oligarchy's handmaiden in all the swindle of all the peoples of the world, brainwashing, diverting attention and focus, browbeating with misinformation and disinformation overload to deaden the protesting minds of nations, and for those that continue to resist there is the final enforcer — the mercenary, professional, pay-rolled-form the taxes military and police forces. The only alternative for the people, and we quote co-organizer of Occupy Wall Street Kevin Zeese: "People can expect much worse in the months to come unless they get organized and mobilize against austerity in a big way. Elected officials will need to be scared by the public in a big way to stop the bi-partisan assault on the people." 

(Tune to 1098AM, 5 to 6 p.m. Tuesday to Friday; Watch GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8am, and over www.gnntv-asia.com; tune to 1098AM radio Tuesday to Friday 5 to 6 p.m. Visit http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)