This page was last updated on November 2, 2012.
Learn from history; John Mukanos; Beaver County Times; November 2, 2012. At the time of this writing, this letter appeared only in the print edition of the BCT. I apologize for any transcription errors.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Before you vote on Nov. 6, please remember these important facts from history.”
[RWC] In summary, this letter is no more than a rant by a self-described “Jerry Brown Democrat” whose definition of “fact” apparently differs from mine. If you want to use Mr. Mukanos’ “important facts from history,” I suggest you do a lot of fact-checking.
Over the years, BCT pundit J.D. Prose referred to Mr. Mukanos as a “longtime conservative,” a “diehard conservative” (“Campaign funds separate haves from have-nots,” 6/26/10), and an “ultra-conservative.” There is absolutely nothing conservative about Mr. Mukanos’ ideology and likely never was.
“It was the Republicans who were against Social Security and Medicare. They called it socialist and communist. It was the Republicans who were against unemployment compensation, overtime laws and other programs to help the working people of our nation. It was Ronald Reagan who allowed so-called free trade policies to shut down the steel mills, forcing millions of workers into unemployment lines, and then said smiling, ‘Go make your own job.’ It was Republicans like Rick Santorum who said the retirement age should be raised to 70 or even 75. And it is our governor and Republican legislators who voted to cut funding for the working poor and disabled while giving huge cuts to billion-dollar corporations. Gov. Corbett also wants to ram the Marcellus shale drilling down the throats of every Pennsylvania resident.”
[RWC] As for “Republicans … were against Social Security and Medicare,” that’s true if for no other reason than these are Ponzi schemes intended to make citizens dependent on government for survival. If you think the Ponzi-scheme design of Medicare and SS was an accident or an honest mistake, think again. FDR addressed this in response to payroll tax critic Luther Gulick in 1941. FDR said, “I guess you’re right on the economics, but those taxes were never a problem of economics. They are politics all the way through. We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.” The quote was cited by Arthur M. Schlesinger in “The Age of Roosevelt: The Coming of the New Deal,” Houghton Mifflin, 1988 American Heritage Library edition, pages 308-309. In effect, the Ponzi/pyramid scheme was FDR’s “poison pill” to keep SS from ever being eliminated, and 30 years later politicians used the same poison pill for Medicare. This why FDR and Congress designed SS taxes to go into the general tax fund via the purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds instead of into individual personal accounts.
As for “unemployment compensation,” Mr. Mukanos failed to mention the employer-paid tax comes out of the employee’s compensation, just like SS and Medicare taxes. Translation: Employees pay for unemployment compensation, not employers.
As for the “Ronald Reagan … allowed so-called free trade policies to shut down the steel mills” BS, does Mr. Mukanos get his info from Lonzie Cox?
The rest of the paragraph is no better.
“Remember our history. This is what the Republican party has always stood for. Do not be fooled, make the right choice in this election.”
[RWC] If “this is what the Republican party has always stood for,” why did Mr. Mukanos switch from being a “Jerry Brown Democrat” to a Republican?
© 2004-2012 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.