Roskam tax cut a looming economic disaster

My congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) has bet his re-election to a seventh term on the gigantic tax cut he helped author and shepherd though Congress. His 2018 campaign is a virtual 24/7 touting of the the simplified tax code returning about $1,400 to an average Sixth District family. But before thanking Roskam with his vote, any constituent should ponder well what will never appear in the Roskam campaign. 

The new postcard size 1040 form that Trump kissed in appreciation becomes more complicated for those itemizing from the six new worksheets needed to itemize. 

But the big fib about simplification pales to the economic time bomb Roskam has saddled us with. Dropping his career long railing against excessive debt, Roskam will help spike our debt by $2.3 trillion over the next decade, raising the dept percentage of Gross Domestic Product from the current 78% to 100%. Domestically, this level of debt increases likelihood of fiscal crisis, giving Congress limited options to deal with major events such as another recession.  Internationally, dept that staggering imperils our global power and influence by discouraging foreign investors lending us the money needed to fund spiraling debt . 

Roskam will never reveal his huge corporate tax cuts are permanent, while the individual cuts go primarily to the already wealthy and expire in ten years. 

Congressman Roskam has spent his 12 years in Congress exploiting a manageable debt  to prevent expansion of health care to the needy,  rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, or any other societal benefit. But to retain office in what looms as his first truly serious challenge, Roskam has wiped clean the slate of fiscal integrity, embarking on a perilous economic future.    

120 years hasn't diminished Us cruelty to Cuba

Cuba has always been a prize for the US to exploit. Back in 1820, former President Thomas Jefferson proclaimed "The US should take Cuba at first opportunity." The unsuccessful 1854 Ostend Manifesto was designed to acquire Cuba as a slave state. Four presidents, Polk, Pierce, Buchanan and Grant all failed to acquire this economic plumb till the fifth, William McKinley, succeeded by declaring war on Cuba's ruler Spain in 1898. The US booted the Spaniards, making Cuba safe for rapacious American capitalism, before granting them independence in 1902. Freedom came at a price. Uncle Sam could intervene at will, which he did in 1906, 1912 and 1917. Tiring of keeping order, the US settled on puppet presidents starting with Gerado Machado in 1924. We hit the jackpot in 1933 when Cuban Army Sargent Fulgencio Batista staged a coup, taking over Cuba for a quarter century, becoming fabulously wealthy looting the Cuban people and treasury while allowing US companies and the mafia to gobble up the rest. Castro's successful 1959 revolution was both necessary and inevitable, quickly implementing political control and land reform which crippled the capitalists' and the mafia's cash cow. Instead of accepting that 61 years of unwarranted wealth was enough, the US, with help from the mafia, tried to kill Castro and reassert control. Undaunted by endless failure, America as maintained a cruel and self destructive embargo on the poor but unbroken Cuban people for the last 59 years.

I was reminded about America's 120 years of exploitation and cruelty against Cuba during my recent trip. Free enterprise there is up from about 10% early on to over 30% today. Infrastructure development is everywhere and all the equipment involved is Russian, Chinese, Indian, German, Italian, French; just about every developed country except mine.

It is heartbreaking. It is unnecessary. It must end.

Trib steps up to plate on Yemen...and wiffs

After 27 months it's a relief the Trib (June 23 editorial) has finally addressed the world's worst humanitarian crisis: the Gulf States' intervention in the Yemen civil war that has left fifty thousand dead from starvation, a million suffering cholera, and millions more at risk from a cruel blockade of food and medicine. But it should not take seven paragraphs for the Trib to reveal the ugly truth of this man made catastrophe: the US is an active participant with its "intelligence, munitions and aerial refueling for Saudi and UAE fighter jets". But to say "The US is not an innocent bystander in the crisis" works to paper over the magnitude of our complicity in what most certainly are war crimes against the innocent Yemeni people. Even with US help the Gulf States cannot militarily defeat the Shi'ite rebels who've captured a swathe of Yemen. Their new strategy rests on one grotesque tactic, starvation, with US compliance, if not encouragement. Why is the US doing this? Simple. It's more than a proxy war between the Gulf States and Iran. It's also a US proxy war against Iran, in which the millions of hapless Yemenis are simply 'collateral damage.' The Trib's plea for US to use its "sway" to "make the case for a halt to the offensive (blockade) on Hodeida" (remaining Yemen supply port) is laughable. The US can end Gulf State war crimes in Yemen by immediately ending all military support. In so doing the US will also end its war crimes there as well.