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the Eisenhower years are back

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  • that guy in AZ
    03-31-2021 10:34:21 AM
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    President Biden will unveil an infrastructure plan on Wednesday whose $2 trillion price tag would translate into 20,000 miles of rebuilt roads, repairs to the 10 most economically important bridges in the country, the elimination of lead pipes and service lines from the nation’s water supplies and a long list of other projects intended to create millions of jobs in the short run and strengthen American competitiveness in the long run.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/business/economy/biden-infrastructure-plan.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

    Officials said that, if approved, the spending in the plan would end decades of stagnation in federal investment in research and infrastructure — and would return government investment in those areas, as a share of the economy, to its highest levels since the 1960s.

    While spending on roads, bridges and other physical improvements to the nation’s economic foundations has always had bipartisan appeal, Mr. Biden’s plan is sure to draw intense Republican opposition, both for its sheer size and for its reliance on corporate tax increases to pay for it.

    Administration officials said the tax increases in the plan — including an increase in the corporate tax rate and a variety of measures to tax multinationals on money they earn and book overseas — would take 15 years to fully offset the cost of the spending programs.

    During the Eisenhower years, the highest individual tax rate was 93%, and the corporate tax rate was 52% , the highest it has every been (it actually peaked at 52.8% in 1968/1969). Today, it is 21%, a dramatic decrease from the 35% it was before the 2017 "American Jobs and Tax Cut Act" law was passed.

    https://corporatetax.procon.org/federal-corporate-income-tax-rates/

    Eisenhower, incidentally, was the last Republican president to balance the budget, which he did in 1957.

    When the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 was passed, it authorized spending $25 billion for the building of 41,000 miles of the interstate highway system. In today's dollars, that would be the equivalent of $274 billion. Although Biden's plan $2 trillion would apply to numerous projects, only $115 billion is ear marked for roads and bridges .

    https://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Consumer_Price_Index/HistoricalCPI.aspx?reloaded=true

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aid_Highway_Act_of_1956

    The Republican platform of 2020 did not exist, simply because today's Republican Party literally has NO IDEAS on how to govern. In contrast, the Republican Party platform of 1956 sounds EXACTLY like the Democratic Party platform of today.

    https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956

  • Dutch
    03-31-2021 06:20:48 PM
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    As long as the "Covid" is still around; let's clear this first; it looks like it is going to peak again, also in Europe.

    If you want to built things or roads,then you need "healthy" people to do that. If not then again the most of such money will disappear again in the pockets of the wealthy.

    Anyway an good start, as long as no contractors are used, who give kickbacks to the Trump clan.

  • that guy in AZ
    04-02-2021 08:25:27 AM
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    Dutch:

    We often forget that Eisenhower had a health crisis of his own.

    It was called polio.

    https://www.cdc.gov/polio/what-is-polio/polio-us.html

    In the late 1940s, polio outbreaks in the U.S. increased in frequency and size, disabling an average of more than 35,000 people each year. Parents were frightened to let their children go outside, especially in the summer when the virus seemed to peak. Travel and commerce between affected cities were sometimes restricted. Public health officials imposed quarantines (used to separate and restrict the movement of well people who may have been exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become ill) on homes and towns where polio cases were diagnosed.

    Polio was once one of the most feared diseases in the U.S. In the early 1950s, before polio vaccines were available, polio outbreaks caused more than 15,000 cases of paralysis each year. Following introduction of vaccines—specifically, trivalent inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) in 1955 and trivalent oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) in 1963—the number of polio cases fell rapidly to less than 100 in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s.

  • Dutch
    04-02-2021 09:21:39 AM
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    Indeed we've had these issues before. However the times have changed and due to the (media?) culture; there is more talk and obstruction than ever before. The point is the human being is being dragged along with the "news" and "talk". Also the non-culture here makes is extremely difficult to have everyone run in the same direction; add the British form of government ,then success is assured. If an country is "solid" in governing and has the right people doing so and run all in the same direction, then you get things done. Here is all "talk" but no "action". If there is action then often it has the wrong action driven by "politics" only. Looking at how the Covid was dealt with, then the history books will indicate what an mess it was and may last much longer than anticipated, because not everyone is following common sense, or lacks the discipline to follow sound health matters. It remains an "sloppy" society without "direction". Sorry it will not be the last of any "decease"; more are likely to follow.

    Overpopulation on this globe is the cause and nature likes to control this via "climate" or " bacteria/deceases". While the "churches" help to make it even worse. Yes America you've still got a lot to learn.

  • that guy in AZ
    04-02-2021 10:32:07 AM
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    The 1950's were the Golden Years in America, which is why Trump wanted to "make America Great Again. He failed at his goal miserably, but Joe Biden will now make it happen.

    https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2021/04/lost-in-fifties-tonight.html

    Getting the infrastructure plan passed won't be easy, but (ironically) the Republicans will make it easier for the Democrats.

    The White House is fully aware that Republicans are in a box. Having declared themselves in favor of infrastructure for years, they either have to come up with a tax scheme that will fall far more heavily on ordinary taxpayers or give up their phony deficit mania (which does not apply to tax cuts, apparently). This puts Democrats in both the roles of being fiscal conservatives (pay as you go!) and defenders of working-class Americans. Republicans have the choice between embracing fiscal irresponsibility or giving up their laughable claim to be the party of working people.

    Psaki was echoing the president’s comments on Wednesday, when he said, “In 2019, an independent analysis found that there are 91 … Fortune 500 companies, the biggest companies in the world, including Amazon that use various loopholes so they pay not a single, solitary penny in federal income tax. I don’t want to punish them, but that’s just wrong. That’s just wrong.” He added, “A fireman and a teacher paying 22%? Amazon and 90 other major corporations paying zero in federal taxes? I’m going to put an end to that.” (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

    This casts Republicans in the position of defending a mammoth tax “giveaway,” as Psaki dubbed the 2017 plan, at the expense of improving roads, delivering broadband, building new housing stock and other popular endeavors.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/02/white-house-issues-republicans-challenge/

    White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain on Thursday suggested the administration is willing to advance its $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure plan with no Republican support, setting the stage for another bruising spending battle in Washington.

    If Republicans unify in opposing the measure, Democrats could pass it through the Senate with their narrow majority by using a parliamentary procedure called budget reconciliation that allows them to avoid the 60-vote threshold necessary to end a filibuster.

    Biden on Thursday said he has asked five cabinet members to make the case for the jobs proposal to the American public. They are Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

    During the debate over the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, Biden and other White House officials rankled congressional Republicans by saying the plan was bipartisan because it enjoyed support among GOP voters. No Republican in either the House or Senate supported the measure. Klain suggested reprising a similar argument over the infrastructure plan.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/04/01/klain-white-house-infrastructure/

  • Dutch
    04-03-2021 09:04:36 AM
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    Sorry, as long as the system stays as it is, then as always someone gets the short end of the stick. The part of "oversight" is mostly the last thing the government thinks of. Millions will be squandered on projects where the contractors are incompetent (or in "bed" with the GOP) or just busy filling their pockets. Infrastructure needs an "solid" management who's done the job before without corruption. So the question is "accountability". Since none of the Trump Party will cooperate they will likely make sure that this program fails; they will make sure of that and their "buddies" are already lined up to do so.

    As long as one party (of the two) only wants to "win" with all kind of dirty tricks, then this country will not make any progress because if "winning" is more important than any benefit for the people themselves of this country, it stays an unruly chaos.

    Amen

  • that guy in AZ
    04-07-2021 09:04:08 AM
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    Although it's accurate to say that our country is returning to the days of Eisenhower, it's also accurate to say that the country is returning to the days of Abraham Lincoln, and both parties have been inspired by him.

    The Republican Party of Lincoln bears a striking resemblance to the Democratic Party of today.

    Rather than using government power solely to protect the property of wealthy slaveholders, Lincoln argued, the government should work to make it possible for all men to get equal access to resources, including education, so they could rise to economic security.

    After imposing the first national taxes, including an income tax, lawmakers set out to enable men to be able to pay those taxes by using the government to give ordinary men access to resources. In 1862, they passed the Homestead Act, giving western land to anyone willing to settle it; the Land-Grant College Act, providing funds to establish state universities; the act establishing the Department of Agriculture, to provide scientific information and good seeds to farmers; and the Pacific Railway Act, providing for the construction of a railroad across the continent to get men to the fields and the mines of the West.

    FDR's New Deal built on the ideas of Lincoln's Republican Party, and so did Eisenhower.

    Today's Republican Party has lost its way. Although the party's 1956 platform could easily have been written by the Democrats of today, the party has disintegrated into a party that had no ideas at all - and no party platform was issued in 2020.

    https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-6-2021

  • Dutch
    04-08-2021 09:00:03 AM
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    Sure, it is typical here to drag in the past, but all these things don't matter if you have an society which from State to State does not cooperate or is uniform. Like TX where Abbott is totally out of wack with any normal thinking. He just said companies should not require that their personal has been vaccinated or have any proof of vaccination.

    Sorry the "old" days of Eisenhower or Lincoln will never return; I doubt if these guys knew what the media, computers, missiles or "nukes" and technology or "greed" can do to change the world. However an big part of this country indeed still "thinks" that we are still living on an "island" in the Lincoln times, ask Cruz and his buddies.

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