The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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October 17, 2012

Your View: It is time to call the bluff of the Republicans

Larry Kiewel, Belle Plaine

— If, as Governor Romney said recently, the choice is between “trickle down government” and “trickle down economics,” I choose “trickle down government.”

In the 30 years since the Reagan presidency first introduced us to the theory, the results are clear. The rich are richer and the poor are poorer.

The rhetoric clearly states that more dollars in the hands of the rich are more dollars to grow business. The reality is more dollars in the hands of the rich are more dollars deposited in off-shore banks. Wealth is capital at rest. It is dollars removed from the marketplace.

The genius of the New Deal was that the redistribution of wealth guaranteed a steady market for food and housing and clothing and that led to more profits for all the captains of industry. The industrialists and banking pirates thanked us by moving manufacturing of our household needs to developing countries and chiseling away at their tax responsibilities. They promised us lower costs of living but what we got was the loss of the paychecks we needed to buy the new products.

It is time to call the bluff of the Republicans and vote against Republicans at every level. We must prove that dollars are not the free speech that needs protected. We must prove that the farm bill, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are necessary for the growth of this country. We must prove economic justice conflicts can only be solved by government.

We must vote against the constitutional amendments to prove there are no invisible people in this country who can be cheaply separated from their rights to a full life and an honest vote.

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