While the SC Progressive Network fights to bring more democracy to this oft-backward state, our Republican-controlled legislature is working to make voting more difficult. Yesterday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Election Laws passed out a bill to require all voters to have a state-issued photo ID in order to vote. The argument for the bill is that it will prevent voters from fraudulently pretending to be someone else to cast multiple votes.
Ignoring testimony from the State Election Commission and Network Director Brett Bursey that there are no cases of this happening, and that the current system of requiring either a voter registration card or a state ID is working, the subcommittee passed the bill out to the full committee. Bursey presented the subcommittee with a report by the Brennan Center for Justice that concluded there was a higher chance of being struck by lightning while waiting to vote than someone stealing your identity to vote.
Since House Speaker Bobby Harrell is the prime sponsor of the bill, it is expected to pass the House.
The 2008 legislative elections again saw South Carolina as number one in the nation for the fewest contested races. Only 34 percent of the 170 legislative seats were contested in the general election. The national average is 56 percent.
Out of the 46 SC Senate seats, only 20 were contested. Nine were taken by new members (6 R, 3 D).
Of 124 House seats only 38 were contested. 20 new members (16 R, 4 D).
That’s 83 percent of the 170 seats held onto by incumbents.
The biggest impediment to having a choice in our general elections is the redistricting that was done following the 2000 Census. The Republicans and the Legislative Black Caucus worked out a plan that gave them “safe” districts, that means the winner of the party primary is assured election.
This is so outlandish. I offered a simple way to fix this – Have a photo on the voter registration card and be done with it. Why come up with another ID. Just add a photo to the voter cards we are processing now and that’s all anyone would ever need to vote.
A FINANCIAL REVOLUTION
A Modern day “Boston Tea Party”, Americans have grown up and gotten wise. Here is the American publics’ response to government, bailouts, stimulus packages and urging us to spend. The wizards of Wall Street, through their greed and corrupt practices, have given the vast middle class two options: risk destitution and bankruptcy or save. We’ve chosen to save.
1. So now, the citizens have decided to create a financial revolution, and save their money! More power to us!!
2. Everybody wants our money ~ one way or another. If we don’t draw the line, and ignore the economy, we will all need food stamps. Health Care? A thing of the past, if we don’t save ourselves, we are financially doomed. Keep saving all you can.
3. The economy needs???? That’s the problem…we should be talking about what people need. And we need more than an economy.
4. GOOOD!! PEople need to stop wasting; we need a savings rate that’s at least 20 percent…never mind a pathetic six.
5. I reduced my spending (only what i NEED, not what I want) because I NEED my money more than traitorous US corporations WANT it. I have no loyalty to corporate America because they have no loyalty to me or my fellow citizens. Until they figure that out, my money stays in my pocket.
6. Can you blame people for trying to save a dime? Weren’t we all told to save up for a rainy day? Well, folks, it’s a monsoon out there.
7. Why is it that the media, congress and the economists all fail to understand that we are saving every cent we have because we are all going to RUN OUT of money? According to everything we hear, millions and millions of us are just a few steps away from being homeless soon.
8. We’re saving because if we lose our jobs our government clearly won’t be there for us.
9. These companies grow on your credit then they buy our government. We need to show the government and big business who is the boss. The only way we have left is through our own spending because god knows they don’t listen to us.
10. Does this surprise anyone? No one knows if they will have a job tomorrow, so what makes the government believe anyone is going to spend any extra money they have? People are going to start hording cash, it is simple reality. Until our elected congressional and senatorial leaders step up to the plate and pass a realistic bill that stimulates the economy vs giving tax breaks to businesses that will not hire more people, (Business will continue with layoffs as long as their inventory continues to grow). This is also another reality that our elected official just does not seem to grasp.
11. Save your money. Do not spend it! If you must spend it, spend it very wisely.
12. The Great American Con-Job is government and corporate businesses.
13. I don’t call it “hording cash.” I call it finally being fiscally responsible. If the new fiscally responsible American ways don’t support the old economy . . . well too bad. The old economy was never sustainable anyway. It’s reality check time!
14. Perhaps the ‘economy’ of the last couple of decades needs to adjust,… and needs to learn to cope with the idea that people will (generally) only buy what it is that they can actually afford?
15. I won’t be listening to the economists – I will be saving and living within my means. The credit cards were destroyed a long time ago – 19% interest rates. We used to call those people loan sharks but VP Biden helped to make that legal.
16. Give money back to the taxpayers. They could give every single taxpayer a quarter mill and it would be WAY cheaper than any plan they have had so far.
17. It’s good that people are saving money and/or paying down debt, and defining their needs and wants. A society that is built largely on consumer spending is insane
18. Americans need to STOP BUYING cheap foreign goods of poor quality. Many RETIREMENT PLANS have been GUTTED by Wall Street as a result of their greed, ineptitude, and culture of entitlement. Americans need to SAVE.
19. Somehow, it just pisses me off when I read clap-trap about how it is the ‘consumer’s’ responsibility to shore up our overinflated, popped bubble of an economy.
20. The consumer has sustained the economy, before and especially after 9/11, and what did we get for it, fraud, deception, financial con artistry, ponzi schemes, and no law enforcement on ethics or anything, we got laid off, foreclosed, flat screen on the curb, credit rating in the toilet.
21. The people who suggest that saving money is bad are the same ones with all the bright ideas that got us into this mess? Are the people suggesting saving is bad insane? Regular folks see that we are losing jobs everywhere. They can see this with our own eyes. The rational thing for an individual to do is save for the rainy day which is coming, so you and your family don’t starve to death when you lose your job.
22. Look at what this country has become. People, save your money, hide your money, hoard your money. Pay your debts. Buy only essentials and lots of them. The Federal Government will do a Katrina on you when their ridiculous policies fail and we enter the Greatest Depression.
23. I am a small rural farmer. The cost of seed and fertilizer is now 4x the cost of last year. Darn right I am saving my money and not spending it. If I didn’t have chickens for eggs and produce canned from last season, my family would be hungry now. I will be planting less and folks, your food bills will be higher shortly because this is the norm for almost everyone in this farming community.
24. The pride in being the “breadbasket” of the nation is gone. Food = life. Save your money because you are going to need it more than ever… just to continue living.
25. It is pure arrogance to say we should spend our last dollars to help the economy while those with the ear of the politicians get fatter wallets and bigger houses. Save your money and save yourselves. These times are more desperate than you can imagine. The repercussions have not yet hit your local super market, but they will.
26. They just were bailed out by the tax dollars of our great great great great grandkids. We also got downsized, and once again underpaid, then they just brought in people from over seas, so they would not have to hire me back at a decent wage, and our government was complicit with the act, oh no emergency response to crisis, not even in the former President’s home state, oh consumers also got poisoned food, poisoned toys from china, and an inept FDA to protect or even guide us, poison food outbreaks…yea I’m keeping my money at home under the mattress and i am not buying anything i do not need until i can get bailed out by my own tax dollars.
27. Yes, it is ugly…but slowly we will start to buy those things that WE NEED, not just STUFF! We may no longer buy $200 running shoes or the latest electronic gadget. It is time for business to re-focus…and if their products are no longer needed, then figure out what IS NEEDED and go there.
28. Why on Earth anyone would trust the government, who got us into this situation with deregulation of the banking industry AND two wars, to get us out of this circumstance is beyond me.
29. I am certainly no economist but there is one thing I don’t understand: If people are spending less and saving more money, shouldn’t the banks (where this unspent money presumably is being saved) have more cash on hand to lend?
30. “The economy” as managed by our government has screwed Americans and now Americans are supposed to manage ” the economy” by spending when it is spending that caused the problem.
31. I’d like to challenge any one in public office or the banking industry to live on the average American’s wage for one year! Then live on unemployment and still pay taxes!
32. It may not be a matter of saving! It may be a matter of nothing left to spend! Unemployment doesn’t go far and the new proposed tax relief for unemployment is not worth the paper it’s written on! Approx 1 month forgiveness on an entire claim and no forgiveness once you go into the extensions.
33. Stop telling average Americans like me that this mess is our fault.
Most of us have been cutting back since 2001. What is happening now is due to greed and corruption by people who have the wealth and power.
34. Why should I spend my money on things made overseas? The money only goes to the executives who own the companies that shuttle that junk around, as well as to the foreign shipping companies. Why should I send them my money? Our money’s going into banks. Gee, maybe with all that capital coming in, they could loan my local pharmacy some money so they can stock the shelves or loan businesses money so they can keep their employees or adjust their mortgages so folks on the edge won’t lose their homes.
35. Let’s see if I follow: Government spending to stimulate the economy is bad. This despite the fact that the government is allowed to run a deficit (which it funds with bonds paying circa 4 %.). Individual spending to stimulate the economy is good. This despite the fact that individuals are not allowed running a deficit (short of selling assets in a down market, or piling on credit card debt at 19.8 %.)
36. The article quotes a leading economist, but still misses a key Econ 101 concept: Savings provides capital for banks to lend. (“It’s a Wonder Life” covers the topic vividly.) It doesn’t ALL come from No Banker Left Behind.
37. Exactly. Capitalism requires capital and it’s not all about individual/consumer spending, as much as some of the policy makers would have us believe. And Bush was among the most egregious in missing this point while encouraging the public to spend themselves into debt (mortgage and credit card, especially). He promoted this as [patriotism and an American right, like apple pie, energy consumption, and driving SUVs.
38. Yes save for what you need, for a man/country in debt is never free. This debt and credit based economy is just as an insane pyramid game where only the top players get anything out of it and the rest is losers left behind.
39. As a baby boomer I think we need to retool expectations. Our pensions may not be there for us after all and Social Security won’t feed my cat. What is best for the economy at large is not necessarily best for the individual household. Cash is king more than ever now and I plan on being prepared.
40. Buying a home as an investment is such a lie. People never consider how much money they will spend on utilities, equipment (washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, hot water tank, lighting, toilets, refrigerator, lawn mower), updates (carpeting/flooring, painting walls, foundation issues) or on simple maintenance like plumbing, electrical work, air conditioning/heating work or even keeping the yard mowed, watered, leaves raked, etc.
41. People have to save. They don’t know when their job will be the next to go.
42. The correction is the painful adjustment to restructure society to where it should have been all along. Now we will hopefully have enough grassroots companies that will start producing things that we really need. Or maybe we’ll see an influx in farmers or people growing their own food. And if we are producing anything, we need to market it for people abroad more than local consumption so we can bring new money into our economy.
43. My savings are up. I’m stashing every penny I have left from the job I just lost to cover my minimum credit card payments for as long as I can while I look for a new job. Can’t let the credit cards go unpaid because I’m essentially living off them at this point. I’m sad, discouraged, and very, very scared. Much love to those of you going through the same thing. SAVE!
44. Economic stimulus by putting money into unnecessary items, like flat screen tvs or $800 boots, will not help people who can’t afford medical insurance, can’t put food on the table, can’t pay for electricity, and certainly can’t pay for education for their kids, is NOT the answer. The American people need a bailout.
45. I have seen my annuities shrink by tens of thousands of dollars, and likewise, the value of my house. Of course I am not spending. I may never spend. One reason is that I am so ANGRY at the corporations. I am tired of being subjected to social engineering every time I enter a store, tired of cheap junk merchandise from China, tried of my government being bought instead of representing me, tired of the government being taken over by armband religion, tired of my healthcare, tired of lousy schools that are unaffordable, tired of the bailout which is really nothing but more robbery of the people, specifically, the middle class.
46. I have no representation, no free press, no recourse of any kind except not spending. So, by golly, I’m not spending. (It’s practice for when I won’t be able to spend anyway, because the government will end up with every last cent that I ever earned anyway.)
47. In our consumer economy, the consumer has been hung out to dry for the last 8 years, my food is poisoned, my toys imported with poison, our cars suck, our energy is too expensive and could costs could rise at any given moment, our officials are not prosecuted for breaking the law, ah la Bush Cheney, Rumsfeld, what else, we bailed out the banks, and they laid off our uncles aunts and children, and then will not loan any money to help the economy, these guys are still requesting foreign visa’s while they lay Americans off in droves, no Mr. banker, Mr. retail store, i will not spend my money with you, because you will not invest in our community, or our nation. Banks received billions of dollars, and simultaneously, continued to foreclose on millions of family homes, and homes of the elderly, the shame of America is on the faces of those recently made destitute.
48. Of course people are saving money, they see their neighbors lose jobs, their house is depreciating daily, and government is spending money like a drunken sailor, which everybody knows is going to fuel inflation. I am glad to see people save; the American people need to reclaim their financial freedom, not living as servants to America.
49. Our economy is built on continuous growth and consumer spending which can not be sustained. The way the markets look at it is all wrong. If you save money that should be good. That means people are not going into debt and can pay their bills. Instead a lack of debt seems to be BAD to these guys. Our whole system is broken. It needs a major overhaul!
50. WE ARE SUPPOSED TO SAVE MORE, NO ONE CARES OR IS DOING ANYTHING TO HELP CITIZENS AND WORKING PEOPLE, THEY JUST SUCK US DRY AND LAY US OFF AND HIRE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS OR THOSE ON VISAS TO TAKE OUR JOBS FOR LESS PAY, SO GUESS WHAT, I AM HOLDING ON TO EVERY DIME I CAN JUST LIKE THE BANKS AND AUTO MAKERS.
While the old way of “storming the fort” was applicable in that day and age to signal revolt, so this is modern America’s way, by us staging a “financial revolution”. Congress, American government, consider yourself notified. Americans are no longer “buying” the swampland, of buy, buy, buy, or, consume, consume, consume. It is now save, save, save yourself. Unless you start mailing out checks directly to the American people to help bail us out, to get us through this depression, expect it to go on for as long as it takes, to crash the system of the elite. You left us no other recourse. We are no longer a consumer nation; you heard it, first, from us…