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Two Top Republican Tax Writers Reveal Their Prejudice and Their Strategy
Because they have used the deficit to pay for a tax cut that blatantly favors the rich over the rest, Republicans have forfeited their ability to tell us what we can and can’t afford.
Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) (L) and Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) during a hearing on Capitol Hill April 3, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
On Saturday, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, a Republican from Iowa and member of the Senate’s tax writing committee, said this about repealing the estate tax:
“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”
A few days before that, the chair of the committee, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), said the following regarding Congress’s failure to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides Medicaid coverage to 9 million kids in low-income families.
“The reason CHIP’s having trouble is because we don’t have money anymore, and to just add more and more spending and more and more spending, and you can look at the rest of the bill for the more and more spending,” Hatch said.
Let us examine these statements in turn.
The pure meanness and inaccuracy of Grassley’s prejudicial, ignorant statement lit up the Twitterverse, as it should. There’s no correlation between the estate tax and investment. Its repeal is nothing more than a gift to a tiny sliver of rich heirs (only the richest 0.2 percent of estates are hit by the tax). But what I want to stress here is that his abhorrent words are clearly embedded in the tax policy he and his fellow Republicans are busy rushing to legislate.
The tax plan is written in such a way as to favor asset-based incomes, passive business investments and inherited wealth, and to penalize, once it’s fully phased in, those foolish enough to depend on their paychecks. If your income derives from your stock portfolio or your rich parent, this plan loves you. Otherwise, tough luck.
The mechanisms that push this tilt are the aforementioned repeal (House plan) or doubled exemption level (Senate plan) of the estate tax; the large cut in the corporate tax, as most of those benefits accrue to shareholders and corporate chief executives; the tax decrease on profits from high-end “pass-through” businesses such as hedge funds and real estate trusts (about 70 percent of pass-through income accrues to the top 1 percent of taxpayers); the elimination of domestic taxation on foreign earnings; and the ability of U.S. multinational companies to take years of deferred foreign earnings at a much reduced rate, a change that would save these companies an estimated $500 billion. All of the above significantly raise the value of nonlabor income.
Meanwhile, the phasing out of the individual tax cuts and the Senate’s repeal of the individual health-care mandate end up costing low-income households — who, of course, disproportionately depend on their paychecks — as shown in the figure below.
It’s awful enough for Grassley to spout such ignorance. But the worse crime was to embed it in tax policy.
Turning to Hatch’s statement, I cannot state the following adamantly enough:
Because they have used the deficit to pay for a tax cut that blatantly favors the rich over the rest, Republicans have forfeited their ability to tell us what we can and can’t afford.
Of course, they will continue to make that argument, as Hatch himself has, along with many of his colleagues. But do not forget this: They could have made their tax plan revenue-neutral. They decided not to, and they further decided, based on their revealed preferences, that the parts that help middle- and low-income families should expire, while those that help the rich should live on forever (see figure above).
Supporters of the plan say they’ll never let that happen. They claim future policymakers will extend those cuts scheduled to expire. Maybe they will; maybe they won’t. But if they do, that will add another $500 billion to the federal debt, which will only amplify their calls for more spending cuts.
For decades, the Republicans have employed deficit-induced fearmongering as a reason to oppose any ideas from Democrats. They never stop caterwauling about the unsustainability of our social insurance and safety-net programs. But their deficit-financed gift to wealthy asset holders belies such posturing. Affordability is a choice, and they’ve shown whose side they’re choosing.
All of which leaves us with a terrible, and terribly revealing, tax plan.
Jared Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and previously served as an economic advisor to the Obama administration.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks with the media after a news conference in Dirksen Building on the tax reform bill on November 30, 2017. (Photo: Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call)
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has a plan: To get rid of nasty deficits, he says, all we need to do is "grow the economy, cut spending." Under this tax plan, only one of those is likely to become a reality.
Republicans say that the tax plan currently working its way through the House and Senate is supposed to accomplish that first goal: growing the economy. It won't succeed. Evidence suggests that the tax plan is highly unlikely to create more than a trickle of growth, and that that growth will stay snugly right where the tax plan is putting it: with corporations and billionaires.
The next step, according to Ryan, is cutting spending. And while Congress hasn't gotten that far yet, the agenda is clear. If a version of the tax plan passes, the next major item of business in Congress will likely include major cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Read My Lips: No New Jobs
The entire tax plan is built around one premise: that cutting taxes causes the economy to grow and creates jobs. The problem is, this doesn't appear to be true.
This time, "welfare reform" won't just target low-income mothers; it will mean drastic cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
A study from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business found that additional economic growth due to the tax plan would be miniscule -- less than a tenth of a percent per year in the near term. That's not the kind of growth the economy needs to produce more, or better-paying jobs.
Meanwhile, a study from the Institute for Policy Studies found that corporations that paid lower tax rates actually cut jobs -- while passing the gains on in the form of higher CEO pay.
Stuck with more or less regular economic growth, the massive tax cuts will just add to the nation's debt. The nonpartisan Joint Committee for Taxation found last week that under the original Senate tax plan, the United States will be left with an additional $1 trillion in debt. By some estimates, that debt would be even higher.
This is not a particularly partisan assessment for those who aren't currently in Congress. As the bipartisan duo Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles recently wrote in the Washington Post, "Economic growth isn't going to wash away this debt."
Welfare Reform Redux: Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security at Risk
As President Trump told supporters at a rally in Missouri, "We're going to go into welfare reform." What he didn't say was that this time, "welfare reform" won't just target low-income mothers; it will mean drastic cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
The increased national debt gives the perfect political cover for cutting social programs.
The president has support among his party in the Senate and House: former presidential candidate and Sen. Marco Rubio, Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patrick Toomey have all spoken about -- or refused to deny -- the intention to bring about massive spending cuts as Act II of their agenda.
The tax plan is an important key to this momentum toward bringing back "welfare reform," which, of course, wasn't a good idea the first time, either (and which still seems to bring out many of the ugliest stereotypes about poverty). The House and Senate versions of the tax bill have one big thing in common: adding significantly to the national debt.
It may seem counterintuitive at first, but to "small-government" types, this is a dream come true. The increased national debt gives the perfect political cover for cutting social programs. And this reform won't be limited to traditional welfare programs for struggling parents, which in 2016 amounted to less than half a percent of the total federal budget. Instead, lawmakers will take direct aim at the social programs where the most money is spent, and upon which the most Americans rely: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
For starters, there are cuts that will take place to these programs even if Congress takes the rest of the year off after they pass this tax plan. These are the result of deficit-reducing mechanisms enacted under a 2010 law that would kick in to the tune of a $25 billion cut to Medicare this fiscal year, even without congressional action. Sen. Mitch McConnell has said that Congress won't let that happen, but it's not clear that he can deliver on that promise.
Even if Congress doesn't permit automatic cuts to Medicare as a result of its tax plan, members have openly said that they'll be back to cut programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Cuts to these programs are highly unpopular among both Republican and Democratic voters, and as a candidate, Trump campaigned on promises to keep them intact. However, current signals from congressional leaders, and Trump himself, are that he will break those promises.
The House and Senate bills amount to a tax cut for the rich that will be paid for by the poor.
The Non-Repeal Repeal of the Affordable Care Act
The Senate version of the tax plan has a provision that repeals a foundation of the Affordable Care Act: the individual insurance mandate.
Insurance markets only work if some healthy people pay into the system to cover the costs for those who get sick. By getting rid of the individual mandate, the Senate tax plan will encourage some currently healthy people to skip health insurance -- making the costs go up for everyone who chooses to stay insured.
According to a nonpartisan estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, this one change would result in 13 million Americans losing health insurance over the next decade -- and those who have insurance can expect their premiums to go up by 10 percent.
The House version of the bill doesn't include the individual mandate repeal. Thus, one of the biggest questions about any final legislation is whether it will include this attack on the Affordable Care Act.
Don't Look Behind the Curtain: It's Not About the Money
While congressional leaders bemoan the expense of Social Security and Medicare -- which do cost a lot, at $982 billion and $604 billion respectively in 2016 -- don't expect them to mention in the same breath that they have voted to increase the military budget to $700 billion.
Each of the differences between the House and Senate versions represents an opportunity to limit the damage this tax plan can do, or possibly to derail it entirely.
Apparently, some things are worth paying for. Those things would include the F-35 jet fighter, an ill-fated and never-used jet that pro-military Sen. John McCain has called "a tragedy and a scandal," and slated to cost nearly $11 billion this year. They'd also include a $20 billion annual bill for nuclear weapons, as well as total payments to for-profit corporations likely to be in the neighborhood of $300 billion.
This should clear up any confusion about what supporters of the tax plan and spending cuts are after. It's not about the money; it's about priorities.
House vs. Senate: It's Not Over Until It's Over
The House and Senate still need to bridge their differences. Here are a few high-stakes differences:
• The Senate version includes the repeal of the individual health insurance mandate under the Affordable Care Act, which would result in 13 million Americans losing health insurance. The House version does not currently include this provision.
• The House version treats graduate student tuition as regular income -- even though graduate students never actually receive this money, and can't use it to buy housing, food or anything except an education. The Senate version does not include this provision.
• The House version gets rid of the estate tax -- which is paid by , with values over $10 million for couples. The Senate version raises the limit on which estate taxes must be paid, but keeps the tax.
Each of these differences -- among others -- represents an opportunity to limit the damage this tax plan can do, or possibly to derail it entirely.
The tax plan is astoundingly unpopular: just 25 percent of voters approve of it. Activists are working around the clock to defeat this legislation, with feet on the ground and nonstop calls to House and Senate offices. These efforts will continue until the last vote is cast.
Even if one of these tax plans does pass both the House and Senate, this activist work will continue. Efforts to reverse the damage will, and must, grow. A bill this unpopular, that benefits only corporations and billionaires, is not built to last.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Lindsay Koshgarian is program director of the National Priorities Project, working for a federal budget that prioritizes peace, shared prosperity and economic opportunity for all.
Help Massachusetts Peace Action celebrate the holidays with a house party concert presented by Hassan El-Tayyab. Help us raise money to support our work for peace and justice, and enjoy some great music while you’re doing it!
Hassan El-Tayyab is a native of Plymouth, Mass. and is the Policy and Organizing Director with our sister organization, Chicago Area Peace Action. Read about Hassan and listen to his tunes at the American Nomad website.
Max of 50 people can be accommodated in this private home. Contact the Mass. Peace Action office or pre-reserve for event address. Wine, beer and snacks will be served – potluck dishes are also welcomed.
Hassan El-Tayyab is front man of the band American Nomad and an award winning singer songwriter. He was honored as a finalist in the 2017 Telluride Troubadour Song Competition, for best vocal performance in the 2013 Berkeley Old Time Music Competition, as a finalist in the 2011 Internationl songwriting competition, and was recognized in the 2013 and 2011 Rocky Mountain Folk Festival Songwriter Competition. Rooted in Americana and folk/swing traditions, his carefully crafted original music maintains a modern relevance. Smart songwriting, catchy lyrics, tight rhythms, rich harmonies, and strong musicianship have already earned Hassan a reputation as a musician that can intrigue listeners from a wide variety of musical tastes and backgrounds. Keeping in line with the ancient troubadour tradition, his music draws from the spirit of travel and authentic life experience.
Hassan El-Tayyab and his group American Nomad has performed at some of the country’s finest acoustic venues and festivals including the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Strawberry Music Festival, the Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival, the Independent, The Chapel, Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse, Slim’s and Ashkenaz. In addition, American Nomad has appeared on the radio several times including interviews with Dave Iverson from KQED Forum, KPFA’s America’s Back 40 with Mary Tilson, and KPFA’s Music of the World with Joanna Manqueros. The have also been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, American Songwriter Magazine, Acoustic Guitar Magazine, and were featured on NPR’s Folk Alley. Last but not least, American Nomad’s critically acclaimed album Country Mile was produced by Grammy nominated producer and IBMA winner Laurie Lewis.
In The Age Of A Cold Civil War-Immigrant Or Citizen- Know Your Rights From The ACLU-Short Course
Comment
In the age of Trump no matter how many generations you and yours have been here in America the beginning of wisdom is to know your rights such as they are and who to contact if they “come in the morning” for you and yours.
Holidays are tough times for political prisoners- show your support for those inside the walls so that they know they do not stand alone
We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind-Don’t Prosecute The Truth
Winner, a recent Air Force veteran, has been charged under the Espionage Act, a 100-year-old statute originally designed for spies and saboteurs aiding foreign governments in time of war, for allegedly giving a document vital to the public’s understanding of potential Russian interference in U.S. election systems to a news organization. (Information which is in the news every day as Trump agents fall all over themselves to lie about their involvement. She faces up ten years and a $250, 000 fine. She is now scheduled for trial in Augusta, Georgia in March, 2018.
The charge against Winner is grossly disproportionate to her alleged offense, and is designed to create a chilling effect on investigative journalism by dissuading sources from sharing information that is critical to the public interest. We are dedicated to raising public awareness of Winner’s case especially since the federal magistrate judge down in Augusta denied her bail-again in October (which is being appealed)- and in light of the U.S. government’s persistent abuse of the Espionage Act to silence its critics and stifle journalism.
For more information-Goggle Stand With Reality or Courage To Resist (the same organization that led the fight to free Wiki-leaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning)
In Harvard Square Cambridge, Ma Wednesday December 13th 5 PM to 6 PM we will have our fourth stand-out in defense of whistle-blower Reality Leigh Winner-The Committee For International Labor Defense-Smedley Butler Brigade - Veterans for Peace (labor donated)
On The 150th Anniversary Of Marx's "Das Capital"-"Slavery, Plunder and the Rise of Capitalism"
Workers Vanguard No. 1116
25 August 2017
TROTSKY
LENIN
Slavery, Plunder and the Rise of Capitalism
(Quote of the Week)
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Karl Marx’s seminal work, Capital, in which he laid bare the workings of the capitalist mode of production. In the excerpts below, Marx explains the key role that slavery, pillage and conquest played in the primitive accumulation of capital by the European powers.
The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre....
The colonies secured a market for the budding manufactures, and, through the monopoly of the market, an increased accumulation. The treasures captured outside Europe by undisguised looting, enslavement, and murder, floated back to the mother-country and were there turned into capital....
Whilst the cotton industry introduced child slavery in England, it gave in the United States a stimulus to the transformation of the earlier, more or less patriarchal slavery, into a system of commercial exploitation. In fact, the veiled slavery of the wage workers in Europe needed, for its pedestal, slavery pure and simple in the new world.
Tantae molis erat [so great was the effort required], to establish the “eternal laws of Nature” of the capitalist mode of production, to complete the process of separation between labourers and conditions of labour, to transform, at one pole, the social means of production and subsistence into capital, at the opposite pole, the mass of the population into wage labourers, into “free labouring poor,” that artificial product of modern society. If money, according to Augier, “comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,” capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.
The Partisan Defense Committee’s annual Holiday Appeal raises funds for its program of sending monthly stipends to class-war prisoners. The PDC’s stipend program revives a tradition of the early American Communist Party’s International Labor Defense. James P. Cannon was the ILD’s first secretary, a Communist Party leader and later the founder of American Trotskyism. In motivating support for those who have been imprisoned for taking the side of the working class and oppressed, he stressed that such support is not charity but an elementary act of solidarity.
The New York Times, the organ of big business, is making its annual plea for contributions for Christmas to the “100 Neediest Cases.” Other capitalist papers and organizations are conducting similar drives. The men, women and children of the working class, who have been on the rack of capitalist exploitation and are now dropped into the abyss of misery and poverty, are chosen and classified by these arch hypocrites—so their sanctimonious appeal can be made to the comfortable capitalists, to soften the bitterness of these few workers with the insult of charity, and to salve their own conscience by acts of “generosity.”
This horrible farce is annually repeated in scores of other cities.
The militant workers have nothing but hatred and contempt for such appeals and drives. This year, therefore, they are again following the world-wide custom that has developed in the ranks of the working class for many years. It is the custom of raising a special fund for the men in prison for the labor cause and their wives and children, of transforming the hypocritical spirit of Christmas into the spirit of solidarity with the class-war fighters behind bars.
The International Labor Defense has already started a campaign for a Christmas Fund for the men in prison, and their dependents who suffer on the outside. The labor militants throughout the entire country are working to collect this fund. Nowhere has the appeal or the response been made on the basis of charity. Everywhere has been emphasized the duty of those who are outside toward the men on the inside....
The men in prison are still a part of the living class movement. The Christmas Fund drive of International Labor Defense is a means of informing them that the workers of America have not forgotten their duty toward the men to whom we are all linked by bonds of solidarity. It is the Christmas drive of Labor and must have its generous support!
—James P. Cannon, “A Christmas Fund of Our Own,” Daily Worker, 17 October 1927, reprinted in Notebook of an Agitator (Pathfinder Press, 1973)
An Encore -Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- When The Music’s Over-On The Anniversary Of Janis Joplin’s Death-Magical Realism 101
From The Pen Of Sam Lowell
Scene: Brought to mind by the cover art on some deep fogged memory producing, maybe acid-etched flashback memory at the time, accompanying CD booklet tossed aside on the coffee table by a guy from the old days, the old New York University days, Jeff Mackey, who had been visiting Sarah, Josh Breslin’s wife of the moment. Jeff had just placed the CD on the CD player, the intricacies of fine-tuned down-loading from YouTube beyond anybody’s stoned capacity just then and so the “primitive” technology (stoned as in “turned on,” doped up, high if you like just like in the old days as well although Josh had gone to State U not NYU but the times were such that such transactions were universal and the terms “pass the bong” and “don’t bogart that join” had passed without comment). Don’t take that “wife of the moment” too seriously either since that was a standing joke between Sarah and Josh (not Joshua, Joshua was dad, the late Joshua Breslin, Jr.) since in a long life they had managed five previous marriages (three by him, two by her) and scads of children and two scads of grandchildren (who had better not see this piece since grandma and grandpa have collectively expended many jaws-full hours of talkabout the danger of demon drugs, the devil’s work even if only with a half-hearted sincerity since they fully expected that those younger kids like their own kids would experiment, would "puff the magic dragon" and then move on).
When Josh had picked up that tossed aside booklet he noticed awispy, blue-jeaned, blouse hanging off one shoulder, bare-foot, swirling mass of red hair, down home Janis Joplin-like female performer belting out some serious blues rock in the heat of the “Generation of ‘68” night. (The Generation of "68 designation a term of art among the brethren still standing who had faced down that seminal year in the history of the 1960s, some calling it the ebb tide year although Josh had pushed that forward over the years to 1971 the year when they had utterly failed to shut down the government if it would not shut the Vietnam War.) The woman maybe kin to Janis, maybe not, but certainly brethren who looked uncannily like his first ex-wife, Laura, who had taught him many little sex things learned from a trip to India and close attention to the Kama Sutra which he had passed on to everybody thereafter including Sarah. And no again don’t take that wistful though about Laura as anything but regret since their civil wars had passed a long time before and beside Laura had not been heard from since the time she went down to Rio and was presumably shacked up with some dope king or diamond king or something probably still earning her keep with those little India tricks. (Strange to think that straight-laced Forest Lawn-raised Laura knew all the tricks that some courtesans would blush at sine a look at her would say virgin until marriage. No way.
Still looking at the tantalizing artwork Josh thought of the time of our time, passed. Of wistful women belting out songs, band backed-up and boozed-up, probably Southern Comfort if the dough was tight and there had been ginger ale or ice to cut the sweet taste or if it was late and if the package store was short of some good cutting whiskey, but singing, no, better evoking, yes, evoking barrelhouse down-trodden black empresses and queens from somewhere beyond speaking troubled times, a no good man taking up with that no good best girlfriendof hers who drew a bee-line to him when that empress advertised his charms, no job, no prospect of a job and then having to go toe to toe with that damn rent collector man on that flattened damn mattress that kept springing holes, maybe no roof over a head and walking the streets picking up tricks to pass the time, no pocket dough, no prospects and a ton of busted dreams in some now forgotten barrelhouse, chittlin’ circuit bowling alley complete with barbecued ribs smoking out back or in a downtown “colored” theater. Or the echo of that scene, okay. Jesus, maybe he had better kick that dope thing before he actually did start heading to Rio.
*******
Josh Breslin (a. k. a. the Prince of Love, although some merry prankster yellow brick road bus wit made a joke of that moniker calling him the Prince of Lvov, some Podunk town in Poland, or someplace like that, maybe Russia he was not sure of the geography all he knew was that he had made a wag wiggle a little for his indiscretion) was weary, weary as hell, road- weary, drug-weary, Captain Crunch’s now Big Sur–based magical mystery tour, merry prankster, yellow brick road bus-weary, weary even of hanging out with his “papa,” “Far-Out” Phil Larkin who had gotten him through some pretty rough spots weary. Hell, he was girl-weary too, girl weary ever since his latest girlfriend, Gypsy Lady (nee Phyllis McBride but in a time when everyone in youth nation was shedding "slave" names the moniker of the day or week was the way that you identified most fellow travelers-that was just the way it was and kind of nice when you thought about it-wouldn't you rather be Moonbeam than some Susan something), decided that she just had to go back to her junior year of college at Berkeley in order to finish up some paper on the zodiac signs and their meaning for the new age rising. Yeah, okay Gypsy, do what you have to do, the Prince mused to himself. Chuckled really, term paper stuff was just not his “thing” right then. Hell, he had dropped out of State U, dropped out of Laura Perkin’s life, dropped out of everything to chase the Western arroyo desert ocean washed dream that half his generation was pursuing just then.
Moreover this summer of 1968, June to be exact, after a year bouncing between summers of love, 1967 version to be exact, autumns of drugs, strange brews of hyper-colored experience drugs and high shamanic medicine man aztec druid flame throws, winters of Paseo Robles brown hills discontent, brown rolling hills until he sickened of rolling, the color brown, hills, slopes, plains, everything, and springs of political madness what with Johnson’s resignation, Robert Kennedy’s assassination piled on to that of Martin Luther King’s had taken a lot out of him, including his weight, weight loss that his already slim former high school runner’s frame could not afford.
Now the chickens had come home to roost. Before he had joined Captain Crunch’s merry prankster crew in San Francisco, got “on the bus,” in the youth nation tribal parlance, last summer he had assumed, after graduating from high school, that he would enter State U in the fall (University of Maine, the Prince is nothing but a Mainiac, Olde Saco section, for those who did not know). After a summer of love with Butterfly Swirl though before she went back to her golden-haired surfer boy back down in Carlsbad (his temperature rose even now every time he thought about her and her cute little tricks to get him going sexually and she had never heard of the Kama Sutra) and then a keen interest in a couple of other young women before Gypsy Lady landed on him, some heavy drug experiences that he was still trying to figure out, his start–up friendship with Phil, and the hard fact that he just did not want to go home now that he had found “family” decided that he needed to “see the world” for a while instead. And he had, at least enough to weary him.
What he did not figure on, or what got blasted into the deep recesses of his brain just a couple of days ago, was a letter from his parents with a draft notice from his local board enclosed. Hell’s bells he had better get back, weary or not, and get some school stuff going real fast, right now fast. There was one thing for sure, one nineteen-year old Joshua Lawrence Breslin, Olde Saco, Maine High School Class of 1967, was not going with some other class of young men to ‘Nam to be shot at, or to shoot.
Funny, Josh thought, as he mentally prepared himself for the road back to Olde Saco, how the past couple of months had just kind of drifted by and that he really was ready to get serious. The only thing that had kind of perked him up lately was Ruby Red Lips (nee Sandra Kelly), who had just got “on the bus” from someplace down South like Georgia, or Alabama and who had a great collection of blues records that he was seriously getting into (as well as seriously into Miss Ruby, as he called her as a little bait, a little come on bait, playing on her somewhere south drawl, although she seemed slow, very slow, to get his message).
Josh, all throughout high school and even on the bus, was driven by rock ‘n’ roll. Period. Guys like Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, even a gal like Wanda Jackson, when they were hungry, and that hunger not only carried them to the stars but slaked some weird post-World War II, red scare, cold war hunger in guys like Josh Breslin although he never, never in a million years would have articulated it that way back then. That was infernal Captain Crunch’s work (Captain was the “owner” of the “bus” and a story all his own but that is for another time) always trying to put things in historical perspective or the exact ranking in some mythical pantheon that he kept creating (and recreating especially after a “dip” of Kool-Aid, LSD for the squares, okay).
But back to Ruby love. He got a surprise one day when he heard Ruby playing Shake, Rattle, and Roll. He asked, “Is that Carl Perkins?” Ruby laughed, laughed a laugh that he found appealing and he felt was meant to be a little coquettish and said, “No silly, that's the king of be-bop blues, Big Joe Turner. Want to hear more stuff?” And that was that. Names like Skip James, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters and Little Walter started to fill his musical universe.
What got him really going though were the women singers, Sippie Wallace that someone, Bonnie Raitt or Maria Muldaur, had found in old age out in some boondock church social or something, mad Bessie Smith squeezed dry, freeze-dried by some no account Saint Louis man and left wailing, empty bed, gin house wailing ever after, a whole bunch of other barrelhouse blues-singers named Smith, Memphis Minnie, the queen of the double entendre, sex version, with her butcher, baker, candlestick-maker men, doing, well doing the do, okay, and the one that really, really got to him, “Big Mama” Thornton. The latter belting out a bluesy rendition of Hound Dog made just for her that made Elvis' seem kind of punk, and best of all a full-blast Piece Of My Heart.
Then one night Ruby took him to club over in Monterrey just up the road from the Big Sur merry prankster yellow bus camp, the Blue Note, a club for young blues talent, mainly, that was a stepping-stone to getting some work at the Monterrey Pop Festival held each year. There he heard, heard if you can believe this, some freckled, red-headed whiskey-drinking off the hip girl (or maybe some cheap gin or rotgut Southern Comfort, cheap and all the in between rage for those saving their dough for serious drugs).
Ya just a wisp of a girl, wearing spattered blue-jeans, some damn moth-eaten tee-shirt, haphazardly tie-dyed by someone on a terminal acid trip, barefoot, from Podunk, Texas, or maybe Oklahoma, (although he had seen a fair share of the breed in Fryeburg Fair Maine) who was singing Big Mama’s Piece of My Heart. And then Ball and Chain, Little School Girl, and Little Red Rooster.
Hell, she had the joint jumping until the early hours for just as long as guys kept putting drinks in front of her. And maybe some sweet sidle promise, who knows in that alcohol blaze around three in the morning. All Josh knew was this woman, almost girlish except for her sharp tongue and that eternal hardship voice, that no good man, no luck except bad luck voice, that spoke of a woman’s sorrow back to primordial times, had that certain something, that something hunger that he recognized in young Elvis and the guys. And that something Josh guessed would take them over the hump into that new day they were trying to create on the bus, and a thousand other buses like it. What a night, what a blues singer.
The next day Ruby Red Lips came over to him, kind of perky and kind of with that just slightly off-hand look in her eye that he was getting to catch on to when a girl was interested in him, and said, “Hey, Janis, that singer from the Blue Note, is going to be at Monterrey Pops next month with a band to back her up, want to go? And, do you want to go to the Blue Note with me tonight?” After answering, yes, yes, to both those questions the Prince of Love (and not some dinky Lvov either, whoever that dull-wit was) figured he could go back to old life Olde Saco by late August, sign up for State U., and still be okay but that he had better grab Ruby now while he could.
