Category Archives: Corporations

The cost of tax cuts.

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Everybody complains about paying taxes.  But Republicans and Teabaggers have turned their complaints into an art form.  Indeed, just last week, they were whining that the Obama administration allowed a number of Bush-era tax cuts to lapse.  Yet these people are the first to complain when our government entities don’t work as they expect.  Somehow, they seem incapable of seeing the connection. 

For the past 40-plus years, Republicans have been cutting taxes on the wealthiest U.S. citizens and U.S. corporations.  They’ve even cut estate taxes (the so-called death tax). 

All of this tax-cutting has had a profound effect on our infrastructure. 

Except in our largest cities, our highways haven’t been substantially improved since the 50s and 60s.  As evidenced by the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, many of our nation’s bridges are in woeful repair.  Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t Hurricane Katrina that caused the disaster in New Orleans.  It was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s archaic levee system.   And in California, another levee system responsible for much of Los Angeles’ water is eroding making it highly vulnerable to a catastrophic event. 

Our electric grid needs to be replaced.   Many of our largest cities’ sewer systems are collapsing.  Security at our airports is incapable of stopping all terrorists, and the security for our ports is much worse.  Our schools are falling behind those in many other nations.  And, unlike most wealthy nations, we can’t provide basic health care to all of our citizens (although that is, hopefully, about to change).

What’s the reaction of Republicans when faced with these facts?  Not surprisingly, they merely call for more tax cuts.

Campaign donations and lobbying are paying off for health care.

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Health care related businesses have long been the biggest spenders in politics.  The AMA, American Hospital Association, Pharma, and insurance companies have donated millions to Congressional, Senatorial and Presidential campaigns.  They have a massive collection of lobbyists.  And it’s working.

Purdue Pharma, Aetna and The Hartford have all generously contributed to Joe Lieberman’s election campaigns.  And when it came time to vote on health care reform, Joe hijacked the Senate bill, threatening to join a Republican filibuster unless the public option was removed.  The biggest contributors to Senator Ben Nelson’s campaigns have included insurance and health care professionals, and now he wants to stop the bill over abortion language.  Senator Max Baucus who presided over the gang of 6 that removed some of the strongest elements of the House bill is backed by insurance, health professionals and pharmaceuticals.  The list goes on…and on. 

I admire the efforts by President Obama and the dozens of Democratic Senators and Congressional Representatives who have fought so hard to reform health care.  It’s desperately needed.  But with Republicans determined to block any health care reform and the health care industry flexing the muscle gained by contributing millions to elected officials, it’s unlikely that any substantive health care reform will ever reach the President’s desk. 

Even if it does, it’s likely to benefit the health care industry more than our citizens. 

Why the recession is our own damn fault.

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Sure, it was the greed of mortgage-lenders and Wall Street that led to our recession.  But it’s consumers that are perpetuating it.  Most economists will tell you that recessions are mostly in the consumers’ minds.  If consumers are worried and reduce spending, our economy drops.  When consumers start spending, our economy rises.

Now, I understand that there are several overriding issues that led to this particular recession, not the least of which is the redistribution of wealth upward (10 percent of Americans now control nearly 71 percent of all U.S. assets).  Nevertheless, we have the power to fix it.

For one, we can vote for political candidates who are more concerned about ordinary citizens than the wealthy and the corporations that finance their political campaigns.

When possible, we can purchase American-made products.  Not just products with American brands, but products that actually say “made in America” on the product or the packaging.  I understand that it’s increasingly difficult to find American-made products, and that they sometimes cost more than those made elsewhere, but there is no better way to create or ensure American jobs.  For example, a Chevrolet or Ford is not only assembled in the U.S. by American workers, many of the parts are made in the U.S. and the profits go to American-based companies that pay taxes in the U.S.   This isn’t protectionism.  It’s simply common sense.

Finally, we can individually and collectively boycott corporations that don’t operate in our best interests.  Given their recent behavior, why would anyone continue to patronize the too-big-to-fail banks when there are so many other alternatives?  So even if you feel that voting for political candidates doesn’t change anything.  Voting with your purchases most definitely can.

Corporate loan sharking.

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Having read that credit card companies are increasing interest rates, I began to wonder: What separates our financial institutions from the Sicilian Mafia, the Chinese Tongs or anyone else imprisoned for loan-sharking? They all charge outrageous interest rates on loans. They all have aggressive collection tactics. And many of them have politicians in their pockets.

The main difference, of course, is that the banks have incorporated as financial institutions. This allows the banks and credit card companies to borrow money from the Federal Reserve at a discount rate that’s currently .05 percent. Then they lend it at interest rates ranging from 20 to more than 45 percent! Not even casinos enjoy that kind of return. But, then, casinos are regulated.

For those of you under age of 50, you might be interested to learn that all financial institutions used to be governed by usury laws designed to prevent the lending of money at unreasonably high interest rates. State banks still are. Unfortunately, usury laws no longer apply to banks that label themselves “national”. The result is that large banks such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Chase can charge pretty much any interest rate they want.

And they want a lot.

Of course, they justify their rates by claiming that consumer default is on the rise.

There are several problems with that claim. One, the managers of these companies pay themselves 6- or 7-figure bonuses. Two, it was their greed that led to an economy that has forced consumer defaults. And three, it was the government, financed by you and I, that kept these companies from going bankrupt.

If our Congress ever decides to put the interests of taxpayers above corporations, the corporate officers that run national banks might have even more in common with the Mafia and the Tongs – a prison cell.

The no-it-all party.

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As Republicans continue to attack President Obama over the lousy economy they, themselves, created, it becomes painfully obvious that they have no compassion, no ideas, no shame and no clue.  They keep serving up the same failed theories and rhetoric that got us into this mess. 

In their minds, the economy would recover if only the Democrats would provide more tax cuts for the wealthy.  At the same time, Republicans are attempting to stonewall any attempts at regulating Wall Street or reforming the runaway health insurance industry.  In their view, the “free” market and deregulation are cure-alls for anything that ails our economy.

But before anyone wants to sign onto their Reagan-inspired trickle-down economic theories, let’s look at what this kind of thinking has brought us over the last 30 years of Republican leadership:

1 – More than 14 million Americans are currently unemployed, and Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben Bernanke blames the continuing high level of unemployment on the too-big-to-fail banks for failing to make loans to small businesses, the engine that drives our economy. 

2 – 49 million Americans, including 17 million children, currently lack adequate, consistent access to food. 

3 – The VA estimates that 131,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and 18 veterans commit suicide every single day. 

4 – Nearly 47 million Americans lack health insurance.  Of those, nearly 45,000, including 2,266 veterans, die each year for lack of access to health care. 

5 – In what used to be a sight seen only in third world nations, thousands of American citizens have stood in line for free health care because they lack insurance.  More than 8,000 stood in line to receive health care in Los Angeles alone.  Many were turned away.  1,000 recently stood in line for free health care in New Orleans and there are similar free clinics scheduled in Little Rock, Kansas City and other U.S. cities.

These are not the kind of problems that will be solved by more tax cuts for the wealthy or further deregulation of our greedy, ship-the-jobs-off-shore industries.  They require substantial commitments of tax dollars, along with fresh ideas and political will, neither of which are currently available from the Republican Party.

Who’s really at fault for our nation’s predicament?

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Who is more at fault for the problems that face our nation?  Republican candidates?  Or the voters who are deceived into voting for them?  During campaigns, Republican candidates take a populist tone.  They talk about the issues that are important to ordinary Americans such as opportunity and personal freedom.  But when they are elected, they tend to focus almost exclusively on issues designed to benefit the elite. 

Despite promises of fiscal responsibility, Reagan and George W. Bush dramatically increase the deficit and national debt.  Despite promises of small government, Bush created the huge bureaucracy that is Homeland Defense.  And the Republican mantra of lower taxes has really proven to be nonsense.  They may occasionally offer a token tax cut for the middle and lower class, but the real cuts are reserved for the wealthy.   Republicans talk about creating jobs then make it easier for corporations to eliminate collective bargaining and ship jobs oversees.  They talk about getting government regulations out of the way then watch corporations create new scams to abscond with more of their consumers’ money. 

Why, then, do voters fall for these false promises over and over?  Often it’s because they aren’t curious enough to really examine the party’s platform and hold the candidates accountable.  And all too often it’s because they focus on a variety of wedge issues such as abortion, terrorism and same-sex marriage.  They fall victim to a sort of 3 card monte.  They’re mesmorized by the Republican distractions of fear, anger and religion.

How many lower and middle class voters actually benefited from Reaganomics?  How many benefited from George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism?”  I submit that instead of jobs, increased salaries and tax cuts, they were rewarded for their votes with war, massive deficits and decreased prosperity.  But the real Republican constituency consisting of CEOs, bankers, investors, oil executives and defense contractors is doing just fine, thank you.

The Bush Legacy: America in Decline

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A few weeks ago, economists Martin Wolf and Robert Shiller appeared on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN.  They said, “It is now clear that the Obama team has helped avert a complete meltdown of our financial markets.  But they warned that one of the greatest dangers facing our nation is the growing economic disparity between the rich and the poor.”  They went on to say, “This could create a country in which not even those with a great deal of money will want to live.”

There are other troubling effects of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation and the Republican Party’s stubborn adherence to trickle-down economics. 

Although he draws no conclusions relative to party politics, Rick Newman talks about warning signs of American decline in a story published by U.S. News & World Report.  In the story he states, “…real household income in America has flat-lined, which means many middle-class families are barely keeping up with inflation. The exploding federal deficit hamstrings the government’s ability to help. Healthcare is too expensive, America’s manufacturing base is eroding, and two open-ended foreign wars are draining the national treasury.”

Newman goes on to point out that the annual “prosperity index“ published by Legatum Institute, a London-based research firm, now ranks the U.S. as the ninth most prosperous country in the world.  The same study ranks the United States 27th for the health of its citizens, a statistic that is all the more disturbing given the fact that we spend far more on healthcare per person than any other nation.

According to Newman’s article, the U.S. poverty rate of 17 percent ranks third worst among advanced nations above only Turkey and Mexico.  And since our future depends on the education of our youth, there is more disturbing news.  American 15-year-olds score below average among advanced nations on math and science.

There is one glimmer of positive news:  Newman points out that, according to a GfK Roper survey of how nations are viewed by others, “America rocketed from No. 7 in 2008 to No. 1 in 2009, largely because the world cheered the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president.”

The return of Dick Vader?

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Liz Cheney has stated that she hopes her father will run for President in 2012.  Even allowing for the admiration that a daughter naturally feels toward her father, I have to respond, “Are you out of your @%#^ing mind?! “

This week’s most popular movie at the box office is a disaster epic entitled “2012” which portrays the end of the Earth.  If Dick Cheney were to be elected President, reality could well be more awful than fiction. 

Just imagine, in a Cheney presidency, there would no namby-pamby diplomacy with other nations.  No dithering with our enemies.  Indeed, we’d likely attack every nation that wouldn’t kowtow to Cheney.  We’d treat all Americans as suspected terrorists and spy on their phone calls and emails.  We’d jail our political enemies and hold them for years without trial.  We’d cut taxes on the rich.  We’d virtually eliminate taxes on large corporations.  We’d transfer even more wealth to our overlords.  We’d conduct all government business with no-bid contracts.  We’d privatize our military.  We’d politicize everything.  And we’d centralize all power in the executive branch. 

Wait!   Isn’t that what happened when Cheney was running the country with Bush as a figurehead?

The Chamber of (Republican) Commerce.

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Recently, the CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was interviewed on NPR.  He went to great lengths to convince listeners that the Chamber is bi-partisan. 

That’s a little difficult to believe since the Chamber seems to support every single Republican position.  Indeed, when I once did some work for the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber proudly hosted speeches by each of the Republican candidates for Governor.  It refused to allow the Democratic candidate to speak to its members.  And, of course, the Chamber endorsed a Republican.

The U.S. Chamber is now spending $300,000 a day on network TV commercials to kill health care reform using the scare tactics that are so favored by Republicans and the insurance industry.  That alone is not terribly surprising, or revealing.  What IS revealing is the commercial’s voiceover.  Although I don’t know his name, the voiceover talent is the very same one used in every single attack ad for the Republican National Committee.  You know, the guy who, sounding like the voice of darkness, asks you to call your representatives and tell them “we just can’t afford health care reform” or whatever scary legislation the Democrats have proposed today.  Whenever, wherever Republicans want to verbally attack an idea, they use his voice. 

The choice of the voice talent is no coincidence.  It indicates that the Chamber is working in concert with the Republican Party.  If the Chamber really wanted to keep the appearance (or at least the sound) of bi-partisanship, it should have selected another voice to try to scare us.  

The Chamber claims to represent more than 3 million members (the number is actually 200,000) and small businesses as well as large corporations.   Yet, almost without exception, the positions endorsed by the Chamber benefit large corporations and the Republican Party at the expense of small businesses and entrepreneurs.  The Chamber’s position on health care reform is no different.

Are you feeling “entitled?”

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For many years, the Republican Party has been determined to change or end the so-called “entitlement” programs of Social Security and Medicare.  As early as 1984, I recall reading the Republican National Party’s platform which called for “starving the beast” that is big government by reducing taxes and cutting the federal budget to force the elimination of these so-called “wasteful” programs.   In the place of these social safety nets, Republicans proposed an emphasis on personal responsibility and faith-based initiatives. 

In other words, big business and the wealthy have no responsibility for those who are not as fortunate as they.  If someone loses a job, gets sick, or suffers some other personal tragedy, it’s his or hers own fault.  These people should have never allowed themselves to be in that position anyway.  And there are always church missions to make these people see the error of their ways, convince them of their own failings and set them on the road to success.

Of course, Republicans are also against any form of government regulation and collective bargaining.  There must be nothing to interfere with the forces of the “free” market. 

Given this backdrop, is it any wonder that Republicans have been having such a snit over health care reform, let alone a public option? 

And, in one of the most cynical and hypocritical tactics of all time, the Republican Party and its allies are actually using Medicare to scare the oldest (and most likely to vote) segment of our population into speaking out against health care reform.  They claim that the reform bill proposed by Democrats would drastically cut Medicare benefits.  Never mind that the cuts that are in the proposed bill only cut waste and duplication.  And never mind that the Republican Party would prefer to completely eliminate Medicare as part of its war on “entitlements.“

All Americans would be wise to remember which party legislated Social Security and Medicare in the first place.  Here’s a hint:  It wasn’t the GOP.