Category Archives: Democracy and Community

Upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership Looks Like Corporate Takeover

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You will be hearing a lot about the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. TPP’s negotiations are being held in secret with details kept secret even from our Congress. But giant corporations are in the loop.

TPP is a “trade” agreement between several Pacific-rim countries that is actually about much more than just trade. It will be sold as a trade agreement (because everyone knows that “trade” is good) but much of it appears to be (from what we know) a corporate end-run around things We the People want to do to reign in the giant corporations — like Wall Street regulation, environmental regulation and corporate taxation.

One-Sided Process

The TPP process appears to be set up to push corporate interests over other interests. The TPP is being negotiated in secret, so what we know about it comes from leaked documents. Even our Congress is being kept out of the loop. But 600 corporate representatives are in the loop while representatives of groups that protect working people, human, political and civil rights and our environment are largely not in the loop.

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What Does It Mean To Be An “American” Corporation?

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What does it mean to be an American? What does it mean to be an American corporation? An article in the Wall Street Journal the other day should trigger questions like these.

WSJ: Domestic-Based Multinationals Hiring Overseas,

Multinational companies based in the U.S. boosted their global work forces in 2011 almost entirely by hiring workers overseas, underscoring the slow growth in the U.S. job market.

… The paltry hiring at home reflects where multinational companies are focusing their attention. Stronger economic growth in overseas markets in Asia and Latin America is driving their expansion, reinforcing their shift toward cheaper labor or closer access to customers.

The U.S. parents of multinational firms account for about one-fifth of total private U.S. employment. Since 1999, employment by U.S. multinationals is down by 1.1 million inside the U.S., while it is up by 3.8 million overseas.

The hiring by American companies is not happening in the U.S. At the same time these companies are holding $1.7 trillion of profits outside of the country, away from their own shareholders and our economy to avoid their taxes, while pushing to dramatically lower the taxes they pay us – and even to get out of paying any taxes at all on money they make outside of the country!

Why Do We Have Corporations?

Why do We the People even have laws that allow corporations and give them special benefits? The answer obviously is for our common benefit — why else would we do it? The corporate form of a business enables the company to easily obtain capital from investors, in order to accomplish large-scale projects that benefit us. To encourage this we give these entities special privileges. For example, we limit liability which means the investors are not held liable for the actions of the company – they won’t lose more than their investment if the company gets sued for some reason. We provide a system that helps them obtain financing, insurance, market liquidity and all kinds of things to help those investors get a good return on their money.

Benefit: We the People want railroads, but it takes a lot of money to build and operate a railroad. And our system wants private companies to do the work of building and operating railroads instead us just doing it ourselves. So we set up a way for a private company to gather investment from lots of people.

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Will Social Security Cuts Be The Democratic Party’s “New Coke?”

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All the smartest people in the executive suites just knew that the taste of Coca-Cola needed “reform.” Rival Pepsi was advertising to the “New Generation” and Coke’s executives came to believe their product wasn’t what the “cool” people wanted to drink. Everyone they talked to at the executive-level strategery seminars, and all the other executive-level geniuses they spoke with daily agreed. They were the elites, and they all knew better than their old-fashioned, uncool customers what the company needed. So they all drank the Kool-Aid and came up with “New Coke.” We all know what happened next. (Hint: it was bad.)

It couldn’t have gone better for Pepsi if Pepsi had placed those executives there themselves.

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Jobs

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Everyone knows that during the depression the government hired unemployed people to work on the infrastructure, parks, etc., and isn’t doing that this time.

Back then We the People were in charge, at least to more of an extent than today. So We the People did things to make our lives better. We the People doing things together to make our lives better is called democracy.

Now government just makes the lives of the wealthiest even better. This is plutocracy.

Elite-Pundit “Grand Bargain” Frenzy Just Like “Run Up” To Iraq War

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The “Grand Bargain” is about showing the world that we can hurt people, so they will know we are “serious.”

Reading Jason Linkins’ HuffPo account of elite-pundit thinking about the “Grand Bargain,” Passing ‘Grand Bargain’ Voters Don’t Care About Is Critical To Confidence In Government, Apparently, I am struck by the similarity between the (elite pundit) Joe Klein quote Linkins references, and the elite-pundit thinking about invading Iraq.

Time Swampland contributor Joe Klein — who is confident that Congress will agree to a “grand bargain” — says that people like me who contend that voters don’t place a high priority on a grand deficit deal are correct but we need to pass a grand deficit deal anyway because reasons, shut up:

There are those on the left who will object that the deficit issue is overblown and not even a priority among voters. They are right. But we have reached the point where some sort of deal is necessary to restore the public’s, the business community’s and the world’s faith that the U.S. government can, occasionally, take significant action. I predict—tepidly, with no great confidence—that the Congress will finally decide it is time to act.

In other words, Klein is saying the elite punditry has made such a big deal about something we all know is the wrong thing to do, that the public has to see us follow through — “take significant action” — or they’ll lose confidence in the country’s ability to make things happen following a pundit frenzy like this one.

Now let’s remember the words of elite pundit Tom Friedman on why invade Iraq.

Tom Freidman, on Charlie Rose, May 29 2003: (link is CS Monitor, Thomas Friedman, Iraq war booster),

“And what we needed to do was to go over to that part of the world and burst that bubble. We needed to go over there basically uhm, and, uh, uhm take out a very big stick, right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble. And there was only one way to do it because part of that bubble said ‘we’ve got you’ this bubble is actually going to level the balance of power between us and you because we don’t care about life, we’re ready to sacrifice and all you care about is your stock options and your hummers. And what they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad uhm, and basically saying which part of this sentence don’t you understand. You don’t think we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy we’re going to just let it go, well suck on this.”

Friedman said we had to invade Iraq so the world can see that we can use our immense power to hurt people there. Because Iraq is in “that part of the world.”

Joe Klein says we have to do the Grand Bargain to show the world that we can use our immense power to hurt people here, too.

That’s balance for ya.

The “Grand Bargain” is about hurting regular people (“shared sacrifice”) who have been sacrificing since Reagan. The rich have gotten tax cut after tax cut. Their corporations get breaks and subsidies. Wages have been stagnant since Reagan broke the unions, but prices have gone up. People used up their savings, then went into debt. Meanwhile government services for We the People have been cut, cut, cut. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our transportation and electrical and other systems are just a mess. The safety net has collapsed. College has become unaffordable. Poverty is soaring and the middle class is disappearing.

So now regular people have to “sacrifice” to pay off the money the government borrowed to give the rich their tax cuts and subsidies. That’s the “Grand Bargain” in a nutshell.

P.S. Please read Linkins’ piece, it’s short. Linkins concludes,

” … a deal that will further immiserate Americans with painful cuts to earned benefit programs (like chained CPI) at a time when everyone’s still struggling to get by. Why anyone thinks this would restore the public trust is beyond me. Pundits really need to get out more.”

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This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary

Reid Threatens Sternly Worded Letter Over Continuing Filibusters

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For years now Senate Republicans have been filibustering … everything. At the end of last year there was an effort to convince Democrats in the Senate of the need to reform the filibuster so things We the People need to get done could get done. At the last minute, however, this effort was scuttled by House Majority Leader Harry Reid who instead made a gentleman’s agreement with Republican leader Mitch McConnell. So now Republicans are filibustering … everything. And Reid, in a strongly-worded statement, threatened to issue a sternly-worded letter.

Silent Obstruction

In the last few years pretty much everything We the People were hoping to accomplish to make our lives better was filibustered by Senate Republicans. So many bills and nominees that were so important to us … the American Jobs Act, a terrible cost. The Bring Jobs Home Act and the Ending Offshoring Act to end tax incentives for sending jobs and factories out of the country, the Public Option, the DREAM Act, the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act, the Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act, and the DISCLOSE Act so we could at least know what companies and countries were bribing our politicians. … Just so much cost…

Public Doesn’t Know

The public doesn’t even know that so many important acts and nominees have been filibustered! The public believes a filibuster is Senators taling all night, but rules changes allowed Senators to block bills without doing anything. The media did not report these obstructions as filibusters, only saying things like “the Senate failed to pass a bill to…” or “Senate rules requiring 60 votes …” or, most destructive to democracy, “Democrats failed to gain -passage of …” The public had no idea what was happening, no idea of the extent of the obstruction, and no way to know who to hold accountable for the failure of government to accomplish anything. Democracy can not function without an informed citizenry.

Make Them Talk

So after years of obstruction and non-functioning government it was proposed to change the rules and “make them talk.” The idea was to restore the filibuster to make Senators just talk — exactly what the public thinks the filibuster rule already is. There was an all-out effort to get this done, and a sufficient number of Senators appeared to be on board. But in January, Reid scuttled the effort to Fix the Filibuster,

“I’m not personally, at this stage, ready to get rid of the 60-vote threshold,” Reid (D-Nev.) told me this morning, referring to the number of votes needed to halt a filibuster. “With the history of the Senate, we have to understand the Senate isn’t and shouldn’t be like the House.”

Of course, if Republicans take the Senate their very first act will be to end the filibuster so Democrats can’t use it.

So Here We Are

So here we are. Republicans are still filibustering and obstructing everything and everyone. Government continues to be broken. The will of the public continues to be thwarted and the public’s faith in government and democracy to solve their problems further recedes.

But now Harry Reid is fed up! He issued a strongly-worded statement in impassioned floor debate!

And there are rumors that it is possible that he might resort to sending Republicans a strongly-worded letter. So matters are well in hand.

A sternly worded letter and hours of impassioned floor debate! That’ll show ‘em!

If Harry Reid keeps this up I might have no choice but to issue forth an angry tweet.

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This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary

Bipartisan Solutions

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Here is how the DC game works:

- One side proposes to kill everyone in Kentucky and Tennessee. 15% of the public supports this (0% in Kentucky or Tennessee.)

- The other side thinks children should have enough food so they can grow up strong. (85% of the public supports this.)

- A Grand Bargain is reached in which they agree to kill everyone in Tennessee and spare the people in Kentucky, and children will get half as much food as they need.

The DC pundits will say that since everyone is angry at this, it must be the right solution because “both sides” only got part of what they want.

Austerity Lovers In D.C., Austerity Haters At Home

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In Washington, austerity-hungry Republicans called the sequester’s “across the board” spending cuts a “victory” – until their districts feel them. Then they complain about the cuts, but still demand cuts somewhere else and add new demands that someone ELSE decide what should be cut. This is because Republicans talk about cuts, but the American Majority doesn’t want cuts.

Please send us examples of sequester supporters in Washington who go home and cry about how it is hurting their constituents.

The Sequester

Some people think the “sequester” has something to do with racing horses. But it’s a technical word for the “across-the-board” budget cuts resulting from when the Republicans took the “debt ceiling” hostage, demanding big cuts in government or they would force the country to default on our promises to pay our debts, which would crash the economy.

They demanded these cuts, and they called the cuts a victory. That is, until the citizens who voted them into office started feeling the cuts.

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Surprising Studies Find DC Does What Wealthiest Want, Majority Opposes

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A new study, Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans, by Professors Benjamin I. Page, Jason Seawright and Larry M. Bartels sought to gauge the political and policy priorities of the wealthy, and how these concerns contrast with the concerns of the rest of us. Amazingly, the priorities of the 1% match up with the priorities of our political class, while the priorities and needs of the vast majorities of us are ignored.

The study questioned people with wealth that placed them in the top 1%. They were asked what they felt were the “very important problems” facing the country. The most common response was the budget deficit, with 87 percent believing this to me the most important problem. This contrasts with the rest of the population, with only 7% saying this is the country’s most pressing problem. Of course jobs and the miserable state of the economy for people what are not in that 1% were cited by regular people as the most important problem.

The 1%’ers want “entitlement programs” like Social Security and healthcare cut while the American Majority want (and need) them expanded.

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Taxes Aren’t Theft, Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Are Theft

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The Speaker of the House last week said that taxing people to pay for government is theft. Let’s look at just where actual theft is occurring.

Michael McAuliff and Sabrina Siddiqui covered the story at the Huffington Post, in John Boehner Compares Tax Proposals Of White House To Stealing,

We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem,” Boehner added. “How much more money do we want to steal from the American people to fund more government? I’m for no more.”

Yes, the old “taxes are theft” argument again. This is the line of reasoning that says government is bad, that decision-making by We, the People is bad, that people are “takers” and the wealthy are “producers” and “job creators,” and that the people are lazy and “don’t want to work” and if you let them assemble together and vote they become a mob that will steal everything from the rich who are rich by Divine Right, etc…

Keep in mind that in a democracy We, the People make decisions and government spending by definition is We, the People deciding to do things that make our lives better.

In honor of Speaker Boehner’s argument that taxes are theft, this is from August 2010: (even though the post will say June 12, 2012…)

Tax Cuts Are Theft

Conservatives like to say that taxes are theft. In fact it is tax cuts that are theft because they break a long-standing contract.

The American Social Contract: We, the People built our democracy and the empowerment and protections it bestows. We built the infrastructure, schools and all of the public structures, laws, courts, monetary system, etc. that enable enterprise to prosper. That prosperity is the bounty of our democracy and by contract it is supposed to be shared and reinvested. That is the contract. Our system enables some people to become wealthy but all of us are supposed to benefit from this system. Why else would We, the People have set up this system, if not for the benefit of We, the People?

The American Social Contract is supposed to work like this:

virtual_cycle

A beneficial cycle: We invest in infrastructure and public structures that create the conditions for enterprise to form and prosper. We prepare the ground for business to thrive. When enterprise prospers we share the bounty, with good wages and benefits for the people who work in the businesses and taxes that provide for the general welfare and for reinvestment in the infrastructure and public structures that keep the system going.

We fought hard to develop this system and it worked for us. We, the People fought and built our government to empower and protect us providing social services for the general welfare. We, through our government built up infrastructure and public structures like courts, laws, schools, roads, bridges. That investment creates the conditions that enable commerce to prosper – the bounty of democracy. In return we ask those who benefit most from the enterprise we enabled to share the return on our investment with all of us – through good wages, benefits and taxes.

But the “Reagan Revolution” broke the contract. Since Reagan the system is working like this:

virtual_cycle_diverted

Since the Reagan Revolution with its tax cuts for the rich, its anti-government policies, and its deregulation of the big corporations our democracy is increasingly defunded (and that was the plan), infrastructure is crumbling, our schools are falling behind, factories and supply chains are being dismantled, those still at work are working longer hours for fewer benefits and falling wages, our pensions are gone, wealth and income are increasing concentrating at the very top, our country is declining.

This is the Reagan Revolution home to roost: the social contract is broken. Instead of providing good wages and benefits and paying taxes to provide for the general welfare and reinvestment in infrastructure and public structures, the bounty of our democracy is being diverted to a wealthy few.

… read the rest of Tax Cuts Are Theft

Also see see Tax Cuts Are Theft: An Amplification by Sara Robinson.

And while you are at it here are some other posts in the Reagan Revolution Home To Roost series:

Reagan Revolution Home To Roost — In Charts
Reagan Revolution Home To Roost: America Drowning In Debt
Reagan Revolution Home To Roost: America Is Crumbling
Finance, Mine, Oil & Debt Disasters: THIS Is Deregulation

See the Reagan Revolution Home To Roost series.

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This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary

Both Sides Are NOT To Blame For Sequester!

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If you are a citizen in a democracy you need to have correct information about important issues so you can make decisions and know who to hold accountable for things they do. But you wouldn’t know anything if you follow America’s corporate news media. For example, you certainly wouldn’t know that the deficit is currently falling at the fastest rate since the end of WWII. (Only 6% of the public knows that the deficit is falling, not rising.)

Watch as NBC News (March 1 broadcast) blames “both sides” and “Congress” for the sequester cuts that could bring in a new recession:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“Congress” has left town – not that Republicans adjourned without doing allowing votes.

“No serious attempt all week long” to stop this.

“President didn’t rise above political rhetoric.”

“Both sides maintained the blame game.”