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Letters and Articles on Social & Economic Policy
Unless otherwise noted, letters were submitted to the
Lawrence Eagle-Tribune newspaper
Our Social Contract
31 December 2003
The Bevins need a lesson in what constitutes the "general
welfare." In the "good old days" before the New Deal and labor
laws, much of the population worked in sweatshop factories for
wages too low to allow them to save for retirement. They just
worked until they died -- often well before age 65. And, if they
got sick and couldn't afford the doctor or hospital bills, tough
luck. If a bank failed due to poor management, its depositors
just lost all their savings. Would you like to return to those
days?
For the entire history of our country, the government has used
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to acquire more
territory, build infrastructure, regulate commerce, and manage
our natural resources. In the last century, this was extended to
ensuring the safety of our food, medicine, and other products
and providing a social safety net for those in need. Since you
decry the spending of tax money on social programs, I must
assume that you did not have a public school education or ever
collect unemployment insurance or eat food inspected by the USDA
or drive on roads built by a government agency in a car with
safety features mandated by NHTSA, and so on. I also suppose
that you refuse your Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Otherwise, I must find your arguments disingenuous.
Remember, unlike what the conservatives who are trying to undo
the last century of progress would have us believe, we are all
part of a society, not a bunch individuals out only for
ourselves.
Deregulation Caused Financial Meltdown
21 September 2008 (before President Obama
took office)
The financial industry deregulation that the Republicans pushed
through in the 1980s that allowed banks and investment companies
to merge is finally coming home to roost. This, combined with
the government's complete failure to enforce anti-trust laws,
allowed the formation of behemoth financial corporations that
are "too big be allowed to fail."
Now, thanks to poor judgment and fraudulent business practices,
they are failing. The government's solution to this mess that
they allowed to be created is to have us taxpayers bail them out
to the tune of half a trillion dollars (almost as much as the
Iraq war). This is known as privatizing profits and socializing
risk, or corporate welfare. This bailout will be with money that
the government has to borrow (due to its own huge budget
deficit), mostly from foreign governments, thus ballooning the
national debt.
They are also setting the stage for the problem to be even worse
the next time around by encouraging other companies to acquire
the failed ones, creating even bigger entities that will not be
allowed to fail.
I say, let them go. They made their bed. Now they should take
their lumps. I do not care to subsidize it with my tax dollars.
Their mutual fund customers will be safe since the underlying
assets are still there (as long as they didn't invest in
themselves or each other). Just don't let the executives get
away with enormous golden parachutes. Indeed, many of them
should go to prison after making restitution to their borrowers
and shareholders.
In closing, would everyone who still wants to privatize Social
Security please raise their hands.
Republicans Made Bailout Necessary
16 December 2008
Writers like "Bailout" love to blame the Democrats for
everything wrong with our country. He conveniently neglects that
it was the massive deregulation pushed through by the
Republican-controlled Congress and benign neglect of the Bush
Administration that enabled the excesses that created our
current economic crisis. The Republicans also blocked any
attempts at reform (at which they are particularly skilled),
through the Senate filibuster and other manipulation of the
rules, that might have been proposed by the Democrats. Besides,
even if a bill had been passed, it would most likely have been
vetoed by Bush.
Tax More or Spend Less?
4 March 2009
In politics, the rule is define or be defined. The Republican
attack machine is accusing President Obama of "raising taxes."
No, he is merely letting the Bush's tax cuts for the rich (which
were deliberately time-limited by Congress to limit their
damage) to expire. This is just returning us to the prior, more
equitable state of affairs.
That said, I think that we will need to do both -- raise taxes
and cut spending. We can start the spending cuts with some of
the wasteful, bloated military spending (over half of the
discretionary budget) and then with some of the corporate
subsidies.
What Does a Minimalist Government Get You?
5 October 2011
We tried having a minimalist government for 120 years and we got
water you couldn't drink, air you couldn't breathe, food that
was unsafe to eat, and a super-wealthy industrialist owner class
who made the majority of the population work 80 hours per week
in dirty, dangerous factories for sub-subsistence wages. And, if
you lost your job or got sick -- tough. A weak government might
work for the dispersed agrarian society of the 1700s, but does
not suffice for a modern capitalist, industrial one. Now, with
the wealthy class again controlling our government, the
Republicans want to return us to those "good old days."
Most Wealthy Got Their Money by Stealing
It
14 October 2011
There are many entrepreneurs whose ingenuity has created new
products and companies that employ millions of people. They
fully deserve to be rich, but also owe society for providing the
infrastructure and institutions that allowed them to realize
their achievements.
However, the vast majority of the wealthiest Americans did not
get there by job creating innovation. Rather, they are the top
corporate executives who pay themselves obscene bonuses while
driving down wages and benefits for those whose work actually
creates their companies' profits. Then they destroy jobs by
laying off workers or sending their jobs overseas to increase
profits even more. There are also the stock traders who
destroyed trillions of dollars in wealth through bad
investments, but still get multi-million dollar bonuses. Those
people deserve no special consideration from the rest of us.
Gas Prices
5 March 2012
Republicans love to blame President Obama for the increase in
gasoline prices. However, the reality is that he has no control
over it. Rather, the price of oil is controlled by two factors.
First, are the commodities traders who speculate on oil futures
based on guesses of availability and gaming short term price
fluctuations. Second are the oil companies who have made fuels
processed at American refineries our single largest export at
2.8 million barrels per day. This limits the domestic supply,
driving up prices and maximizing oil company profits at our
expense. More drilling for oil will not alleviate this. And,
they still get massive tax rebates too.
Republicans' Fantasy World
15 May 2012
Mark Acciard accuses liberals of living in a world of wishful
thinking on social programs. Well, conservatives push a
fantasy world where laissez-faire capitalism works. They believe
that giving tax breaks to overpaid executives and giant
corporations creates jobs when 30 years of voodoo Reagonomics
prove otherwise. They just pocketed the extra money while laying
off workers to increase their bonuses. They assert that
deregulation creates jobs when it actually led to massive
shipping of jobs overseas and the crash of 2008 with its
taxpayer-funded bailouts. They say that destroying unions
creates jobs. Instead, we are experiencing stagnating wages and
the largest redistribution of wealth from the middle class to
the rich since the Gilded Age.
Taxes on the Rich Are More than Fair
18 August 2012
Republicans keep screaming about how the rich pay too much in
taxes and need their tax cuts in order to create jobs. However,
an actual analysis of the distribution of income and wealth
shows that they are paying far less than their share while
middle and working class citizens are carrying far too much of
the burden.
In terms of income distribution, the top 1% makes more than the
bottom 50% combined. Putting specific values on it: the richest
1% receives (I specifically do not say "earns") 17% of all
income, the top 10% get 42% of all income, and the bottom 50%
get only 14%.
And, it has been getting worse over time. Between 1980 and 2005,
80% of all new income created in this country went to the
richest 1%. Meanwhile, average working families' real income has
stagnated, rising only 28% over the past 30 years (less than 1%
per year) and actually dropped by 2% over the past 10.
Looked at in terms of how much of our nation's wealth they
control, the full picture of the imbalance is revealed. The
wealthiest 400 individuals have more money than the entire
bottom half of America (150 million people). As a group, the top
1% owns 40% of all of the country's wealth, while the bottom 60%
owns less than 2% and the bottom 40% of Americans own just 0.03%
of the wealth of the country.
All of these numbers can be a bit mind numbing, but the bottom
line is that the taxes the rich are paying are hardly
unreasonable given the portion of the nation's income and wealth
that they control. It has also done little to slow the upwards
re-distribution of wealth. Remember, too, that payroll taxes are
capped for incomes above $110,000. This lowers the actual total
tax rate of the very highly paid compared to ordinary working
people.
It should be noted that the overwhelming majority of this
obscene wealth at the very top is not generated by entrepreneurs
creating new businesses, but by overpaid corporate CEOs, stock
traders gambling with our savings, and their descendants who
inherit this money. In light of this, continuing the Bush tax
cuts for people who have more money than they know what to do
with and that have been allowing this imbalance to increase even
further makes no sense at all.
References:
http://ACivilAmericanDebate.com/2011/04/10/the-30-year-growth-of-income-inequality
http://ACivilAmericanDebate.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/growth-in-income-inequality1.jpg
http://StateOfWorkingAmerica.org/who-gains/#/?start=1980&end=2008
http://USBudget.blogspot.com/2008/03/do-only-rich-pay-taxes.html
Corporate Power Will Bring Us Down
8 February 2015
James Holland declares that the welfare state will bring our
nation down. While the system could use some tightening and
policing of abuse, safety net programs for the poor are needed
by any civilized society that considers itself compassionate.
The real abuse is coming from the other side of the economic
scale. The giant multi-national corporations and super wealthy
lobby, bribe (via campaign contributions), and extort (with the
threat of negative campaigns from super PACs) elected officials
to grant them special tax breaks, corporate welfare, and laws
favoring their interests over that of the people. The cost of
this to the public treasury dwarfs that of welfare, Medicaid,
and food stamps. Because these elected officials also keep
appointing corporate-friendly activist judges that keep
overturning any attempts to limit this influence, the only way
to stop this abuse is to amend the Constitution to unequivocally
state that money is not protected speech and corporations are
not really people with constitutional rights.
John Gray Pushes Republican Lies
23 April 2015
In his April 13th column on government spending, John Gray
follows the standard Republican playbook of misdirection, bogus
math, and outright lies. This is no surprise considering that
he works at the corporate-funded Heritage Foundation.
Let's start with the relative per capita cost of government
between 1940 and now. Assuming his numbers are correct, he
fails to take inflation into account. In 2015 dollars, the $894
per person spent in 1940 would be equivalent to $16,498 -- a
decrease from the $12,304 he cites. Of course, our population
also increased by a factor of 2.4 since then, allowing for much
greater total spending.
Next, let's look at Social Security. This program is off of the
primary federal budget and is funded entirely by a separate
payroll tax. However, it suffers from a significant flaw --
there is a cap on withholding at $118,500 in income. Removing
this cap would keep Social Security solvent forever.
Now for unemployment insurance. Except for a brief period
during the 2008 economic collapse, this is not paid by the
federal government. Rather, it is paid for by a state levy on
employers based on their size and layoff history plus some
supplemental state money. It should also be stressed that the
main cause of increases in this program is private corporations
laying of their employees.
On to the safety net programs of food stamps, Medicaid, and the
Earned Income Tax Credit. The overwhelming majority of recipients
of these programs are low-income workers at companies who choose
not to pay them a living wage. Indeed, a family cannot receive
the EIC unless they are employed. And, the minimum wage has not
kept pace with inflation, thanks to Republicans blocking almost
all attempts at raising it.
Regarding defense spending, it constitutes about half of the
total "discretionary" budget. This includes bloated spending on
weapons systems rife with cost overruns and waste, thanks to the
power of the military-industrial complex over Congress. It also
includes the cost of multiple unnecessary wars. Note also that
much of this expense is hidden in the Department of Energy,
which funds the nuclear weapons programs.
Finally, let us look at who is responsible for the federal
budget deficits. At the end of the Carter administration in
1979, we had an inflation-adjusted budget deficit of $133
billion. Then came the Reagan tax cuts for the wealthy and it
almost tripled to $310 billion when he left office in 1989. By
the end of the Clinton administration in 2001, it had become a
$170 billion surplus. Then Bush cut taxes for the super rich
again and started two unpaid for wars. This resulted in a $1.5
trillion dollar annual deficit by the time he left office.
Under Obama, this has gradually dropped to a third of this at
$490 billion in 2014.
In conclusion, it is amazing what a little fact checking does to
cut through
deceptive arguments.
Sincerely,
Michael Bleiweiss
Original article:
http://www.eagletribune.com/opinion/column-here-s-where-all-your-tax-dollars-go/article_9ce42c0b-3acd-5724-9c38-0d8d3635f473.html
Lies about the Minimum Wage
6 July 2016
Once again, Taylor Armerding tells just half of the truth to
push Republicans' give everything to the rich agenda. The
current minimum wage leaves workers below the poverty line and
requiring tax subsidized services (Medicaid, food stamps, etc.)
in order to survive. Paying them $15 per hour would
significantly reduce this taxpayer burden. There is less
inequality in states such as Iowa and Maine because hardly any
of the multinational corporations and investment firms that pay
their top executives obscene bonuses are headquartered there.
They are in New York, Massachusetts, and California. The real
cause of inequality is that executive compensation increases by
leaps and bounds, while they keep line workers' pay stagnant.
If worker pay increased at the same rate as for these executives
since just 1990, the minimum wage would be over $40 per hour! One
step to reduce this imbalance would be to eliminate the
tax deductibility of "performance based" compensation. This might
motivate companies to make executive pay a little less excessive.
No So Fabulous '50s
7 January 2017
Fabulous '50s left a lot out of his/her rosy-eyed view of the
"good old days," such as: segregation and lynchings,
misogynation laws forbidding blacks and whites to marry each
other, homosexuality as a prisonable crime, banning of most
forms of birth control, no legal divorce in most states, no
health insurance for the poor or elderly, rampant air and water
pollution, blue laws forbidding shopping on Sundays, and an
average life expectancy 20 years less than we enjoy now. On the
other hand, perhaps (s)he supports all of that.
Republican Budget Shafts Middle Class
2 November 2017
They've done it again. Last week, congressional Republicans used
the "reconciliation" trick to ram through a budget resolution
without even trying to get input from Democrats. True to form,
it cuts more than $5 trillion over the next decade from the
programs that support students, working people, and retirees
while laying the groundwork to give it to the top 1%. I hope
that all of you Trump supporters out there are ready to have
your benefits gutted. In detail, it:
-
Cuts Medicare by more than $470 billion and Medicaid by more
than $1 trillion, throwing millions of Americans off of
health care.
-
Cuts hundreds of billions of dollars in Affordable Care Act
tax credits and makes it easier for Republicans to repeal
it.
-
Eliminates housing assistance for more than 1 million
families with a $37 billion cut to affordable housing and
the Section 8 rental assistance program.
-
Eliminates heating assistance for nearly 700,000 seniors on
fixed incomes, people with disabilities, and families with
children by cutting this program by more than $4 billion.
-
Eliminates nutrition assistance for 1.25 million women,
infants, and children through a $6.5 billion cut to the WIC
program.
-
Slashes Pell Grants by more than $100 billion -- 33% --
making college less affordable for more than 8 million
working-class students.
-
Eliminates Head Start services for 25,000 children a year by
cutting this program by $3 billion.
-
Cuts transportation funding by nearly $200 billion.
-
Cuts funding for the National Institutes of Health by $37
billion, starving funding for critical medical research on
Alzheimer's disease, cancer, and other illnesses.
-
Switches to Fair Value accounting, making student loans
appear vastly more expensive to the government than they
actually are, dramatically raising college costs for
struggling students.
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Meanwhile, at a time when the U.S. already spends more on
defense than the next 12 countries combined, the budget lays
the groundwork for an increase of $91 billion to the
Pentagon for 2018 alone -- more than enough to provide free
tuition at every public college and university in America.
-
Includes reconciliation instructions to the Energy and
Natural Resources Committee that could open the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling, harming the
environment and accelerating global warming.
To top it all off, it contains a clause explicitly allowing them
to ram through their tax "reform" plan without any Democratic
involvement as well. Stay tuned for their plan to accelerate the
upward redistribution of wealth from us to their billionaire and
multi-national corporate patrons.
Middle
Class Betrayed -- Again
31 December 2017
Congratulations to all of you who voted Republican and for
Trump. You have now been officially shafted -- again. The tax
"reform" bill that they just rammed through gives almost all of
the benefits to the top 1% and multinational corporations. Trump
himself stands to get over a billion dollars, thanks to a
special real estate tax loophole. Meanwhile, working
people get crumbs at best and a net tax increase for many thanks
to losing many of their major deductions. It also adds an
additional $1.5 trillion to the budget deficit. Note that these
have been the primary characteristics of all Republican tax
plans. It is an interesting hypocrisy that budget deficits
only seem to matter when Democrats are in power.
History shows that such tax cuts do not boost economic growth,
do not create jobs, and do not increase workers' wages. The top
1% don't spend it in ways that create jobs. The giant
corporations just use the extra money to buy back stock, give
shareholders dividends, and increase top executives' bonuses.
To add injury to insult, they have already announced their
intention to pay for the deficit by gutting the programs we
depend on -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, college
scholarships, and a slew of community development programs. It
also includes a poison pill that further sabotages the
Affordable Care Act which will render 13 million more people
unable to afford health insurance. Killing all of these programs
has been part of the Republican grand plan ever since they were
created and this bill is designed to grease the rails for them
to do so.
Since the 1970s, there has been a class war waged by the rich
against the rest of us that is eagerly abetted by the Republican
party. Their governing priority has been to funnel money and
resources from the poor and working families to further enrich
their wealthiest donors and give even more control over our
society to the largest and most powerful corporations.
This tax bill goes a long way towards achieving this and to
permanently entrenching the moneyed aristocracy, while leaving
the rest of us struggling to get by. And still, so many voters
keep guzzling the Kool-Aid.
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