It's been a while since I last posted (2012!) but as the Lexington Herald-Leader recently published a condensed version of my observations about how the New Aristocracy is threatening our nation's future I felt it necessary to post the full version. I will say the Herald-Leader did a great job of editing to make the piece fit the limited space available, so this is no criticism of them. I'm actually thankful for this opportunity to re-engage!
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The New Aristocracy
Money isn’t speech, it’s volume. And corporations
aren’t people, they’re a legal fiction. Yet today’s so-called
“conservative” Supreme Court majority has radically redefined the Bill of
Rights, and in the process further enhanced the power of the ultra-rich, the
corporate supremacists, and the favored few, i.e., the New Aristocracy.
No surprise really, for this is all part of the Reagan/Randian trickle-down ruse. They promised that slashing taxes for the rich would flood their pockets with so much wealth that a little would eventually trickle down to the parched peons below. Yeah, right.
No surprise really, for this is all part of the Reagan/Randian trickle-down ruse. They promised that slashing taxes for the rich would flood their pockets with so much wealth that a little would eventually trickle down to the parched peons below. Yeah, right.
Three decades of trickle down have exposed the fraud that it
is. Inequality has reached pre-Depression
levels. An October, 2011 report from the non-partisan
Congressional Budget Office showed that since 1979 incomes of the top 1% grew
by 275%, the middle by only 39% and the low by a mere 18%. The top
10% took over half of the nation’s income in 2012, the most ever in a century
of recorded history according to noted economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas
Piketty.
Likewise their “tax cuts fuel job creation and economic growth” promise was breathtakingly wrong. After his famed tax cuts in 2001 President George W. Bush presided over the worst economic performance in 70 years. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics average annual job growth during his tenure was a mere .2%, the lowest ever since Herbert Hoover. GDP grew at the slowest pace since WWII, while consumer debt reached pre-Depression levels.
Likewise their “tax cuts fuel job creation and economic growth” promise was breathtakingly wrong. After his famed tax cuts in 2001 President George W. Bush presided over the worst economic performance in 70 years. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics average annual job growth during his tenure was a mere .2%, the lowest ever since Herbert Hoover. GDP grew at the slowest pace since WWII, while consumer debt reached pre-Depression levels.
But this is nothing new. America’s greatest
periods of prosperity have always coincided with higher tax
rates. In the 1950’s, when the top marginal rate was 90% real
average growth averaged 4%, more than twice that of the Bush years, when the
top rate was just 35% according to Michael Linden, Director of Tax and
Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress. All told, when
the top rate was less than 39.6% growth averaged 2.1%, compared to a robust
3.8% in years the top tax rate was 39.6% or higher.
This is not to say that higher rates necessarily lead to
higher growth. But the facts most definitely show that
conservatives’ justifications for cutting taxes are completely
wrong. Yachts aside, boats not only did not rise, they have nearly
capsized from the crushing wake of consumer debt as concentrated wealth cuts
its way across the waters of one of the world’s most quickly dissipating
democracies.
The flip side of trickle down is “pour
up.” While Republicans seek to slash spending on social
welfare, they shower it on those at the top who already have it all (Democrats
are also complicit in this). A Huffington Post analysis by
Bill Quigley, law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, listed some
examples of corporate welfare and welfare for the rich. These
include direct federal subsidies total nearly $100 billion a year, with state
and local governments adding another $80 billion; special breaks that cut
corporate tax rates from 35% tax rate to just 13%, costing us $200 billion a
year. Most galling is the federal tax breaks for hedge fund managers
that allow them to cut their top tax rate from 35% to only 15%, costing
taxpayers $83 billion per year.
The fact is that the nation was strongest, and more people lived better when taxes were higher, when the wealth gap was narrower, when social services were more plentiful and when the government truly regulated in the greater public interest. Currently we’re paying less federal income tax than at any time in the last 60 years. Worse, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that most of the rich pay a lower overall tax rate than the middle class, thanks largely to a capital gains tax of only 15%.
The fact is that the nation was strongest, and more people lived better when taxes were higher, when the wealth gap was narrower, when social services were more plentiful and when the government truly regulated in the greater public interest. Currently we’re paying less federal income tax than at any time in the last 60 years. Worse, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that most of the rich pay a lower overall tax rate than the middle class, thanks largely to a capital gains tax of only 15%.
Top income earners must pay more. Corporations
must pay their full fair share. Steeper progressivity in the tax
code and elimination of illogical and unfair tax breaks and subsidies are the
keys to properly funding government and narrowing the inequality
gap.
And lest you think that this is not so important please think again. 700 global experts at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos listed the chronic gap between rich and poor as the world’s biggest risk in the next decade. Income disparity and social unrest go hand in hand. Accordingly, the Forum warned of a "lost" generation of young people coming of age who lack skills and/or opportunities. "Disgruntlement can lead to the dissolution of the fabric of society, especially if young people feel they don't have a future," said Jennifer Blanke, the World Economic Forum's (WEF) chief economist. "This is something that affects everybody."
And lest you think that this is not so important please think again. 700 global experts at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos listed the chronic gap between rich and poor as the world’s biggest risk in the next decade. Income disparity and social unrest go hand in hand. Accordingly, the Forum warned of a "lost" generation of young people coming of age who lack skills and/or opportunities. "Disgruntlement can lead to the dissolution of the fabric of society, especially if young people feel they don't have a future," said Jennifer Blanke, the World Economic Forum's (WEF) chief economist. "This is something that affects everybody."
Thus, we all must be part of the solution. Such
collective action for the greater good is as American as apple
pie. It was our founders’ credo. Ironically, our forefathers
depended upon it to escape the grasp of the corrupt English aristocracy, just
as we must do to break the choking hold of today’s money lords.
As John Adams said (in a 1776 letter to Mercy Otis
Warren): "There must be a positive Passion for the public good,
the public Interest, Honour, Power, and Glory, established in the Minds of the
People, or there can be no Republican Government, nor any real Liberty. And
this public Passion must be Superior to all private Passions. Men must be
ready, they must pride themselves, and be happy to sacrifice their private
Pleasures, Passions, and Interests, nay their private Friendships and dearest
connections, when they Stand in Competition with the Rights of society."
Better
the truth from a lion of American history than the false and divisive rhetoric
from would be destroyers of our social compact.
