Take from the poor to give to the rich

Some days the headlines prove my point: we are in an era when it has become okay to take from the poor to give to the rich, to take from the vulnerable and struggling and enrich corporations further, to use government as a tool to accelerate the growing gap between rich and poor.

And so today. I pick up my morning paper and see this headline: "Panel votes for corporate tax break," and the sub-head below it, "But GOP-run committee further cuts credits for working poor."

Our fearless governor keeps telling us the state is broke. It ain't broke. But in these days of tighter budgets caused by the financial collapse of 2008, money is being moved around, that's for sure. The corporate right, which pays for campaigns like Scott Walker's, has an opportunity right now to convince the public that the poor simply must suffer more because of budget problems. Meanwhile, corporations and their CEOs are making enormous profits and executive payouts while tax policy and government subsidies are being increased for the corporate sector.

The mantra is that we must create jobs. And people fall for it - or at least many do.

The story in the paper describes how Repubs voted yesterday to further cut taxes for corporations and investors while slashing tax credits for the working poor. Very moral, these guys.  But poor people aren't able to contribute much to political campaigns.

Earlier in May I was struck by this headline: "State may lose food assistance funding; Federal officials cite privatization efforts."  You see, in this case, Walker & Co. want to hand over more of the administration of the FoodShare program, including the process of deciding who gets the assistance, to the private sector. The feds are saying, um no, not with federal money. If you go as far as you want to go, you will not only lose federal money, you will have to pay us back.

The feds have seen the results in states that have taken such steps, and it ain't a pretty picture.

But it reveals priorities, doesn't it? See, the thing about government is this - while it is fine to use some public funds to give businesses needed boosts, emphasis on the word needed, it is not the role of government to be at the service of corporations, to be a servant of them, to give them whatever they want to make a profit. The role of government is to represent the concerns of all its citizens, to defend political and civil rights, to promote justice and the Constitution equally for all, and to protect the most vulnerable among us.

Government is not a business and should not be run like one. It is at the service of the people to help promote the dignity and well-being of its citizens, and to protect the common good and the good of the commons.

Right now, these libertarian, Ayn Rand, types of very, very rich people (like the Koch brothers, Paul Ryan, or Rand Paul) who control the Repub party, especially in this state, are trying to force on us a very different idea of government - as an instrument for a survival of the fittest kind of economics. They do not see government as a service and look with scorn on those who need government services to get by in hard times.

Paul Ryan speaks often of people who don't want to work and how government programs promote laziness and indolence - and I wonder if he gets at all what it's like to be poor, and, in this city with deep-seated racism still at work, to be African-American, trying to survive these bad times, raise your kids, find a job in this time of high unemployment and lingering discrimination.

But it doesn't matter if he gets it, because he is a follower of Ayn Rand and the poor are just the social detritus, those left behind while the superior among us go off and run businesses and get wealthy, rising to the top, deserving because of their superiority. They want to rule the world.

This lack of compassion runs through many of these policies and, if we follow this path, our future will be grim indeed. As long as there is more emotion around concealed carry than programs that support poor communities and families trying to feed their kids or find a job, we are a morally and ethically impoverished, compromised society.  As long as we see struggling people, poor people, as other-than-us and deserving of their lot, instead of our sisters and brothers whose fate we share, we are on a road to moral bankruptcy as a society.

One more thing to share, this very good essay by NY Times Editorial Observer Eduardo Porter, A Budget Without Core Purposes, Taxation Without Compassion. He says it. He really lays it bare.

The budgetary policy of the United States has been the least generous in the industrial world for a very long time.

And that ought to make us embarrassed and very ashamed. I urge you to read the rest.

Hard times coming

Did you see NBC Nightly News last night (the 15th)? I want to put this story (see below) in the context of our current Wisconsin political situation.  In recent years, we have seen more and more companies and politicians gut the welfare and rights of workers. In a time of high unemployment and weakened unions, it has made business sense to do this - to increase profit margins by lowering the costs of labor. With the economy weakened by recession and unemployed folks desperate for any job they can get - especially as unemployment benefits run out - leverage for salaried workers has plummeted.

A sad reality of the global economy is that wages have been stagnant or even on the decrease in the past couple of decades while corporate profits are up, bonuses for executives of financial institutions have reached record levels, the stock market is roaring back from the lows of 2008, and the gap between rich and poor in this country has widened, now one of the highest in the world.

Great time for the powers-that-be to wage a divide-and-conquer campaign against organized labor, even now pitting struggling private sector workers against public sector workers - as if workers don't have much more in common with each other than they do with their bosses. But people are scared and labor solidarity is probably not high on the list of priorities for frightened people who don't really understand what is happening to them and why.

It's an old tactic, and an effective one, until workers begin to realize once again that only as a collective do they have any bargaining rights against corporate bosses or libertarian, anti-government, anti-tax politicians.

Now get ready for the next big whammy - which is what this story is about. Just at a time when politicians are bent on balancing budgets on the backs of the most vulnerable of our community, we are about to be clobbered with sharply rising prices for what we eat, what we wear, and how we get around.

The cultural discourse on this looming crisis is barely to be heard. No one wants to prepare us for this. No one really wants to talk about it much. Because there is only one way to deal with a crisis like this - for the wealthy to pay more, much more, in taxes to support the needs of those who are being dumped into the margins of the economy, or left out altogether.

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

Unions, taxes on wealth - that's what brought you the middle class

Can we no longer afford a middle class? And why has the middle class turned on the very means that brought them the ability to be middle class? Good wages and benefits, a strong social safety net, workers rights (like the 40-hr work week, paid vacation, grievance mediation, and more), all these things brought to you by organized labor and collective bargaining.

In another era, particularly that which emerged from World War II, unions organized to defend the rights and dignity of workers. My uncles worked in factories here, like Allis Chalmers, or in construction. Back in that day, they earned enough to buy houses, their taxes supported decent public schools, they had cars, went hunting on their vacations, and more.

Now we have the most anti-labor culture in decades. First, corporate America began sending jobs overseas. This was called 'free trade.' It was anything but. And this was a weapon they could later use as leverage to get workers here to accept the gutting of their wages and benefits in exchange for low-paying jobs, with the threat of moving factories if they did not submit. Now the public sector is at it, no better manifested right now than in our new Gov. Walker and the Republican legislature.

Workers no longer seem to realize that hostility towards unions and the right to collective bargaining is an assault on their own ability to have a decent job at decent pay. Without organized labor, each worker is an isolated individual up against the very organized, socialized, corporate sector, holding all the power, all the leverage.

Meanwhile, the rich pay the lowest tax rates in modern times. Once upon a time, wealth was taxed at 50, 60, even 80 percent, and those folks did just fine, thank you.

Workers and the middle class have been sold a bill of goods. But given the results from what they have bought, why are they still buying it? One of the results is that the US can now boast one of the largest gaps between rich and poor in the world.

And then they accuse us of waging a class war.  Could it get anymore cynical than this?

Journal Sentinel's Scott Walker contradictions

In last year's election, the Journal Sentinel editorial board endorsed Scott Walker. The reason why was as dismaying as the endorsement itself: "...in a time of economic peril and at a time when government must be reformed, it's time to throw away the playbook...in this election, we're looking for a kind of fiscal tenacity that this state has, perhaps, never seen. Talk that Barrett isn't 'tough enough' is a bum rap. But, on fiscal matters, there is tough and then there is the right kind of experience. Walker has both, and that makes him the better choice."

Now today you are all upset because Walker is about to declare himself our supreme leader by granting to himself the right to veto all state rule-making.  What is it about all these rightist conservative constitutionalists who hate democracy and the Constitution, who when they get into office, are ready to throw out things like separation of powers? Neither the feds nor the states created a governing system that allows the executive to simply overturn work that belongs to the legislature. There's another word for that, and it ain't 'democracy.'

Now you guys knew exactly who Walker is. He derides government and the public sector. He loathes public sector unions. He is a 'business above all other interests' kind of guy. He hates high-speed rail as he takes large campaign contributions from road-building interests.  Business trumps worker rights, including decent wages and benefits as dignified compensation for the labor workers provide to those business interests, whose CEOs are very wealthy.

Over the past 3 decades, wages in the US have been stagnant or in decline. The public sector was one of the few where one could still work for a good wage and benefits. Now politicians like Walker are trying to undermine those workers, too, in part by creating resentment towards those workers among those losing good-paying jobs and benefits in the private sector. For decades we have seen a relentless assault on unions and on worker rights by business interests in league with anti-labor politicians.

As Kohler, Mercury Marine, and Harley Davidson made clear (and I worked on issues like these for many years in DC before returning to my hometown), corporations have been intent on bringing the costs of labor in this country down to the scale of developing countries. With little effect, some US-based unions had the forethought to try to create international labor solidarity to move things in the opposite direction, to bring global wage scales up closer to the West. But corporate lobbyists simply have more resources to get their guys in office. Now watch what happens to labor conditions, environmental policies, quality of life for the working poor, the already vast gap between rich and poor in this state and around the country, as Walker's time in office unfolds, with no push-back from the legislature.

So, good job JS Editorial Board! You endorsed the guy and he turned out to be exactly who we thought he would be. I look forward to your continuing upset over the way in which he does exactly what he set out to do - a power grab intent on gutting the public sector and favoring business interests over those of the people who voted him into office.

From your endorsement: "...there is tough and then there is the right kind of experience. Walker has both, and that makes him the better choice."  Good luck explaining that away!