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Bailout Billionaires, Kill the Middle Class |
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We know how the bridge loan to automakers is being spent because the Bush administration made sure they only got aid after agreeing to tough stipulations.
So that accounts for $14.5 billion of our taxpayer money. But what about the rest of the $335.5 billion that went to Wall Street financial firms?
On “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough pointed out today that we do know how Wall Street spent $1.6 billion: on chauffeurs, company jets, home security, country club memberships and stock options.
So why have the autoworkers become Public Enemy No. 1 and why, as Scarborough asks, does the Bush administration
kick their CEOs around for $13 billion and yet…write a trillion dollar check to Wall Street tycoons and bankers and just let them float in and out. Why don’t we drag them to Capitol Hill and pound them?
Reporter Mike Barnicle hits it on the head when he answered Scarborough:
There’s been a war against the American worker for at least 10 or 15 years in this country. Whether you’re talking about automobile workers, whether you’re talking abuot school teachers, whether you’re talking about nurses in city hospitals. There’s a war against workers who work each hour for wages.
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert also appeared on “Morning Joe,” where he elaborated on his on-the-mark column published today. In short, Herbert asks: Why is our national dialogue supporting destruction of the middle class?
We need some perspective here. It is becoming an article of faith in the discussions over an auto industry rescue, that unionized autoworkers should be taken off of their high horses and shoved into a deal in which they would not make significantly more in wages and benefits than comparable workers at Japanese carmakers like Toyota.
That’s fine if it’s agreed to by the autoworkers themselves in the context of an industry bailout at a time when the country is in the midst of a financial emergency. But it stinks to high heaven as something we should be aspiring to.
The economic downturn, however severe, should not be used as an excuse to send American workers on a race to the bottom, where previously middle-class occupations take a sweatshop’s approach to pay and benefits.
Anyone who has been to a country like Guatemala or Morocco knows what it’s like when a nation has a nearly non-existent middle class.
And as Herbert makes clear, this is not a goal toward which we should strive.
3 Comments
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I find this article interesting because the other night I was watching Fox Business and a woman on there said who cares about the middle class because the really rich are paying all of the taxes in this country as they are paying 40%.
I’ve always suspected this wasnt true, but I never knew where to look until lately.
So I dug out the most recent IRS report which was 2006 and I totaled up all the filings and figured an approximate tax revenue from them and whats funny is that the people making over 1 million dollars per year do NOT pay all the taxes, as a matter of fact they pay the least.
You can read the article at http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com and it is titled “Fox Business Tonight”
On another very important issue to me, I have created a map that is intended to show who is unemployed and who has had their job sent offshore.
I probably will be adding a section today for those that are worried that their job will be offshored.
It would strengthen our cause to bring our jobs home dramatically if I could get everybody that is unemployed or has had their jobs offshored to add their name to the map, so please tell all of your friends and help me to spread the word about it.
Thanks,
Virgil
http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com
Workers have most of the value of their labor taken away from them before they get their paycheck, and the money goes into the pockets of corporate officers, company owners, and investors. More money comes out of our pockets when we pay the retail mark-up on the things we produce. This makes store owners and more investors rich. Our tax dollars are used to subsidize factory and store owners when cities put in roads and water and sewer lines, and sometimes cities and states give those businesses big tax breaks to locate within their borders. Once businesses have used up our resources they look for greener pastures in another state or another country. Tax dollars are also used to care for uninsured workers, to protect the property of the rich, and to wage wars that benefit business owners.
The list goes on and on. It’s not new. Economists have pointed out for 140 years that businesses always look for ways to have their costs borne by society. But when we ask for the rich to share the burden during economic downturns, they call it class war. When we ask that the profits to be shared with society they call it socialism. Back in the 1890s labor leaders dreamed of a system of shared prosperity and responsibility that they called “the cooperative commonwealth.” Whatever you want to call it, we need it now.
It makes sense to bailout billionaires (if one believes in the trickle down theory). Fortunately, most Americans do not believe in such nonsense and are outraged that such waste of taxpayer (and might I add share-holder funds) go to such perks.
One way to end such abuses is to heavily tax such nonsense perks. I favor a special tax on a corporation if the CEO makes 40 times the average worker’s pay (including temps). Perks includes as well.
I would have special hearings on how the bailout money spent and have accounting. Congress should ban from federal contracts any firm “wasting taxpayer funds” and demand immediate repayment and perhaps a “special tax” on firms doing such abuses if they do not immediately mend their ways.
I do believe in fair pay for work, but that includes all workers from the CEO down to the average worker.