Who controls the Obama government and the bipartisan system?
If it is true that the financial corporations generated a speculation bubble that burst into the current crisis, we must not forget that the real crisis- the one the workers are facing- was created by the government in collaboration with the corporations. The Obama administration chose to bailout the banks and the big industrial corporations. Both Democrats and Republicans are allied in the austerity plans to cut social services at the state and federal level.
The actions of the government and the different state legislatures since the beginning of the crisis show big contradictions between what our elected representatives say (that they represent the “American people” and “Main Street”, in the case of the Democrats) and what they do when they are in office.
The class character of the bailouts and the austerity measures is evident to many working people. Unfortunately, the majority of workers still believe that this is not the real program of the Obama government. Though it becomes increasingly evident in their actions, the majority still believes the Democratic Party is not the party of Wall Street and the big corporations.
Why? It’s because the two main parties (i.e. Democratic and Republican), the corporate media, many non-profit organizations, and union leaders want people to believe that Obama or the Democrats have been “cornered” by the “greedy corporations”. Furthermore, they push the reasoning that “their hands are tied” by the Republican Party. Their reasoning – that is the Democratic Party’s- is that Obama (and/or the Democrats) would like to raise taxes and really fight unemployment but “the Republicans do not let them”.
The truth is that Wall Street corporations heavily financed the electoral campaigns of both parties, as the rest of the corporate sectors did: there is no doubt therefore that they will control the newly elected government. The Republican rhetoric on taxation and union busting is based on lies, but at least it is very open about the class interests it represents. The Democratic Party has always had an opportunist (i.e. scheming) position on political economy: they tail and benefit from the Republicans’ public political offensive, to end up implementing the same policies. Indeed, for the last 30 years both parties have championed the application of deregulation policies to the financial system and tax breaks to the rich, as the Obama extension of Bush’s tax cuts shows.
The corporations’ threat of outsourcing abroad
Both the Republican and Democratic parties say that if more taxes are put on corporations, and if wages and benefits are kept the same or increase, corporations will go bankrupt or be forced to leave the country and tens of thousands of jobs will be lost.
This is only true if one accepts that corporations have the right to make profits without being subject to the control of working people and society at large. It is not a fatality- it is a political choice. Corporations must be forced to pay to ensure public and adequate social services and living wages for all. If not, we will not let them make profit.
The truth is that corporations have been constantly increasing their profits through the deregulation measures implemented in the last 30 years of neoliberalism by the bipartisan system. They have also been benefiting by not paying the taxes they owe to the State: “Between 2008-2010, 12 major corporations paid an effective tax rate of negative 1.5 percent, actually making billions of dollars off of the government through tax subsidies on top of their $171 billion in profits[2].”
Furthermore: “In 2010, U.S. corporations avoided approximately $60 billion in U.S. corporate income taxes by using a variety of devices and gimmicks to shift profits to foreign subsidiaries, while the Fortune 100 companies received some $89.6 billion in federal contracts [3].”
A government that really represents working people will force the corporations to pay or nationalize them and prosecute their CEOs, as the IRS prosecutes working people.
The myth of trickle-down economics.
The bipartisan system wants us to believe that if we don’t tax rich people, their wealth will “trickle down” to working people through their active participation in the economy. This has been proven factually wrong. Rich people have indeed accumulated an unprecedented wealth in the last neoliberal period: today, the top .001% of the U.S. population owns 976 times more than the entire bottom 90% [4]. They have chosen to invest their accumulated capital not in the productive sectors of the economy, but in the riskier sectors of the financial system, mostly buying collateral debt of subprime loans and causing the financial meltdowns.
Related articles:
– They got bailed out, we got sold out! http://www.litci.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1917:they-got-bailed-out-we-got-sold-out&catid=19:usa
– What next for the Occupy Movement?: http://www.litci.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1921:what-next-for-the-occupy-movement&catid=19:usa
– The growth of the Occupy movement in California: http://www.litci.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1922:the-growth-of-the-occupy-movement-in-california&catid=19:usa
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[2] Corporate America Untaxed, The Greenlight Institute, March 2011
[3] Corporate America Untaxed, The Greenlight Institute, March 2011
[4] The Nation, June 30, 2008
