The Perfect Storm That Threatens American Democracy

[bpwallace49]

The Perfect Storm That Threatens American Democracy

 

It's a perfect storm. And I'm not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I'm talking about the dangers facing our democracy.

 

First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it's been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans.

 

The top one-tenth of one percent of Americans now earn as much as the bottom 120 million of us.

 

Who are these people? With the exception of a few entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, they're top executives of big corporations and Wall Street, hedge fund managers, and private equity managers. They include the Koch brothers, whose wealth increased by billions last year, and who are now funding tea party candidates across the nation.

 

Which gets us to the second part of the perfect storm. A relatively few Americans are buying our democracy as never before. And they're doing it completely in secret.

 

Hundreds of millions of dollars are pouring into advertisements for and against candidates -- without a trace of where the dollars are coming from. They're laundered through a handful of groups. Fred Maleck, whom you may remember as deputy director of Richard Nixon's notorious Committee to Reelect the President (dubbed Creep in the Watergate scandal), is running one of them. Republican operative Karl Rove runs another. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a third.

 

The Supreme Court's Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission made it possible. The Federal Election Commission says only 32 percent of groups paying for election ads are disclosing the names of their donors. By comparison, in the 2006 midterm, 97 percent disclosed; in 2008, almost half disclosed.

 

We're back to the late 19th century when the lackeys of robber barons literally deposited sacks of cash on the desks of friendly legislators. The public never knew who was bribing whom.

 

Just before it recessed the House passed a bill that would require that the names of all such donors be publicly disclosed. But it couldn't get through the Senate. Every Republican voted against it. (To see how far the GOP has come, nearly ten years ago campaign disclosure was supported by 48 of 54 Republican senators.)

 

Here's the third part of the perfect storm. Most Americans are in trouble. Their jobs, incomes, savings, and even homes are on the line. They need a government that's working for them, not for the privileged and the powerful.

 

Yet their state and local taxes are rising. And their services are being cut. Teachers and firefighters are being laid off. The roads and bridges they count on are crumbling, pipelines are leaking, schools are dilapidated, and public libraries are being shut.

 

There's no jobs bill to speak of. No WPA to hire those who can't find jobs in the private sector. Unemployment insurance doesn't reach half of the unemployed.

 

Washington says nothing can be done. There's no money left.

 

No money? The marginal income tax rate on the very rich is the lowest it's been in more than 80 years. Under President Dwight Eisenhower (who no one would have accused of being a radical) it was 91 percent. Now it's 36 percent. Congress is even fighting over whether to end the temporary Bush tax cut for the rich and return them to the Clinton top tax of 39 percent.

 

Much of the income of the highest earners is treated as capital gains, anyway -- subject to a 15 percent tax. The typical hedge-fund and private-equity manager paid only 17 percent last year. Their earnings were not exactly modest. The top 15 hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion.

 

Congress won't even return to the estate tax in place during the Clinton administration - which applied only to those in the top 2 percent of incomes.

 

It won't limit the tax deductions of the very rich, which include interest payments on multimillion dollar mortgages. (Yet Wall Street refuses to allow homeowners who can't meet mortgage payments to include their primary residence in personal bankruptcy.)

 

There's plenty of money to help stranded Americans, just not the political will to raise it. And at the rate secret money is flooding our political system, even less political will in the future.

 

The perfect storm: An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top; a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy; and a public becoming increasingly angry and cynical about a government that's raising its taxes, reducing its services, and unable to get it back to work.

 

We're losing our democracy to a different system. It's called plutocracy.

 

While the author highlights Republican shortcomings, the Democrats are just as guilty when it comes to campaign contributions from businesses. US gubment, bought and sold to the highest bidder. It is damn near a miracle that and Democrats are still in office with union power fading so much in that few decades with so many jobs being outsourced overseas . .

[SEC=UGA]

We are not, were not, never intended to be a Democracy!!!!!

[gbpfan1231]

Is this an Op Ed?

[jetsfan]

wait, wait wait.

 

The rich are elected to run the nation, but the author is in uproar because the rich are running the nation?

 

In 2008, the median worth of a senator is $1.79M (source)

A house members' median income was $645,503

 

and anyone is shocked that people making less, or worth less, have little say in govt.!

[Azazello1313]

he's so embarrassed of this moronic tripe he won't even post a link with it.

 

"is this an op-ed?"

[bpwallace49]

Robert Bernard Reich (pronounced /ˈraɪʃ/[1]; born June 24, 1946) is an American politician, academic, writer, and political commentator. He served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, from 1993 to 1997.

 

Reich is currently Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, a former Harvard University professor and the former Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

 

Reich is an occasional political commentator on programs including Hardball with Chris Matthews, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CNBC's Kudlow & Company, and APM's Marketplace. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the Ten Most Successful Cabinet Members of the century,[2] and The Wall Street Journal placed him among America's Top Ten Business Thinkers.[3] On November 7, 2008, he was selected by President-elect Barack Obama to be a member of the President-elect's economic transition advisory board.[4]

[gbpfan1231]

Robert Bernard Reich (pronounced /ˈraɪʃ/[1]; born June 24, 1946) is an American politician, academic, writer, and political commentator. He served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, from 1993 to 1997.

 

Reich is currently Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, a former Harvard University professor and the former Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

 

Reich is an occasional political commentator on programs including Hardball with Chris Matthews, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CNBC's Kudlow & Company, and APM's Marketplace. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the Ten Most Successful Cabinet Members of the century,[2] and The Wall Street Journal placed him among America's Top Ten Business Thinkers.[3] On November 7, 2008, he was selected by President-elect Barack Obama to be a member of the President-elect's economic transition advisory board.[4]

Op Ed?

[Azazello1313]

can I have the link to democraticunderground, please?

[redrumjuice]

Why are you so worried about everyone else? Why don't you worry about yourself.

[bpwallace49]

can I have the link to democraticunderground, please?

 

http://robertreich.org/

[driveby]

http://robertreich.org/

Your attempt to access the requested site may be in violation of policy and has been restricted by the Technology Services Department.

 

Site Category: "Education;Political/Activist Groups"

 

Blocked web page: http://robertreich.org/

[Azazello1313]

http://robertreich.org/

 

so you just surf robertreich.org every day?

 

The perfect storm: An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top; a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy; and a public becoming increasingly angry and cynical about a government that's raising its taxes, reducing its services, and unable to get it back to work.

 

We're losing our democracy to a different system. It's called plutocracy.

 

plutocracy is what happens when you use the power of government to concentrate political power in the hands of elites. it is at an all-time high, not because the highest marginal tax rate is "only" 35%, but because government is seizing more power over more aspects of our lives and distributing it as those in power see fit. and the answer, according to reich, is give the government more power over political speech and elections. yeah, great prescription there, totally makes sense.

 

alternatively, I would suggest that the way you reduce corruption and croneyism in washington is to give washington less power. make businesses focus on competitive advantage by creating a better product at a better price, rather than by lobbying lawmakers to hurt the competition, or carve out exemptions, or win subsidies.

Edited October 19, 2010 by Azazello1313

[SEC=UGA]

See the other thread with my comments about idiots with PHDs... Robert Reich is a political hack and has been for many, many, years. He should have all of his credentials withdrawn after writing the tripe you posted above... He, off all people, what with his Harvard, Berkeley, Brandeis, Clinton Admin background know something as simple as the idea that the US was not intended to be and is not a Democracy... How can something that never existed die?

[Azazello1313]

See the other thread with my comments about idiots with PHDs... Robert Reich is a political hack and has been for many, many, years. He should have all of his credentials withdrawn after writing the tripe you posted above... He, off all people, what with his Harvard, Berkeley, Brandeis, Clinton Admin background know something as simple as the idea that the US was not intended to be and is not a Democracy... How can something that never existed die?

 

meh, reich is a very smart guy, a passionate and articulate spokesman for the far left. as such, his answer to every problem is more government and forced wealth redistribution. if you're in to that sort of thing, like barackpwallace, then you're probably going to dig what he has to say.

[SEC=UGA]

meh, reich is a very smart guy, a passionate and articulate spokesman for the far left. as such, his answer to every problem is more government and forced wealth redistribution. if you're in to that sort of thing, like barackpwallace, then you're probably going to dig what he has to say.

 

Well, If you assert that he is intellectual and learned, then I will say at the very best he is a propagandist who spreads malignant lies in an attempt to distort and shape this country into something that better fits his wacko ideology.

[redrumjuice]

like barackpwallace,

 

Changing his name is a bannable offense fyi.

[bpwallace49]

barackpwallace,

 

Allah Ackbar!!!!!

[bpwallace49]

Close enough... Thank you!!!

 

You are welcome SEC . . . er . . Allah.

[cliaz]

We are not, were not, never intended to be a Democracy!!!!!

 

 

We are a federal constitutional republic & indirect democracy

[westvirginia]

Why are you so worried about everyone else? Why don't you worry about yourself.

 

Because if he really just worried about himself, he'd see that it's his own poor decisions keeping him where he is. So it's easier just to cry "LESS FORTUNATE!!!!" and use the police powers of government for confiscation at the point of a gun.

[Yukon Cornelius]

We are a federal constitutional republic & indirect democracy

i thought we were socialists commies?

[bpwallace49]

Because if he really just worried about himself, he'd see that it's his own poor decisions keeping him where he is. So it's easier just to cry "LESS FORTUNATE!!!!" and use the police powers of government for confiscation at the point of a gun.

 

Exactly!!

[cliaz]

i thought we were socialists commies?

 

Just those from Alaska