Finally, I’ve discovered a prominent media spokesperson who has the guts to acknowledge that America is faced with a dangerous problem based on mathematical facts, a problem that is fueled by systemic financial industry corruption that thoroughly permeates both major political parties. He argues, loudly, that the first step to deal with this danger is for the President of the United States to take to the bully pulpit and to clearly acknowledge our problem rather than suggesting that the debate is between cutting $2 trillion or $4 trillion, both of which are merely kicking the can a few feet down the road (to 2017).
I literally stood up to applauded to my computer monitor after hearing Dylan Ratigan cut through the bullshit and nail this critical issue.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Finally, someone is out there forcefully saying what needs to be said, with the right idea for a first step. Obama could make up for many of his previous sins if he dared to throw the Hail Mary pass Dylan Ratigan suggests. He needs to tell himself “screw 2017,” and begin a campaign based on getting into the faces of all politicians, Democrats and Republicans. He should shout from the highest pulpit to root out electoral/banking/trade/taxation/media corruption and he shouldn’t stop talking about this issue of monied political corruption, because there will not be any meaningful debate on any other issue until we dare to admit that private money in politics has completely perverted the political process. As Ratigan states, we shouldn’t be talking about $2 or $4 trillion. At least nine trillion, (and see here) and arguably dozens of trillions, as much as $70 trillion, are being siphoned out of the system thanks to the complicity of powerful people and entities that couldn’t care less about the future of the United States.
During his speeches, Obama should hold up traditional grade school civics textbooks and and then set them on fire because they are full of lies. They do not describe how the system works. Not even closely. The predominant political truth is that Congress is bought and paid for by big monied companies that currently control all three branches of government. Consequently, there are two Americas, and you are not part of the America that pulls any meaningful strings. Your vote is severely limited to support only members of the club of which you are not a member. Skip writing emails to your representatives, because those emails just annoy them. They are trying to work in a whirlwind of D.C. money that turns them into functional psychopaths. Good luck getting any federal agency to pay any attention to the needs of ordinary Americans, whether it be the FCC, the FDA or the SEC. The politicians who treasure the somewhat elevated stature of their jobs know deep down that they need to keep voting to further powerful corporations or else they will be swiftly boated from their jobs. We are in the era of Citizens United, where yes, you have a vote, but your choices have both been pre-ordained, pre-approved.
I wish I didn’t believe the things I’ve just written, but I’ve seen far too much evidence establishing that this country is not run by you and me, despite the popular rhetoric to the contrary. Let’s take that first step to force our politicians, especially the President, to admit that we absolutely need to discuss and deal with systemic corruption caused by private money drenching politics. Until then, everything we hear is merely a bunch of hot air dressed up to sound like meaningful conversation.
It is not just the votes of the wealthy, it is the influence to campaigns that comes from large contribitions from untaxable collectives and even non-american interests. Until both are reigned in by the IRS or some other non-politically motivated group we will continue to see people like Bloomberg, Jeffrey Immelt and George Soros working both upfront and behind the scenes to decide for the rest of us what is actually best for their bottom lines.
Karl: You seem to be striving to turn this into a partisan issue by listing only left-leaning (or at least non-right-leaning entities. That approach is a slippery slope that will destroy the momentum of this movement. Take a deep breath and have the courage and integrity to admit that the people running the political show often donate heavily to both parties, and there are many that donate to one or the other. It’s NOT the case that this is a Democratic or a Republican problem. Both parties have engineered the insidious system now in place, and neither party is interested in dismantling it. Let’s all back away from partisan finger-pointing and agree that the ordinary citizens of this country are supposedly in charge pursuant to the Constitution, that they aren’t, and that they should be. Obviously, The People disagree with each other about many things, but they should be hashing out these issues among themselves–they shouldn’t be portrayed as running the country when they aren’t.
I think Erich is exactly correct – this problem should not be framed into a Left/Right political party restriction. It goes way deeper than that. By believing that we currently live under a democratic system (a government which represents the people and acts on behalf of the will of the people), we are doing ourselves a disservice. It is a Fairy Tale, and believing in it seems like either pure naïveté or stubborn denial. By communicating and operating from this false premise we come out of the wrong starting gate, with blinders on, and already crippled.
I agree that any contributions above a certain threshold should be reigned in and taxed for a candidate to receive a percentage of the contribiution towards his or her campaign. No gifts or contributions to election campaigns or politicians in general over five hundred dollars should be given or recieved without the IRS being aware of both the doner and donee.
PAC’s of all varieties should not be able to say “Opps! I just don’t now how this money got accepted by our organization, or “Cash is always welcome.”
There are a huge number of political entities on both sides that have their hands out and a huge number of weathy individuals and collectives willing and ready to try to heavily influence elections and thus the governement as well.
If you want me to name others the name list would be huge, I’d say Big Oil, Tobacco and even most of the new money in the New York GOP as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/nyregion/donors-to-gop-are-backing-gay-marriage-push.html?pagewanted=all.
I am not partisan about this, I have already stated this.
Karl,
you seem to be missing the point.
Consider this:
A medium sized city has a mayorial election. Most of the local news media Newspapers, TV and radio) is controlled by a corporation under the watchful eye of Mr S., the godfather of the local media. Mr S. has a personal vendetta against one of the candidates, Mr B. and favors a personal friend Mr P as the candidate to win the office.
Mr. B and Mr P both buy airtime for one hour campaign informercials. Mr P’s message is broadcast at 7 PM [pre-erempting national network programming. Mr B’s equal time turns out to be arount 2:30 AM.
The rulings that allow virtually unlimited spending by corporations on political races has a similar effect. corporate dollars flood the airwaves with high priced campaing adds to the degree that any modestly funded candidate get lost in the noise.
Now keep in mind the fact that corporations only spend money when they expect more money in return. One of the most efficient ways to control the governemtn is not to depend on bribery, but to fill the government with incompetent loonies and persons with vested interests. who the corporations can control as puppets. The goal of corporations is the destruction of all obstacles. They see government as one of those obstacles.
I have not missed the point. The power to tax is the power to diminish the returns and people’s abiltiy to continue in such activity. What if an individual person with $40.00 to give towards an election returned 100% on the investment, but the person with 5,000 dollars to give towards an election only returned 55% with the other 45% going towards the funding of the government that they are trying to influence? What if a corporation, union or foundation wished to give $2,000,000 in currently untaxable money to a large number of candidates on either side of the aisle or towards all manner of lobbying efforts towards kick backs bent on swaying the vote of elected officials, but only a net 100,000 was realized because of the collective level of the cummulative contributions? This would increase the effectiveness of smaller contributions and decrease the effectiveness of the larger ones while at the same time helping to work at solving some of the problems made by the very people who believe there is an endless money supply. Perhaps a stipulation should be made that money collected in such fashion could only be used to decrease existing national debt or to re-establish the lock boxes that have been plundered by officials that seem to think their spending policies are not the proiblem. If the debt got reduced to a manageable level and the funds required to keep entitlements solvent were realized we would have done a good thing with the money that was being used to push the personal and campaign bank accounts, and even the net assets of every governmental official should be monitored by the IRS both during campaigns, while in office and even after they retire and every receipt into them should be given a thumbs up or a thumbs down and an associated tax level assigned to them. They are public servants, if they don’t welcome a tax like this they shouldn’t be in the business of taxing others.
Karl, you have completely missed the point.
The power to tax, in a democracy, is the power to collect payment for goods and services for the common wealth of the members of that democracy. Your comment seems to take as a foregone conclusion that having a legislature for sale to the highest bidder is a good thing, that the interests of the masses could and should be represented by a citizens lobby of some sort.
You then promote an idea that these voluntary donations to could could or should be used to repay the nationan debt, and to refill the government funds so everything would be hunky dory.
The last part of your comment is difficult to make sense of, as it appears your thoughts outpaced you fingers. But I do agree that the assets of every government official should be monitored. However, I think this should include all assets, to discourage the types of creative book-keeping that would be encouraged otherwise. I think too many politicians regardless of party affiliation or ideology, see political office as a stepping stone to greater wealth. I favor the idea of limiting the income from all sources, public and private, of elected and appointed government officials to match the mean income of all the people they represent, and this limit would extened for 25 years after they leave office. This would provide incentive for the legislators to represent all the constituents, rather that the interests of his largest contributors.
Most of the rationalization you propose, however, is the purest of crap. I don’t know where you got this from , but the ridiculous over simplification reeks of the TEA party rhetoric.
First, when I hear a right-winger running for office promising to run government like a business, I have a powerful urge to seek out the asshole and give him a swift kick in the yarbles. Why? Because the purpose of business is to make money for its owners. In a situation where the government is effectively owned by global corporations, does this mean the politican works for ATT, Exxon, Bechtel and the other amoral self proliferating chimera that have legally bought themselves the rights to be equals in the law to you and me?
And when these “businessmen” get into office, they cut taxes on those most able to afford the taxes, then try to balance the books by spending less money by forsaking the people who need help the most. My question for them is ” What businesses decide to voluntarily reduce their revenues and then decide to pay their bills by dropping the very services they provide?” Just imagine if Bank of America decided to drop all interest on loands, and try to profit by closing 40 percent of their branch bank and reducing expense by providing less service to their customers. Clearly the objective of businessmen candadites is run the government into bankruptcy, so that it has no effective power to create or enforce laws.
Applying all revenues to the debt is a blatantly stupid idea, and the reason for having a budget in the first place. I would love to pay off my debts and, if I paid my entire pay check on my mortgage, second mortgage, medical and dental bills, I could be out of debt in 4 or 5 years. The reason I don’t do this is that I have other expenses, like groceries, utilities, repair and maintenence on the house and car, gas to get to and from work, sundry expenses for clothing and such. As it stands, I pay out about 28 percent on my income on debts, and I am constantly targeted by corporations seeking to increase my debt load.
Like a homeowner, the government has payments other than debt. It has a payroll, it has obligations. it has utilities bills and maintenance bills. Add to this the fact that government should be run as a not for profit business.
These business friendly candidates always say that small business is the engine if the economy, and they are right, however they favor legislation which benefits big business and destroys small businesses. Tax breaks that benefit corporations, revoking regulationas that help small business compete against global corporations, All you need do is look at how well corporate friendly legislation as help small business. The original bank bailouts for the global banks were intended to offset the losses due to the toxic assets and to help the banks refinance the high loans, but the original verson under Bush had no conditions and the tax payer money provided to the multi-national banks (some like HSBC and Credit Suisse are not headquartered in the US, so why are we bailing them out?) was used to fill the bank accounts of the upper level management of those banks, to buy private jets and private islands, and socked away in numbered accounts instead of being applied to lowering the interest and to prevent another round of foreclosures.
But the banks returned to business as usual, foreclosing on homeowners even when they were not in default, as an attack on the stability of government itself.
So there you have it. Our government is under attack, both from within and without by the greedy bastards who will use any method possible to destroy democracy and replace it with a dollar-ocracy (one dollar, one vote). The public, the majority of the people are already disenfranchised. Just try talking to your senators, or representatives, and see how far you get.
Niklaus: I find your comment spot on, but I will add one thing. Karl and many other conservatives want to run the government “like it were a business.” How do big and successful businesses run? They impose regulations on their employees and themselves. They have handbooks, procedures and policies, and they also conform to the custom of the trade. If a new employee came to work at Apple carrying a copy of Atlas Shrugged and tried to get Apple to throw away all of its policies and procedures, he’d get fired. There’s no internal “free market” at any successful large company. Big organizations need regulations, and that’s why they all have them. Successful businesses know that they can’t plan on good things constantly and spontaneously happening. An unregulated entity becomes a jungle. A carefully regulated entity functions like a garden.
This debate over deficit spending, debt, and balancing the budget is an old one. May I recommend John Steele Gordon’s “Hamilton’s Blessing.”? It is an excellent overview of the notion from the perspective of the Founders. I don’t agree with some of Gordon’s interpretations, but it is a worthwhile place to start.
“Running the government like a business” is code for preventing government from spending money on things we don’t like. Which things depends on who’s speaking.
You can’t run the federal government like a business. That’s not what it’s for, because in order for government to fulfill its primary function—securing the general wealthfare—it has to do many very unbusinesslike things and spend money in apparently profligate ways. Just take military spending. It’s good for business, but the “product” if you will is not a profit-making enterprise, nor should it be.
The balanced budget amendment is a ridiculous idea. All states, one may hear, have them, and this is true, and a state can have such a thing because it can always rely on the federal government for help when shit happens not planned for in the budget. If the federal budget is under similar constraint, when “shit happens” then everyone gets it in the face and it just lies there, stinking. (Also, such a constraint would remove the Treasury influence on the value of the dollar internationally. Complicated, but true. That would be disastrous.)
Usually people demand such things who don’t understand the nature of money. I suspect that’s most people.
Niklaus, your purpose of taxation in a pure democracy has never existed. There is no way of making the people doing the tax collecting and tax money expending even remotely thinking they are the servants of the common wealth of everybody else.
The logical conclusion from Karl’s claim is that we stop taxing, we kill off all government and everything will be fine because the “free market” will guarantee that good things will just happen naturally. Actually, just like in Somalia.
The logical conclusion is that people in government need to get morally and ethically responsible with the reasons why they collect tax money and how they can only plan on spending what they have collected.
Anybody with the foolish “Noble Ambition” of trying to make the great society an entirely equal one with re-distribution of wealth needs to stop playing social groups and classes of citizens and even non-citizens against one another. If people will not do it voluntarily, trying to legislate it only creates and endless struggle for who gets to put the nation further into debt.
Karl, my read of history tells me it’s not the government doing all that playing, but is in fact being played by people who wish to separate themselves into special groups. But I do not disagree with you entirely. I think there is only so much to be done to “equalize” society. It’s too complex an organism to so crudely manipulated.
But we can demand of our government that the most egregious class warfare be policed. Minimum wage laws, progressive tax structures, public works, government-provided services to low income people, free schools, libraries…all these things don’t achieve equality but push back at the aspirations of the self-appointed oligarchs who wish to be king, dukes, and “owners” of a country with clear distinctions of class.
I think it is fair to say to someone who is well off “You can afford to pay for your own services” and tell them to back off. It is not fair for these people to claim some false solidarity with those who cannot afford their own services—but who make up the labor pool the well off need to maintain themselves—and rail against government oppression. A millionaire claiming his or her tax burden is oppressive gets no sympathy from me when he’s stripping away vital support from someone trying to get by on less than 20K a year. There simply is not real world comparison between their situations and telling the poor man that the millionaire is fighting against higher taxes on his behalf is a lie in the face of justice.
Here’s a proposal for all those who think a flat tax is in any way fair. There’s a way to do it that might be fair.
The first $15,000—for everyone—is tax exempt. The next 10K gets taxed at 5%. Above 25K, no matter who, it’s 10% across the board.
For everyone. The wealthy can buy their equality. The poor can’t. So let’s establish a tax free zone for poverty wages instead of allowing tax exempt status for those who can afford the lawyers.
But here’s the catch. Every four years there will be an assessment. Let’s base it on lifestyle. If you’re living the life a quarter million dollar income can buy and only paying taxes on a hundred thousand of it, you get assessed the difference with a 100% penalty.
That won’t fly, because the class warfare you mention is being waged by the wealthy and they’ve drawn their defensive perimeters.
I don’t think most people mind the idea of rich people. I don’t. I’d like to be one. I do think we all mind the rich complaining that they aren’t being treated fairly and using the plight of average people as a sign of tax oppression. How dare they? They subvert the principles we’re told this country is based on.
Those who claim that the deficit cannot be closed by taxing the wealthy are quite right. But that’s not the point. Revenues have fallen because all Americans below a certain level have taken a severe hit in real wages. If the 90 + million whose wages have not only stagnated but in many instances decreased in the last 20 years were working at their capacity and being paid accordingly, the overall tax revenues would be more than enough. The trouble is, corporations have not only used loopholes in the tax law to pay lower taxes but they do this after shipping jobs overseas and hammering labor into submission and paying less per capita, all the while accruing an obscene share of the total wealth of this country for themselves. Taxing them at higher levels may be more symbolic than otherwise, but in the midst of a major recession they are still making more money and bitching about taxes!
Use the tax code to relocate industries here. If XYZ Corporation doesn’t pay taxes, then they should lose the privilege of doing business in this country.
But this tax argument…yes, it is in many ways a question of appearances. We keep telling average people that rich people are special and that may be in some ways but those rich people are instrumental in gutting education, closing doors, and guaranteeing the “average” American can’t get out of the hole they’ve helped put him in. Bandy philosophy all you want, we are heading for a nasty reckoning.
I just received a mass mailing from Public Citizen. It includes the following:
Stunning Statistics of the Week:
Karl,
your propensity for malapropisms if astounding. Unfortunately, much of it makes as much sense as Racktor quote. Your logic seems to be of the pretzel variety.
Mark, one idea that I heard recently.
For companies getting tax break on the excuse that they create job, tie the tax break to the total net local jobs times the average pay of those jobs.
So the corporations getting the tax holidays have been creating 150 high paying jobs in the US while moving lower paying jobs to China.
On a related ote, the Chinese government has been buying a lot of US bonds to artificially inflate their own currency, which effectively keeps the exchange rates favorable to Chinese industry.
I’ll say it again, until you progressively tax the large amounts of money from both individuals and collectives that goes into influencing elected officials, you will not make a dent in the morals and ethics of the government.
Full time elected officials that see their annual bottom lines increase by more than their governmental salaries while in office should have all of that increase taxed at 90%.
Karl: If you tax contributions by 33% (for example), you’ve only reduced the problem 33%. Why not completely ban private contributions to politicians (through a constitutional amendment), enact public funding and hand the politician free airtime (because the airwaves are owned by the People, not broadcast companies?
Because taxing money at a progressive rate like this turns both all supposed public (unions)and private larger amounts into public money for other purposes that will yield a lower return, less bang for the buck.
This way nop one gets to complain about whether the money os from a “public” or a “private” source. Just starting with all foreign investment at a 90% rate would be a good start.
You still need to pay for the free air time, media will not cooperate.
Karl: You’re not listening. The airwaves are owned by the public. Congress can pass a law requiring the TV stations to provide time to candidates for free at election time as a condition for holding that license.
Actually, media has to (at least broadcast does) because of licensing requirements. Everyone has forgotten that, but it’s why local radio and televisions are required to test emergency broadcasting systems. Congress doesn’t need to pass a new law, only use the existing ones to require public service air time. That’s why there are fairness rules requiring equal time for opposition candidates, but which get played with fast and loose (by putting the opposition on at 2 AM instead of prime time etc).
Karl—we the people allow media to broadcast. It’s a privilege. We’ve been treating it like any other private enterprise thing (something else which has to stop—public lands are not for pillage, they belong to US not big oil, big coal, or the local contractor). All we need is someone in the FCC with balls enough to enforce the rules and TELL THEM they will grant air time to political candidates as part of their public service requirement.
Are you crazy Erich, nice try, but the air waves are owned by the corporations that transmit content, The airwaves are not owned by the public. Glenn Beck TV is one example but people who have signed up have an idea of what they are expecting, but still maybe 10% of what he takes in from small contributions should still go straight to the IRS.
Karl,
The stations are owned by corporations—the frequencies are licenses and are public property. Permission to use them is granted by the FCC, otherwise known as The Government.
Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps wrote the following for the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/02/opinion/02copps.html
When was the last time any large media concern was really identified as not serving the public interests? This is a total sham because free speech in in the public interests, but the unbridled use of money to promote one’s ideas about what is in the public interest can not be judged by an unbiased FCC. Just the approval of what gets run during what times of the day is a bias that can never be eliminated. Is what people are willing to pay for in terms or targeted entertainment something that can be regulated by anyone without direct progressive taxation?
It would seem promoting current laws would be in the public interests to some, but not to others.
It would seem that providing for a nearly unedited format of dialog and debate would be in the public interest to some, but not to others.
Hasn’t anyone seen that taxing those trying to influence governmental officials and policies is the only way for the people to take back the run away freight train of their own government?
If you want to provide more equity for the voices of all the citizens you must decrease the influence of large amounts of “creative” marketing that is aimed at the government media complex. This can only be done with a progressive tax upon money directly targeted at influencing electing officials and lobby elected officials.
Many use to call this “bribery” in the past, now it’s simply SOP for a government that has no means of getting itself out of the “help and protect” your friends mentality.
Karl: Maybe we can find a compromise. Let’s tax 99.9999% of all private campaign contributions.
Actually, there’s something in that. A simple addendum to the tax code making campaign contribution NON tax deductable. That would be a start.
But no, I don’t see taxing contributions as a way to stop the freight train. It isn’t where the money comes from that’s the problem, it’s who it goes to. Taxing won’t stop that because if your candidate wins, then the revenues from taxing the contributions that got him/her elected will go toward their programs. You would evolve a system in which contributions to specific candidates would increase because the tax dollars so generated would then be spent the way the lobbyists want. They would get twice the bang for the buck. The revenue system would become dependent on large contributions and a variant on current corruption would emerge.
We must make it illegal for individual candidates to benefit from campaign money in anything other than their election. Which means if a politician takes a job with a major contributor after leaving office, it should be penalized. Further, the money that is raised needs to be equitably distributed—we are basing our selection of candidates on their ability to raise money and this has nothing to do with their abilities re running the country. It just means they know how to glad-hand and make promises, it doesn’t mean they can do the job. Part of the problem we have now is that most politicians only know how to do one thing well—run for office, which they continually do. The grandstanding over issues in congress is not so much a principled stand as it is electioneering. Politicians are not rock stars. They shouldn’t behave like celebrities hungry for fans and ratings.
If you think the FCC is going to regulate anything other than their own receipts of lobbying money you are indeed blind to the nature of pure evil.
The fairness doctrine is gone, and under the Obama Administration. This means any money from any source including the government itself will now be used to provide public service to the population.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61851.html
Karl: There are only three choices under our current system: FCC, Congress or give up.
The FCC is political, Congress is not of the people anymore if they fail to see that the way they are elected and influenced is not the way it ought to be.
Erich,
Even if you could define what “private” money means without using someone’s bias you would only begin to touch on the creative ways people are even using “public tax” (or debt) money in very biased ways to influence campaigns and legislative lobbying.
All of it needs to progressively taxed as the unethical slide will never stop until there is less and less return for the attempted influence.
Karl,
the fairness doctrine has been most vociferously oposed by libertarian and right-wing pundits under the claim that it interfered with the freedom of speech of the right-wing punditry.
Mark Fowler, a republican revoked the doctrine in the 1980’s claiming the doctrine violated the first admendment even though a supreme court ruling years earlier explicitly stated otherwise.
The court decision was based on the concept that the radio frequency exclusively licensed to the broadcasters constituted a chartered monopoly, and that the radio spectrum, as a common medium belongs to the people.
So now you’re saying the lack of the fairness doctrine (which only applied to broadcast media) somehow gives government an unfair advantage over the mega media corporations like News corp, ClearChannel, or Comcast, just to name a few)
So Karl, get real, stop being a parrot for the no-nothing punditry, pick a hole and stick with it.
The “Fairness Doctrine” officially died today: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/177775-fcc-strikes-83-outdated-rules-including-fairness-doctrine
Does this mean MocksNews will drop its fake slogan?
Jim: Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
With the FCC relenting because of the non-broadcast new media corporations our only hope is to encourage congress to take the bull by the horns and progressively tax all of the money used towards their own campaigns and their own bottom lines. They are not in Government to be Elitists, if they think they are there needs to be a constitutional ammendment making the campaigners and lobbyist afraid of something putting a wrench in their methods of operation.
Mark,
The US has two grossly competing problems, debt created by governmental expeditures of money it wishes it had and no way of collecting taxes when loop holes allow bottom lines to be the basis on which taxation is levied.
The current methodology of allowing elected officials to be influenced by the highest spenders into their campaigns and personal lifestyles has brought us here. This is not a partisan matter.
There will be no ethics commission that can work through this cesspool unless all money, good and services that are targeted at elected and appointed governmental officials is monitored and progressively taxed.
We should make it a constitutional ammendment that any person runnung for statewide or higher elected office or appointed to salaried governmental office loses their rights to operate financially independent of IRS. They should lose the right to receipt all of their own funds and to write non-personally related checks during the campaign, while in office, and for at least as many years after as they seved in office.
In essence we the people should make them turn over their governmental related financial power of attorney to the IRS for as long as they aspire to public service.
This would serve any number of useful purposes.
Karl
Pick a hole.
Must be this upset Niklaus, 8-ball corner pocket.
Finally!