I first became acquainted with Barack Obama in the fall of 2007. Like millions of others, I became captivated by his style and his rhetoric. Like millions of others, I began to believe that “Yes We Can!”
Then came the health care reform bill that was so weakened as to become almost useless, (in my mind anyway). Then the finance reform bill came along and it also was extremely weak and didn’t address the actual causes of the financial crisis. After President Obama’s first year and a half in office, I, like millions of others, became disillusioned by what I saw as an inability or unwillingness to stand up to the Republicans to get the people’s business done. I was even entertaining the thought that maybe we needed to put up a primary challenge to President Obama for 2012.
And then my eyes were opened to what is really going on.
A few weeks ago I started an article that was supposed to be about how to get the political left and right in this country to come together for the good of the American people. As I was doing research for this article, because of what I was learning, the article morphed into a Republican bashing article. That was not the article I wanted to write so I stopped.
A couple of days ago, I resurrected the article and read it. I still wanted to write a positive piece about how to come together. As I was re-reading the article, a saw a pattern emerging and I realized something; the American populace is being played for fools. Not by our politicians, but by corporate America through our elected officials.
The financial reform bill, the health care reform bill and all the other bills that came out of Congress weren’t weakened because the Republicans wanted that. No, they were weakened because that is what the health care industry wanted, what the financial sector wanted, etc. The Democrats went along with it of course because they get their election financing from the same sources as the Republicans.
Six industries control our government: Oil, Pharmaceutical, Agriculture, Tobacco, Insurance, and Defense. If you pay attention to how a bill is written, you will see that when our elected officials author the bill, it is with the lobbyists from the industry that will be affected. When the financial reform bill was written, it was with Wall Street and K Street being represented. When the health care reform bill was written, United Health Care, Blue Shield, etc all had their lobbyists there to represent their interests. Who was there to represent the American people? No one.
People counter this with the argument: “If these bills were so advantageous for the industries they were written for, why did they fight so hard against it?” That is simple. Appearance. These corporations need to keep up the illusion that our government works for us. When these bills are written, the lobbyists and special interest put in loopholes in such a way that they will be able to skirt the new regulations and as a bonus the politicians can point to the new regulations as progress, though they seem to always forget to mention all the loopholes.
Our tax code is a perfect example of how this works. At 35%, America has the highest corporate tax code in the industrialized world. However they pay, on average, about 15% in taxes, if, and that is a huge if, they pay at all. Exxon Mobile made $45 billion in profit last year. They paid $15 billion in taxes. However none of those taxes went to the American coffers. That money was paid to other countries that Exxon operates in. In fact, not only did they not pay any taxes, they received a check in the amount of $156 million from the American government. This was a payment for the oil subsidies the oil industry receives. Seriously, does anyone outside of the oil industry think this is a good idea? Do you think this is fair? At the very least everyone in America over a certain income, including those new people designated that by our Supreme Court, the corporations, should pay the same percentage of their income in taxes. Instead, because of our regressive tax code, the more you make, the less you pay. Again, who thinks this is a good idea or fair? At this point in our history, the income disparity between the rich and the rest of us is larger than it ever has been. Every credible economist, left or right, says this is not good for the economy and will lead to another crash if not addressed. Is it being addressed? No.
The “Big Six” as I call them, need to keep up appearances because if the vast majority of Americans, (it would need to be more than just 51% to get Congress to act. More like 75% or 80%), realized the influence that these industries exert over our federal government, they would demand change. Even though our politicians are financed by these industries, the vote rests with the American people. If 75% of the American people demanded change, and the politicians refused, they would be gone, pure and simple.
Okay so now that the problem has been identified, what is the solution? Publicly financed election. Some counter this with the argument that this country is broke and cannot afford to finance elections with our taxes. That is just a red herring put there to distract us. Think about. If we gave say $100 million to the top 5 candidates for president that would equal $500 million. If this change made Exxon pay even 10% in taxes, that would have totaled $4.5 billion last year; more than enough to finance the elections under this scenario.
This will never happen as long as the politicians continue to keep us divided. As long as it is left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican, nothing is going to change. Nothing. The CEOs will be in their ivory towers, looking down on the American people and laughing all the way to the bank.
So the answer posed by this article is this: As long as the American people refuse to see what is happening, the answer is no. In fact it is going to continue to get worse. The longer this goes on, the harder it is going to be to extricate ourselves from the undue influence these industries have over our political process.
www.outofstepper.com