As the new Congress convenes you'll hear a lot of hot air about how “we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem”, about how “entitlements” are “bankrupting our grandchildren”, “living within our means”, and a bunch of other Conservative bumper sticker slogans. That isn't necessarily bad...if bumper stickers state something accurately they're a great way to encapsulate a powerful idea. Unfortunately that's not the case here. Robert Reich states it powerfully;
Some believe the central political issue of our era is the size of the government. They’re wrong. The central issue is whom the government is for.
Consider the new spending bill Congress and the President agreed to a few weeks ago.
It’s not especially large by historic standards. Under the $1.1 trillion measure, government spending doesn’t rise as a percent of the total economy. In fact, if the economy grows as expected, government spending will actually shrink over the next year.
The problem with the legislation is who gets the goodies and who’s stuck with the tab.
For example, it repeals part of the Dodd-Frank Act designed to stop Wall Street from using other peoples’ money to support its gambling addiction, as the Street did before the near-meltdown of 2008.
Dodd-Frank had barred banks from using commercial deposits that belong to you and me and other people, and which are insured by the government, to make the kind of risky bets that got the Street into trouble and forced taxpayers to bail it out.
But Dodd-Frank put a crimp on Wall Street’s profits. So the Street’s lobbyists have been pushing to roll it back.
The new legislation, incorporating language drafted by lobbyists for Wall Street’s biggest bank, Citigroup, does just this.
It reopens the casino. This increases the likelihood you and I and other taxpayers will once again be left holding the bag.
http://robertreich.org/...
Republicans and the larger Conservative Movement can be relied on to complain about anything which would constructively reduce income and wealth inequality as “redistribution”. That isn't entirely inacurrate, but it hides an ugly truth. As illustrated above Conservatives FAVOR redistribution...as long as it works in the interests of their patrons, the wealthy elites. They hide that fact, as today's radical Conservative Movement always does, by blaming the victims.
Conservatives like to portray government as a welfare machine doling out benefits to the poor, some of whom are too lazy to work.
In reality, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, only about 12 percent of federal spending goes to individuals and families, most of whom are in dire need.
An increasing portion goes to corporate welfare.
In addition to the provisions in the recent spending bill that reward Wall Street, health insurers, the travel industry, food companies, and defense contractors, other corporate goodies have been long baked into the federal budget.
Big agribusiness gets price supports. Hedge-fund and private-equity managers get their own special “carried-interest” tax loophole. The oil and gas industry gets its special tax subsidies.
Big Pharma gets a particularly big benefit: a prohibition on government using its vast bargaining power under Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate low drug prices.
Why are politicians doing so much for corporate executives and Wall Street insiders? Follow the money. It’s because they’re flooding Washington with money as never before, financing an increasing portion of politicians’ campaigns.
Ah, there it is...the reason Republicans have worked so hard to preserve the corrupt Citizens United decision, bring us the further corruption of McCutcheon, and still more court cases working their way through the system...every one of them directed at making sure the wealthy elites get to buy the government of their choosing. Keep that in mind as you watch the newly resplendent Republican Party at work, in Congress and at the state level.