“There’s no real difference between Democrats on Republicans on economic issues.” That’s a phrase you might have heard bandied about in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election—or even since, if you’re talking to the, er, right people. You might also have heard adjectives like “neoliberal” and “pro-corporate” attached to the Democratic Party, or to leading Democratic politicians, as part of this “both parties are the same” nonsense.
For those whose head resides somewhere other than behind their sphincter, however, such generalizations contain as much truth value as the “little white lies” Hope Hicks has been telling about her boss—which include ones about Russian officials communicating with high-level Trump officials throughout the campaign, lies that just might place her in serious legal jeopardy.
But let’s get back to economics and look at two instances that demonstrate just how ill-informed the aforementioned “no real difference” claim actually is. The first is a case argued before the Supreme Court last week, Janus v. AFSCME. The court is poised to overturn Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, a 41-year-old precedent that allows public sector unions to require all the employees who benefit from its collective bargaining efforts to contribute to the costs necessary to run it.
Never mind that overturning a Supreme Court precedent is a big deal, something that, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, for example, included a detailed, factual demonstration by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund showing that the precedent case was not working as intended, i.e., separate but equal never lived up to the “equal” part of the billing in reality.
In Janus, the Supreme Court has heard no such factual presentation explaining why Abood isn’t working, nor has it heard studies demonstrating the likely impact of overturning this precedent. The plaintiffs, and the five (out of nine) justices who are expected to rule in their favor, are operating “in the dark, with no more grounding in facts than the average afternoon radio call-in show.”
The purpose of the plaintiff’s arguments could not be clearer: namely, to further weaken public sector unions. Recently published political science research demonstrates the electoral impact such a ruling is likely to have, based on similar laws passed by individual states. Striking down Abood will cost Democrats 2 to 3 percent of the vote in the 22 affected states, and don’t think that isn’t the point. Victory in this case will be the crowning achievement in an extended Republican campaign against unions and working people:
Republicans have long acknowledged that they see public-sector unions as a key threat to their political agenda. The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council has seen teachers unions as a major impediment to their agenda for nearly half a century, complaining that the “most effective lobby in the state legislatures … was the National Education Association.” ALEC has worked to undermine teachers unions with “paycheck protection” laws, which require unions to keep separate funds for political activities. ALEC’s model governor, Scott Walker, famously worked to limit collective bargaining, and as soon as Republicans gain political power in statehouses, unions come under fire. Recent research on ALEC’s war on public-sector unions suggests that it has indeed been effective. The onslaught of conservative attacks has reduced union dues, demobilized public-sector union workers, and even led to lower expenditures on education.
The only reason the Republicans are going to win this case is because Neil Gorsuch sits on the court instead of Merrick Garland. You remember him, right? He’s the only Supreme Court nominee of a president never even to get a hearing, let alone a vote, in the Senate. As the New York Times editorial board wrote, Gorsuch sits in a “stolen Supreme Court seat.” And, of course, the only reason Gorsuch sits there is because Donald Trump won the election. But Democrats are no different from Republicans on economic issues. Right.
I’ll also point out that Republicans never fail to use their power in an existing moment to maximize their chances of holding on to that power by changing rules or laws in ways that not only benefit their donors financially, but also favor them in future elections. That’s because they don’t respect the institutions of democracy and constitutional government, or at least not enough to put protecting those institutions above naked partisan interest. They never bring a knife to a gun fight.
Earlier, I mentioned two instances that demonstrate the difference between the parties on economics. The second one is Trump’s Rich Man’s Tax Cut. The graph to the right, based on public announcements made by ninety of corporate America’s largest behemoths, shows what a tiny percentage of the benefits they received from Trump’s tax scheme actually went to employees compared to wealthy shareholders. Diving deeper, of the money these big corporations did spend on workers, 56% of it went to one-time payments or bonuses as opposed to raises. But of course the reduced corporate tax rates Trump provided will benefit the corporations not once, but every year.
Here’s some more hard data:
Stock buybacks announced between January 1st and February 15th reached historically high levels, totaling about $170 billion in that period. That’s 28 times larger than the total value of end-of-year bonuses that were credited to the corporate tax bill—some of which had been announced months earlier and had nothing to do with the tax cuts. Companies might be advertising new bonuses. But they’re quietly reaping the benefits of higher profits.
In a perfect case of “fake news”, or at least of the mainstream media trying to show it isn’t really liberal—which it isn’t on economic issues anyway—the bonuses have gotten wildly disproportionate coverage compared to the reality of where the money is going. In the Washington Post, economists Rick Wartzman and William Lazonick explained:
Egged on by the White House, corporate America has spent the past few weeks touting how it is sharing its big Trump tax cut with employees in the form of bonuses and pay increases — an apparent validation of the trickle-down approach to economics espoused by the president and his Republican allies.
But when we look at the numbers, we see the opposite: The nation’s workers are getting woefully little, at least relatively speaking. Peeking beyond the PR, our analysis finds that major corporations are planning to spend more than 30 times what they are putting in the wallets of employees on buying back their own stock — a practice solely meant to lift the fortunes of shareholders.
This is all part of the plan. Corporations love the Trump tax scheme, so it’s in their interest to help sell it, and to help the people who gave it to them at the ballot box. And their plan is working, as the scheme has become more popular in recent weeks, after starting out as one of the least liked major proposals in recent memory. In terms of actual policy, let’s also not forget that the Trump tax scheme has already increased projected budget deficits more quickly than was initially expected.
Democrats must fight back, both by pointing out the reality of this rich man’s tax cut, and offering their own proposals so that voters can see what a real middle-class tax cut and jobs plan looks like. Ads are already up in Indiana and Missouri (states won by Trump where Democratic senators Donnelly and McCaskill are running for reelection) that hammer the tax scheme as a budget-buster that will send money to the rich—and which Republicans will pay for by cutting Medicare. That’s a good start. Last fall Democrats did offer a number of alternatives, and work must continue on that front so that progressives can unite around a single set of proposals to run on this fall.
Sending money up the economic ladder is what Republicans do. It’s what they’ve done for decades. It’s the reason why the Republican Party exists. Democrats, on the other hand, fight for the 99%. Can we push them to be better? Absolutely. But we’ve also got to come out and vote to make sure that the better candidate always wins.
Anyone who tries to sell you on the idea that there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans is either not paying attention, a right-wing troll, or serving the interests of Vladimir Putin. Come to think of it, the last two are pretty much the
same thing.
