With People In Streets, Mubarak Congress Focused On Taking Money Out Of Economy

This situation of crony government protecting the connected rich while people are in the streets demanding change is more and more reminiscent of Egypt under Mubarak. In the real world, tens of thousands are in the streets around the country demanding taxes on the rich and an end to corporate rule, as a new report lists profitable companies that pay no taxes at all. Today's jobs report is not enough to even keep up. But in the Congress, Senate Republicans filibuster another jobs bill and the "super committee" is looking at how much to take out of the economy and out of the things We, the People do for each other -- in order to keep taxes low for the rich and their giant corporations.

Filibustering Jobs

Yesterday, Senate Republicans again filibustered a jobs bill -- a plan to hire people to repair our country's infrastructure. This is work that has to be done, and right now millions of people need work. But Republicans filibustered this bill. The corporate-owned mainstream media, however, largely refused to tell the public what is happening, instead blaming "the Senate." The Washington Post headlined, "Senate blocks $60 billion infrastructure plan, another part of Obama jobs bill." Politico blamed "both parties," with "Both parties block jobs bills". MSNBC: Senate blocks $60B part of Obama jobs plan. CNN: Competing infrastructure spending measures fail in Senate.

So the big-corporate media leads the public to blame "the Senate" and government, providing few clues that tell people where to apply the pressure that makes representative democracy function.

Big Corps Paying No Taxes, Not Just Low Taxes

From Citizens for Tax Justice report: Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers, 2008-2010,

280 Most Profitable U.S. Corporations Shelter Half Their Profits from Taxes.

"These 280 corporations received a total of nearly $224 billion in tax subsidies," said Robert McIntyre, Director at Citizens for Tax Justice and the report's lead author. "This is wasted money that could have gone to protect Medicare, create jobs and cut the deficit."

30 Companies average less than zero tax bill in the last three Years, 78 had at least one no-tax year.

Financial services received the largest share of all federal tax subsidies over the last three years. More than half the tax subsidies for companies in the study went to four industries: financial services, utilities, telecommunications and oil, gas & pipelines.

U.S. corporations with significant foreign profits paid tax rates to foreign countries that were almost a third higher than they paid to the IRS on their domestic profits.

Who Are "The Markets?"

Who are we talking about when we talk about "corporate taxes?" Just who do we mean when we talk about "the markets?" See for yourself why the #occupy movement talks about the 1% vs. the 99%.

When you hear about corporations and "the markets," think about how that connects to this chart:

People in the Streets

Yesterday, in the post, "Oakland Occupied -- Will Washington Listen At Last?," I wrote about the large demonstrations that are spreading and growing: spreading to more and more cities, and growing with larger numbers in each city. I warned that this is starting to look like Egypt with the people in the streets protesting Mubarak's cronyism:

A Warning Shot at Washington's Increasing Irrelevance

As I said, this public protest is spreading and growing. People have had enough and are taking to the streets in increasing numbers. But Washington continues to ignore the public, debating a national motto, as Repubicans block jobs and an elitist "super committee" debates cutting the things government does for the 99%.

Poll after poll shows the public overwhelmingly supports increasing taxes on the wealthy, bringing corporations under control, and reigning in trade agreements that suck our jobs, factories, companies and industries out of the country. People do not want Medicare, Social Security and other essential government programs cut, they want the rich and corporations and Wall Street to start paying their share.

The public wants something done about these problems. They want jobs, they want something done about the increasing

If Congress continues to ignore the people of the country it will not be long before the situation is like Mubarak pretending he is still in charge of Egypt, while the people of the country are in the streets planning how they will run the country without him and his cronies.

Super Committee to Take Money Out of the Economy

A representative democracy serves the 99%, a plutocracy serves the 1%. Currently, in Washington, Congress' elite "super committee" represents the 1%, looking at ways to take more money out of the economy, discussing cutting Social Security at a time when many people have lost their pensions and savings. They are discussing cutting Medicare and other health services at a time when more and more people are in need. They are discussing cuts and cuts and cuts, when working people are falling behind and behind and behind.

But the actual causes of the deficits that have Congress so concerned are ignored. Reagan and the Bushes cut taxes on the rich and increased military spending, and the deficits and resulting debt soared. It is right there in front of our faces. But even with such "concern" about deficits, the tax cuts for the rich continue and the huge increases in military spending are left alone. Instead, Congress discusses austerity -- making the 99% pay for the benefits and bailouts for the 1%.

People are fed up, and rightly so. Poll after poll shows that the public wants taxes on the rich increased to pay for the deficit, infrastructure, education, health care, retirement and the rest of the things We, the People need. But our captured government is only serving the top few when they talk about cutting these things in order to keep taxes low at the top. The 1% would be well-advised to pay attention to what has happened in other countries where government ignores the people and takes care only of the connected rich.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Comments

[Eggsackley]

01:52 AM on 11/06/2011

It is not just the Republicans that take payola from the rich and powerful. But the Republicans are the ones riding point for the super-rich and the corporations and trying to make it harder for the 99% to vote. If we want to really take our country back from the rich and powerful, we have to do it at the ballot box. The first priority in next years election should be to defeat as many Republicans as possible and give the Democrats an effective majority in Congress. Then we can hold their feet to the fire. If they don't take strong action on tax reform to increase revenue so we can put people back to work, and if they don't push for a constitutional amendment to require federal funding of federal elections and limit corporations and other organizations from financing campaign ads, we need to start a majority party and throw them out too. The Republicans are screaming class warfare. They started It. It's time the working classes fought back. I consider myself and other professionals and most managerial employees with very few exceptions to be members of the working class. We have more in common with the unemployed and the blue collar workers than we do with the top five or ten percent. We have to restore majority rule in this Country and rebuild the middle classes or our country will go down the tubes.

[stopgov]

11:18 AM on 11/05/2011

I think you are right, the government is taking the money out of the economy. Most people are sitting on the sidelines, fear of increased taxes, fear of increased regulations, which adds to costs, and fear of government takeover/bailouts leads people to sit on their money. Until we get a government to stop taking OUR money and trying to redistribute it, our economy won't grow.

Government needs to get out of the way, and let the free market work. The free market is handcuffed, and has balls and chains on it's legs and was thrown in the pool and told to swim. Government is the problem, not the solution. Oh, and our debt, at 15 trillion, now exceeds our GDP! So we should spend more?????

[Eggsackley]

01:33 AM on 11/06/2011

Wrong on many counts. When government takes tax revenues and spends it on building infrastructure like roads and puts scientists to work doing basic research, it puts money back into the economy. The wages and salaries increase spending on goods and services and create more jobs and multiply the growth of the economy caused by the original government spending. And, we don't have a free market economy when the government gives tax breaks to some corporations and not to others. We subsidized cheap gasoline by giving oil companies depletion allowances for the oil they pumped out of the ground. That resulted in inefficient cars and inadequate public transportation. We do spend too much money on some things, but the real cause of the deficit is inadequate revenue. We will never get the economy back on track until we reform taxes like Reagan did, so that the government got more revenue by eliminating tax breaks and loopholes rather than less, even though he lowered taxes on the rich. But he left the government with huge deficits because of the huge increases in military spending during his terms as president. We do need to reduce spending, but we will never be able to get the deficits under control without a substantial increase in federal revenues. The working classes just don't make enough today to carry the burden, the wealthy have to start paying their fair share again like they did under Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton.

[stopgov]

08:56 AM on 11/06/2011

In general we disagree about the government responsibility, and oh, Mr. Kennedy supported lower taxes to stimulate the economy. But I'm in favor of fair taxes, and thus I've supported the flat tax and more recently a consumption (or fair) tax. So join me in urging others to support the flat tax and fair tax.

Our debt exceeds the GDP, so there is not enough money in the economy to pay for this. I can't believe you manage your budget like the U.S. government. It's almost like, I'm over weight, so to lose weight, and I'm going to keep stuffing my face. We need to go on a diet!