As governors in Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana and, of course, Wisconsin, work to gut the right to collectively bargain -- and, with it, the very lifeblood of public sector unions -- the cuts to worker pay, benefits and pensions have already been chalked up as accepted concessions by those unions. Those cuts are necessary evils, they concede, and they're doing their part to solve massive budget shortfalls. And yet, their "massive" pay and alleged selfishness is still decried by the right's corporate-fueled rhetoric. They're living the high life off of the taxpayer's dime, the accusation goes, and it's time for that gravy train to end.
In reality, public workers are struggling behind pushcarts as Wall Street bankers and corporate executives zoom miles above in gravy Concord jets.
On average, nationally, a public worker represented by a union -- teachers, hospital workers, librarians, sanitation workers, firefighters and police officers -- makes $922. That's a nice little increase from non-unionized workers, a group that makes $769. But if we're trying to fill a troublesome and dangerous national deficit, perhaps instead of attacking that $153 difference, maybe we should seek a little change out of Dick Fuld's pocket. He took home $529 million -- of what ended up being taxpayer money.
Keep in mind, the average Wisconsin public worker makes $24,500.
The former CEO of Lehman Brothers, Dick Fuld's disastrous subprime lending, accounting tricks and knowingly shady business dealings helped sink the famed brokerage firm and, soon after, the U.S. economy. Americans lost millions of homes directly, and millions more indirectly, thanks to his false promises and deliberate sabotage efforts. In his time at Lehman, Fuld made that $529 million, and he didn't exactly use it to pay off the houses of those he foiled, or, again, the tens of millions of others that his firm's collapse left destitute.
He also didn't spend a minute in jail, though, of course, that'd just end up costing more taxpayer money.
The government could also go after a little bit of the pocket cash of Joe Cassano, the civic self-sacrificer who made $280 million for leading AIGFP's charge into economy-anchor derivatives -- and, after his little shop lost $11 billion and did its part to blow up the economy -- walked away with a cool $34 million in bonuses and $1 million a month to consult. I wonder if he had to negotiate his benefits.
Sure, most of the TARP bailout was paid back -- well, the small sliver of a larger bailout voted on by Congress, not the $3.3 trillion the Federal Reserve has used to buy up and back up risky banks, stocks, banks and more, which, even if necessary, is being paid for by taxpayers because of the corporate malfeasance of executives such as Fuld and Cassano. Paying back TARP was putting a plug in the original hole after the entire levee burst. The cost to tax payers, in both pure cash and future opportunity (infrastructure, real health reform, better schools, etc etc) is massive and incomprehensible.
It should be noted that it wasn't just these few bad apples on Wall Street that helped cause the collapse. They're the figureheads of a much larger problem. When a country spends thirty years allowing income disparity to become so gaping that 99 percent of the country is living off debt and credit, this is bound to happen. And it was allowed to happen because the business community worked to make it happen.
If executive donations don't fix it all, for a more permanent solution, a suggestion would be to close corporate loopholes, both in Wisconsin -- 67% of businesses in the state pay no taxes -- and nationally, where similarly, between 1998 and 2005, 68% of foreign companies doing business in the US and 67% of American corporations paid no federal income taxes. That was cool $2.5 trillion in missed budget-filling opportunities, even as working Americans dutifully paid up by April 15th.
This gargantuan amount of money, just a small sampling of the gross gifts the nation gives to those in the name of job creation -- how's that going? -- comes directly from the public's coffers. For every brokerage firm or shady derivative swapping outfit that collapses, or just swindles people out of their cash, there's another person that the government -- with no assistance from those corporations, which are too busy counting money and not paying taxes -- has to help feed, clothe, put in a bare minimum shelter with bare minimum training to apply for a job that no longer exists because small businesses were destroyed when their owners lost their customers, homes and/or leases.
For every tax break or loophole provided by the government to a corporate donor, that's a dollar the government doesn't have, and, as such, is paying out.
Maybe the government can hand over responsibility for paying the unemployment checks of the 8.5 million people that lost jobs in the aftermath of the collapse. That'd help the deficit, for sure. Or, maybe they can foot the $100,000 per household loss in stock and housing value that Americans suffered.
And $922 a week is egregious? That's the kind of cut we need -- the middle class salary that powers the real economy, caviar and yacht sales notwithstanding? We don't have a budget deficit, we have a budget distortion. A case of misplaced priorities. Millionaires over teachers, hospital workers, firefighters. Sounds about right.
Giving up collective bargaining rights is another slip toward indentured servitude, with the bright light at the end of the tunnel getting further and further away as it rises to the penthouse. Reworking our corporate tax code -- no, making our corporate tax code even slightly more fair -- and clawing back some of the insane "performance" bonuses stolen during this that collapse would help fix a century's worth of deficits -- without stealing the food out of the mouths of those who make this country work.
If your stomach can handle it, I very much encourage you to read Matt Taibbi's epic full piece in Rolling Stone about the bankster theft, which helped inform this piece and includes incomprehensible -- but true -- stories of corruption and greed.
Simon Johnson: "A Healthy Financial System Cannot Be Built on the Expectation of Bailouts"
Mike Lux: Wisconsin and the Politics of Envy
We have a leadership deficit.
Until we can find someone, somewhere that will put the needs of the people ahead of personal profit or political gain, we're essentially screwed.
The two parties are playing good cop, bad cop. One wants us to do what they say, the other says, I want to help, but I need you to do this for me. Both seem to work for the same corporate bosses.
At the end of the day they go to the local bar together, have a cold one, and laugh at our gullibility.
America 2011........"I've fallen, and I can't get up"
Where's "Life Alert" when we really need them?
I think one pitfall of union membership is that people tend to succumb to an 'us or them' type mentality. I have only been part of one union in my life, and it's a mistake I will never repeat again. May I spend the rest of my life unemployed or working minimum wage, but that's how I feel about that whole business. I think unions have the capacity to manipulate, even potentially subvert the political process, and that's where you have to say that especially in the context of government, the job comes first, your 401k and dental plan somewhere closer to next to last.
Finally, if it really becomes an issue, and union members themselves become unhappy with the current state of affairs in their state, unions, including the SEIU, can in fact, be decertified. You put that card in your wallet, you can take it back out again, too.
Who runs the governments of the 50 states, the duly elected officials, and the voters and the people employed by them for that purpose, or international labor organizations with well-paid, dues-paying members, benefit-centric political agendas, large budgets and internet access? I'll take option 1, please.
And, before we forget and wander off doing something else, let's see a current 'snapshot' state-by-state budget report, and find out how this figurative cowflop of a situation really lies. What, exactly, ARE we stepping into, here?
1) It's a bit difficult to avoid an "us or them" mentality when corporate-funded office-holders have singled unions out as the "them."
2) That same corporate funding also "subvert[s] the political process" by, in terms of contributors, more than a 2-to-1 ratio.
3) Workers in the unions involved in the current confrontation In Wisconsin have already agreed to additional contributions toward their benefits that amount to 10% or more of their annual salaries. The Governor and statehouse majority have refused this offer thus far - even though it was the very fiscal concession they asked for - unless the unions surrender their collective bargaining rights. So much for the "benefit-centric political agenda."
Obama's relative silence on the matter, leaving the distorted "narrative" out there alive and kicking, is news.
Write about that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_democracy
A company looks at its tax bill and thinks it could employ more people rather than be taxed at all. It fails to recognize all the tax breaks that same company gets along the way. For a simplified example, let's say a small business with 50 employees pays the equivalent of one person's salary in taxes per year. That looks like a lot, but it's not a lot when a percentage of the total employee costs are considered. Let's say that tax amount is $40K a year, but the same company has a payroll of $2 million a year (50 employees). It's possible to confuse that $40K (or 80K or 120K) as excessive, but it's really not excessive. It's more a red herring to attempt to drive down business taxes further.
The same consideration can be made here. Business wants all the breaks because it pays a lot of money in taxes (sometimes.) But it's not really a large percentage compared to the middle class. Walker wants us to believe the lie.