Not only is income and wealth in America more concentrated in fewer hands than it's been in 80 years, but those hands are buying our democracy as never before -- and they're doing it behind closed doors.
Hundreds of millions of secret dollars are pouring into congressional and state races in this election cycle. The Koch brothers (whose personal fortunes grew by $5 billion last year) appear to be behind some of it, Karl Rove has rounded up other multimillionaires to fund right-wing candidates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is funneling corporate dollars from around the world into congressional races, and Rupert Murdoch is evidently spending heavily.
No one knows for sure where this flood of money is coming from because it's all secret.
But you can safely assume its purpose is not to help America's stranded middle class, working class, and poor. It's to pad the nests of the rich, stop all reform, and deregulate big corporations and Wall Street -- already more powerful than since the late 19th century when the lackeys of robber barons literally deposited sacks of cash on the desks of friendly legislators.
Credit the Supreme Court's grotesque decision in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, which opened the floodgates. (Even though 8 of 9 members of the Court also held disclosure laws constitutional, the decision invited the creation of shadowy "nonprofits" that don't have to reveal anything.)
According to FEC data, only 32 percent of groups paying for election ads are disclosing the names of their donors. By comparison, in the 2006 midterm, 97 percent disclosed; in 2008, almost half disclosed.
Last week, when the Senate considered a bill to force such disclosure, every single Republican voted against it -- thereby revealing the GOP's true colors, and presumed benefactors. (To understand how far the GOP has come, nearly ten years ago campaign disclosure was supported by 48 of 54 Republican senators.)
Maybe the Disclose Bill can get passed in lame-duck session. Maybe the IRS will make sure Karl Rove's and other supposed nonprofits aren't sham political units. Maybe pigs will learn to fly.
In the meantime we face an election that marks an even sharper turn toward plutocratic capitalism than before -- a government by and for the rich and big corporations -- and away from democratic capitalism.
As income and wealth has moved to the top, so has political power. That's why, for example, it's been impossible to close the absurd tax loophole that allows hedge-fund and private-equity managers to treat much of their income as capital gains, subject to a 15 percent tax (even though they're earning tens or hundreds of millions a year, and the top 15 hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion last year). Why it proved impossible to fund expanded health care by limiting the tax deductions of the very rich. Why it's so difficult even to extend George Bush's tax cuts for the bottom 98 percent of Americans without also extending them for the top 2 percent - even though the top won't spend the money and create jobs, but will blow a $36 billion hole in the federal budget next year.
The good news is average Americans are beginning to understand that when the rich secretly flood our democracy with money, the rest of us drown. Wall Street executives and top CEOs get bailed out while under-water homeowners and jobless workers sink.
A Quinnipiac poll earlier this year found overwhelming support for a millionaire tax.
But what the public wants means nothing if our democracy is secretly corrupted by big money.
Right now we're headed for a perfect storm: An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top, a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy, and a public in the aftershock of the Great Recession becoming increasingly angry and cynical about government. The three are obviously related.
We must act. We need a movement to take back our democracy. (If tea partiers were true to their principles, they'd join it.) As Martin Luther King once said, the greatest tragedy is "not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
What can you do?
1. Read Justice Steven's dissent in the Citizens United case, so you're fully informed about the majority's pernicious illogic.
2. Use every opportunity to speak out against this decision, and embarrass and condemn the right-wing Justices who supported it.
3. In this and subsequent elections, back candidates for congress and president who vow to put Justices on the Court who will reverse it.
4. Demand that the IRS enforce the law and pull the plug on Karl Rove and other sham nonprofits.
5. If you have a Republican senator, insist that he or she support the Disclose Act. If they won't, campaign against them.
6. Support public financing of elections.
7. Join an organization like Common Cause, that's committed to doing all this and getting big money out of politics. (Personal note: I'm so outraged at what's happening that I just became chairman of Common Cause.)
8. Send this post to your friends (including any tea partiers you may know).
Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.
As a former Secretary of Labor it is about time Mr. Reich studies and sponsors the only way toward helping the American people and its government, which is with new Labor Standards of a nature that
emasculates money of its pit-bull characteristics. There is enough wealth to establish a Life-Style where health, education, and welfare become an open sesame to economic abundance. And then the political representatives will not have to bow and scrape to their now masters of the universe.
Common Cause would welcome each and every one of you to become part of this critical fight.
I'd like to hear Richard R's thoughts on this topic.
The problem is not the political system, as many people seem to believe. The problem is the people themselves. If you won't even take the time to vote, to get involved, how do you expect to get anything to happen the way you want it to, or expect it to?
No political system is perfect, but not voting as someone has suggested, would be even worse. The reality is that the only way that people get the message is by seeing a vote. I am a "Serial Voter". I never miss an election, local or otherwise. And I keep involved. Why? Because that's what matters.
Alas, if the political system was to be corrupted, it would be because of Apathy....And that, would be a shame.
Ted Stevens was the senior U.S. Senator of a state that boasts only 1 US House representative. Yet, his state receives $1.84 in spending for every $1.00 paid by Alaskans in federal taxes. Obama's Illinois has 29 U.S. House representatives for its 2 US Senators. This state receives only $0.75 in federal spending for ever $1.00 residents pay to the IRS.
The Senate represents the State. And the State is the LAND, the geography, topography...property.
The physical land/territory has potential to grow, drill, colonize, preserve, bomb, entertain, produce, and be converted from material into money. It is the Senate that ensures the continuing exploitation and degradation of our state/national territory. All of this is done in opposition to the public.
Corporations become attached to our state, not our people. The disproportionate power of the State/Senate (i.e. filibuster) over the House provides a pathway for corporations to exert disproportionate power over the citizen.
...Senate Reform?...
The Justice Department, and the FBI in particular, need to investigate all aspects of American corporate power for possible acts of collusion with the enemies of this country. Such collusion constitutes high treason.
Those who sell out the America for a profit must be ready to mount the gibbet. Just as anyone in uniform must be prepared to face a similar fate for selling out his country.
We have $1,000,000 for you or against you and this is what we want if you decide to take out funding for your campaign.
We will no longer be the Democracy that we thrive for in the past but a dictatorship run by big business interest will no regard for what is best for Americans.
More wars will be focused on business decisions and our justice department will be owned by big business which is very dangerous.
I like to deal with reality after 30 years of being in business in know we will go down hill unless people will rise.
"Radical problems require moderate solutions."
Il Professore
That's the ticket. Just sort of some kind of vague middling mediocre kind of thing will do the trick. You betcha.
America's voting numbers are ridiculously low and the political pundits view this as apathy, but, in reality it is resignation. The majority of Americans are resigned to candidates that are hand picked, fed and groomed by a select few.
The select few have their hands in many pies. For example, a NJ county Democratic leader is a lawyer. He has a strong base, after all, NJ is a Dem state (of course only 30 +/-percent of the state votes and maybe, 20% actually follow his lead). But, he has a very strong say in political appointments in his area and, because of this, anyone wanting the local government to do something, hires this guy as their attorney and gets things done… at least for a while.
This is politics. You know how it works. I’d like thinking Americans to boycott all elections and pledge to not vote. The two parties have made a mockery of Democracy and it is time for Americans to stand up and fight. What would America look like in the eyes of the world if Americans actively boycott elections?
They just don't get it.
"We have a constitution, right?" We have laws, right? We have elections, right?".... Wrong
* Constitution bypassed, ignored, unenforced.
* Laws politicized and selectively enforced proportional to wealth
* Elected representatives ignoring their electorate when they get to Washington, bought out by the wealthy bank and corporate lobby.
Americans know this is happening and yet are not seriously moved to change things, it is not bad enough yet. The illusion of democracy is still close, keeping it vibrant is somebody else's problem. Representatives and senators unaccountable to the people that elected them is a sham. It is the reality. The two parties are are really only one both sponsored by the same individual, corporate and foreign sources of wealth.
Witnessing a great nation decline into feudalism, kleptocracy, plutocracy, war mongering and poverty with the tacit acceptance of its own population is a tragedy.
In the end it is the people who are to blame for allowing this to happen.
It is no secret Mr Reich, the American people have ignored it and continue to do so.
As an aside, your argument might be a tad more compelling were it spelled and punctuated correctly.
Within a few election cycles we could see a de facto Caesar dynasty like Berlusconi or Putin.
Keeping the facts straight cuts down the cynicism.