If we expect better from government, we must pressure government
Corruption Is Dangerous to Your Health
| As long as we let politicians spend all our public revenue, we should expect them to benefit themselves first, we the public last. What we need to do is geonomize -- take over discretionary spending. Put the budget on the ballot, as in Brazil. Or, better yet, after covering the costs of the minimal government needed to defend rights-- cops, courts, military -- disburse all the rest as a dividend to citizens, a la Alaska's oil dividend. This 2009 article from the Huffington Post, May 5, is by the co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future. |
by Robert L. Borosage
"And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."That was Sen Richard Durbin, the powerful Senate Democratic whip, while the banking lobby, with foreclosures soaring across the nation, blocked a core reform for beleaguered homeowners that would give judges the right to modify mortgages in bankruptcy court.
But it isn't just the banks. Agribusiness is protecting its obscene subsidies. Insurance companies are deploying legions of lobbyists to gut the public plan in health care reform. The utilities are carving out exceptions for coal plants. Multinationals are disemboweling Obama’s tax proposals. The military industrial lobby is a good bet to frustrate DOD Secretary Gates modest procurement reforms.
Congress is bought and sold. Each night, Washington slurps on political fund-raisers. Each day, the deals get cut; the favors get done. Now with Republicans obstructing anything Obama, Congress can be bought on the cheap. The lobbies have only to enlist (suborn, bribe, seduce, finance) a few of what the press insists on describing as "moderate Democrats" in the Senate to stop any reform they don't like.
What's often forgotten in this squalid exchange is that the very Americans the legislators preen to represent are the victims of their various corruptions.
For example, with the swine flu alert sweeping the country, the Centers for Disease Control urged people with flu symptoms to stay home to limit the spread of what might be a dangerous virus. Yet about 60 million Americans don't have paid sick leave. Many can be fired if they stay home. And if not fired, many simply can't afford to lose the hours.
This is a barbarity that is dangerous to your health. Women -- who tend still to be disproportionately in part-time and low wage work -- are particularly at risk.
More than 160 countries have laws that ensure all their citizens receive paid sick leave and more than 110 of them guarantee paid leave from the first day of illness. The US does not. The reason goes no further than the influence of money on politics.
We once provided much of our social contract through the corporation rather than the Congress. Strong unions could negotiate a family wage, health care, overtime pay, paid sick leave, paid vacations, and pensions. Many non-union employers offered benefits similar to those provided by union companies. But over the last decades of this conservative era, as unions grew weaker under attack, more and more corporations simply shredded those agreements.
Now we'll have to enact these basic guarantees -- central to what Franklin Roosevelt called the Economic Bill of Rights -- in law. But each reform will have to overcome the resistance of entrenched lobbies, buying the protection of compromised legislators.
In 2005, Senator Ted Kennedy and Rep. Rosa DeLauro introduced a bill entitled the Health Families Act that would mandate up to seven paid sick days for employees in firms with more than 15 employees (and pro-rated leave for part-time employees). It never came to a vote in the Senate. Obama pledged to support seven day paid sick leave in his campaign. Many Democratic lobbyists will dine well off of that pledge.
In area after area, Americans are suffering from the accumulated corruptions of our moneyed politics. To cleanse the backrooms and lobbies of Capitol Hill, one current is strong enough. That’s an aroused public angry enough to sweep away those who stand in the way.
JJS: And replace corruption with what? Of course people should be able to afford to take time off. However, many poor people work for small businesses that can’t afford to give employees a paid vacation.
Further, it’s a mistake to expect all of our income to come from jobs, or interest on savings. We must learn to feel enough self-esteem to expect an extra income apart from our labor or capital -- an income from land (including resources, EM spectrum, and government-granted privileges). The rich expect something for nothing; everyone must learn to feel as worthy as the rich.
As a society, we have lots of surplus, of commonwealth -- all the money we spend on the nature we use. And that flow could even grow were we to shift taxes off labor and capital and onto the annual economic value of land. Once we receive a fair share, then we can afford to take time off and to negotiate vacations or insurance or whatever other benefits a robust corporation could afford.
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Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
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Also see: Just Cause for Great Alarm
Banks Getting TARP Money Lending Less Than Other Bank
Richest Americans' Income Doubled as Tax Rate Slashed |
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