Against Our Interests?

by Ruth Sheets
 

I have been listening to the returns from the special election in Wisconsin.  The Democrats needed to win three seats and only got two and are facing a challenge next Tuesday.  What amazes me is the fact that Wisconsin Republicans, like Republicans in many states continue to vote against their own interests.

Wisconsin Republicans went into office claiming that their major effort would be to add jobs and lower the state debt.  Their real intention was to bust public unions and cut services.  Voters don’t get it that they might not need governmental help at this moment, but that life throws surprises our way and any of them could be in the position of needing help.

We hear “We need small government.”  That seems to be the popular line with the Tea Partiers these days, but what are they willing to cut?  The programs that serve the most vulnerable, of course.  They are well aware of the reality that those citizens are least able to stand up for their needs, let alone their rights. 

Will the Tea Party willingly cut defense funds?  Probably not; they will more likely want to cut veterans money because that is easy.  Will they cut money for prisons, border patrols, funds for the war on drugs, programs for abstinence education, all programs that are wasteful and not as effective as claimed?  Not likely.  They don’t seem to care about value if the program supports their personal or social beliefs.

Cutting funds for education, food stamps, Medicaid, and other support programs seems a top priority for conservatives, even those who depend on these programs just to stay alive and to provide for their children. 

 

I heard a listing of the Federal monies that Michelle Bachman, a leading presidential candidate, has received throughout her life from the government. Hypocrisy rules even at the highest levels.  She cries “small government” while it is the government that has enabled her to be where she is. 

It is amazing how few Americans have noticed the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor.  The rank and file of the Tea Party and many other Conservative Republicans fall in the group that is moving toward the poor side.  They don’t even seem to realize what is happening.  They don’t see that none of the programs being advocated by their representatives will in any way improve their situation.  They don’t get it that their chances of moving into that higher group diminish with each day.

What is wrong with  us?  Are we hard-wired to be unable to recognize inconsistencies?  Is it part of our make-up that we stand against our own interests?  Is “the American dream” of wealth so strong that we believe we will one day be among the chosen few who are in the top 1 percent, the very wealthy?  Do we delight in the hopeful thought of being able to dictate to the rest of the poor suckers who just couldn’t make it, the ones who just didn’t work hard enough or weren’t lucky enough?

Maybe instead of teaching to tests in our schools, we should be teaching logic, ethics, basic economics, and statistics from very early grades.  That will require money and time for planning, both of which along with many other ideas are being cut.  Maybe what lies behind all the education cuts is that people who don’t know how to think for themselves are so much more easily frightened and manipulated by people who enjoy wielding power. 

SHARED SACRIFICE?

The budget fight is the lead story on every newscast and has been for quite some time.  No one doubts that we need to cut spending significantly to lower our debt.  This is our current crisis.  When a people face a crisis, their best and worst qualities come to the front.  The morality of the people and their cause, it seems to me, is marked by whether the best or worst traits dominate the discourse.

The potential spending cuts on the table now involve defunding education, family planning, Head Start, heating assistance, public broadcasting, Medicaid, and a wide range of other service programs.  Most of these programs serve the most vulnerable among us, people who are so used to being hidden, with no power that the politicians who vote to remove these services will reap no negative effects.  Once it’s done, we all can say, “What could I do?  Some other, local groups will step up to bridge the gap.” Honestly, though, we know that’s not true and that we allowed our worst traits to rule.

I brought this issue up with my students yesterday.  We discussed the idea that the “haves” may be actively working to maintain a permanent underclass of people who can fill the jobs that immigrants currently fill, you know, the jobs supposedly nobody wants.  My students were distressed, not knowing how to respond to the idea that one group would do such a thing to fellow citizens. 

Where are the cuts in subsidies to the wealthy companies?  Where is the regulation to protect the environment?  Where are the closed loopholes that will require the wealthiest few to pay their fair share of the taxes to support our nation?  Where is the end to the wars that enrich the wealthy contractors who just happen to be supplying the weapons, the mercenaries, the supplies that keep the wars going?

There is no shared sacrifice, only one group suffers, the one that always feels the pain, but ends up buying the line that one day they too could be among the privileged few.  Such deception and abandonment make us  as a nation, in this crisis, morally bankrupt.

Peace (not likely),

Ruth

The Parable of the Corporation

My guest blogger today goes by the pen name of Muon.  The explanation is that a muon is a tiny, seemingly insignificant part of an atom, yet is unstable enough to shake things up now and then.  Muon manages to live very happily on an income below the "poverty line."  
The Parable of the Corporation
by Muon

Let's pretend that you and I and all our neighbors are
shareholders of a mega-corporation.  Instead of money, they pay us in free products and services.  Since they give us these dividends even when they don't make a profit, we agree to the deal.

Like most shareholder/company relationship, we don't get all that involved in the details of how the business is run.  We assume the employees, from the CEO down to the peons,  know what they're doing.  Once in a while, we insist on replacing the CEO and top management, but for the most part, the system works.

Lately, however, the corporation has stopped being  profitable. For one thing, the Purchasing Department has been making sweetheart deals with vendors, giving contracts not to a low bidder, but to the same expensive companies over and over.  Management hasn't done anything about it because most of them have personal monetary interests in these companies.  The Receivables Department is lackadaisical about their work because they think the shareholders' investments are enough to keep the company going.  The Sales Department figures, if everyone else is slacking off, why should they look for new business?  The Manufacturing Department figures, if no one's selling the product, why make it?  But everyone wants to keep their jobs, so no one rocks the boat by changing things.

The reason everyone wants to keep their jobs?  The  employees set their own salaries, which is currently at least three times the income of your average shareholder.

The corporation is nearly bankrupt, but management has sworn to the shareholders that they'll balance this year's budget.  They decide to do this not by decreasing waste, finding new revenue sources, putting a halt to bad business practices, downsizing, or even by taking a paycut themselves.  No, they intend to balance the budget by cutting the products and services given to the very people who are footing the bill, the shareholders.  A small but loud percentage of the shareholders are even cheering top management on.

Is this parable far-fetched?  Not at all.  This is the way our government is run.  We let Congress have all the power over our tax money, including the power to funnel more of it to themselves by setting their salaries and setting policy which benefits the big businesses who contribute to their campaign funds.  All they care about is keeping that power by getting reelected.  Their idea of balancing the budget is to cut all the programs that directly benefit the people paying their  salaries--taxpayers.  They refuse to cut waste.  They refuse to look for new sources of revenue.  They refuse to encourage the startup of new American businesses which would then provide more tax income.  In fact, they want to cut business taxes and put more of the financial burden on the taxpayers, whose median household income this year is only about $50,000.

And Congress certainly never intends to give themselves a paycut.  If the minimum congressional salary were lowered to twice the national average household income, we could save 40 million a year.  Congressmen, like Senator Duffy, for instance, say they can't live on less than what they're making.

Frankly, if a Congressperson can't figure out how to live on $100,000 a year, he/she shouldn't be in charge of managing  the nation's money.

muon