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Begin forwarded message: > From: "Ralph Nader" <[email protected]> > Date: December 14, 2010 7:30:01 AM PST > To: [email protected] > Subject: Majority of One > > In the Public Interest > Majority of One > By Ralph Nader > > On Friday, December 10, 2010, Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent Socialist, > of Vermont, came of age. At last. With just about the best progressive voting > record, Senator Sanders has nonetheless been an underachiever in the minds of > those Americans who marveled at his tenure as mayor of Burlington, Vt. before > he became a Congressman and now a Senator. > > Last Friday, Sanders tore the covers off an oligarchic driven Congress and a > concessionary President with eight-and-a-half hours of non-stop presentations > of facts and figures and a plea for fairness and justice. His goal was not > heated rhetoric, though he showed deep moral indignation, but to attempt to > rally the American people “to voice their feelings” to their members of > Congress via phone calls, letters and e-mails. C-Span carried him live, since > he was the only activity on the Senate floor that day. > > He asked the over-riding question of “who is winning and who is losing?” The > winners were the giant, bailed out corporations and other companies so > coddled with tax breaks and subsidies that they pay no federal income tax at > all. He named some of these company bosses who make sky-high salaries and > bonuses and take advantage of tax havens. ExxonMobil, Sanders noted, made $19 > billion in profits last year, paid no federal income taxes and even received > a $156 million refund from the U.S. Treasury! > > Senator Sanders filled the Congressional Record with statements about a > variety of inequities and contradictions regarding President Obama’s > capitulation. Highlights follow: > --A Government Accountability Office report states that two-thirds of > corporations making $2.5 trillion in sales over several years paid no federal > income taxes. > > --During the giant Wall St. bailout of 2008-2009, the Federal Reserve also > bailed out with huge credit draws foreign banks from Bavaria to Japan. Such > disclosures will be more common as a result of a successful Sanders amendment > to the financial reform law earlier this year. > > --The Obama-Republican deal would increase the deficit by $900 billion > dollars over ten years but devote “not one nickel” to any infrastructure > projects in local communities. > > --He cited Warren Buffet and 90 other very rich Americans who wrote a letter > to Congress opposing a tax cut for rich people like themselves. > > --He cited the top one percent of the richest Americans who have wealth equal > to the bottom 90 percent and receive 24% of all income. “When is enough, > enough, do you want it all?” cried Sanders to an empty Senate chamber. (His > colleagues had gone home Friday morning except for Senators Sherrod Brown and > Mary Landrieu who conducted brief colloquies with Sanders while he rested his > voice or went to the men’s room.) > > --The top 25 hedge fund managers each made an average of a billion dollars > last year with much of that income taxed only at a 15% rate. The richest 400 > families paid a 16.6% effective tax rate on average. The Obama deal would > extend their tax cuts for another two years. > > --There has been zero net job creation since 1999 leading to a decline in > average household income. Inequality of wealth in the U.S. is the worse in > the industrialized world. > > --The U.S. has the highest rate of child poverty in the western world, in > some cases five to six times that of Scandinavia. > > --The Obama Republican deal would divert for the first time $120 billion from > the payroll tax, leading Sanders to say this is the beginning of the > unraveling of social security, “eating our own seed,” he added. > > -- “Let us be very clear: This [estate] tax applies only--only--to the top > three-tenths of 1 percent of American families; 99.7 percent of American > families will not pay one nickel in an estate tax. This is not a tax on the > rich, this is a tax on the very, very, very rich.” (The estate tax is > reduced, while the exemption is increased, leading to $30-52 billion retained > by the very wealthiest of estates over two years.) > > --And of course over $120 billion over two years are left with the highest > income rich, worsening the deficit in the coming years. > > “We can do better” repeated Sanders, noting that Obama challenged his liberal > base in Congress by asking “where are the votes?” To which, Sanders replied: > “Our job is to mobilize the people of America,” noting a rising flood of > support for a fairer deal. > > Of course, Obama has a healthy majority in Congress until January 2011. It is > the threat of a Senate Republican filibuster—which Majority Leader Senator > Harry Reid et al have never made the Republicans use during the first two > years of the Obama Administration—that has neutralized that majority. > Moreover, the Senate Democrats could have changed these obstructive rules by > a simple majority vote back in January 2009. But they chose not to allow > their own working majority of well over 50 votes to prevail. > > Obama came to the White House swearing that he would not live in “a bubble” > and that he would keep his promises, which explicitly included no further > extensions of tax cuts for the rich and a $9.50 federal minimum wage (still > lower in purchasing power than the federal minimum wage in 1968!) by 2011. > > So what do we see from the President? Well, he boasted about being a > community organizer in Chicago years ago. Yet for months, knowing what was > coming, he failed to arouse the citizenry against the Republican tax cuts for > the wealthy which Obama swallowed last week. He is known to be an expert > poker player, but he displayed none of that skill with the Republican > corporacrats, Rep. John Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell. Where are > Obama’s touted oratorical skills? How smart can he be−undercutting his own > Democrats and presenting them with the results of a closed-door sweetheart > deal with their Republican adversaries? > > Obama has frittered away his comfortable majority in Congress on many > accounts for two years. And millions of people and their children will be > paying the bill for his failure to fight for them. > --- > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Tell your friends to visit Nader.Org and sign up for E-Alerts. > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] >
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