This is spot on, without the government, the super rich might be our
equals, so they must invest heavily in government to ensure it never, EVER
represents, We the People.
Scott
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Five Reasons the Super-Rich Need Government More Than the Rest of Us
by Paul Buchheit
Published on Monday, July 16, 2012 by Common Dreams
Wealthy individuals and corporations want us to believe
they've
made it on their own, without the help of government or the American
people. Billionaire financier Sanford Weill blustered, "We didn't rely
on somebody else to build what we built." He was echoing the words of
his famous predecessor, the formidable financier J. P. Morgan, who
spouted, "I owe the public nothing."
That's the bull of Wall Street. There are at least five good reasons
why the wealthiest Americans need government as much as the rest of us,
and probably more.
1. Security
In his "People's History," Howard Zinn described colonial opposition
to inequality in 1765: "A shoemaker named Ebenezer Macintosh led a mob
in destroying the house of a rich Boston merchant named Andrew Oliver.
Two weeks later, the crowd turned to the home of Thomas Hutchinson,
symbol of the rich elite who ruled the colonies in the name of England.
They smashed up his house with axes, drank the wine in his wine cellar,
and looted the house of its furniture and other objects. A report by
colony officials to England said that this was part of a larger scheme
in which the houses of fifteen rich people were to be destroyed, as part
of 'a war of plunder, of general levelling and taking away the
distinction of rich and poor.'"
That doesn't happen much anymore. Of course, the super-rich aren't
taking any chances, with panic shelters and James Bond cars and personal
surveillance drones. But the U.S. government will be helping them by
spending $55 billion on Homeland Security next year, in addition to $673
billion for the military. The police, emergency services, and National
Guard are trained to focus on crimes against wealth.
In the cities, business interests keep the police focused on the
homeless and unemployed. And on drug users. A "Broken Windows"
mentality, which promotes quick fixes of minor damage to discourage
large-scale destruction, is being applied to human beings. Wealthy
Americans can rest better at night knowing that the police are "stopping
and frisking" in the streets of the poor neighborhoods.
2. Laws and Deregulations
The wealthiest Americans are the main beneficiaries of tax laws,
property rights, zoning rules, patent and copyright provisions, trade
pacts, antitrust legislation, and contract regulations. Tax loopholes
allow them to store over $1 trillion in assets overseas.
Their companies benefit, despite any publicly voiced objections to
regulatory agencies, from SBA and SEC guidelines that generally favor
business, and from FDA and USDA quality control measures that minimize
consumer complaints and product recalls.
The growing numbers of financial industry executives have profited
from 30 years of deregulation, most notably the repeal of the
Glass-Steagall Act. Lobbying by the financial industry has prolonged the
absurdity of a zero sales tax on financial transactions.
Big advantages accrue for multinational corporations from trade
agreements like NAFTA, with international disputes resolved by the
business-friendly World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World
Trade Organization. Federal judicial law protects our biggest companies
from foreign infringement. The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership would
put governments around the world at the mercy of corporate
decision-makers.
The euphemistically named JOBS Act further empowers business, exempting
startups from regulatory accounting requirements.
There are even anti-antitrust measures, such as the licensing rules
that allow the American Medical Association to restrict the number of
doctors in the U.S., thereby keeping doctor salaries artificially high.
Can't have a free market if it hurts business.
3. Research and Infrastructure
A publicly supported communications infrastructure allows the richest
10% of Americans to manipulate their 80% share of the stock market.
CEOs rely on roads and seaports and airports to ship their products, the
FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to
safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and
communications towers and satellites to conduct online business. Private
jets use 16 percent of air traffic control resources while paying only
3% of the bill.
Perhaps most important to business, even as it focuses on short-term
profits, is the long-term basic research that is largely conducted with
government money. Especially for the tech industry. Taxpayer-funded
research at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the Internet)
and the National Science Foundation (the Digital Library Initiative)
has laid a half-century foundation for technological product
development. Well into the 1980s, as companies like Apple and Google and
Microsoft and Oracle and Cisco profited from the fastest-growing
product revolution in American history, the U.S. Government was still
providing half the research funds. Even today 60% of university research
is government-supported.
Public schools have helped to train the chemists, physicists, chip
designers, programmers, engineers, production line workers, market
analysts, and testers who create modern technological devices. They, in
turn, can't succeed without public layers of medical support and
security. All of them contribute to the final product.
As the super-rich ride in their military-designed armored cars to a
financial center globally connected by public fiber optics networks to
make a trade guided by publicly funded data mining and artificial
intelligence software, they might stop and re-think the old Horatio
Alger myth.
4. Subsidies
The traditional image of 'welfare' pales in comparison to corporate
welfare and millionaire welfare. Whereas over 90% of Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families goes to the elderly, the disabled, or
working households, most of the annual $1.3 trillion in "tax
expenditures" (tax subsidies from special deductions, exemptions,
exclusions, credits, and loopholes) goes to the top quintile of
taxpayers. One estimate is $250 billion a year just to the richest 1%.
Senator Tom Coburn's website reports that mortgage interest and
rental expense deductions alone return almost $100 billion a year to
millionaires.
The most profitable corporations get the biggest subsidies. The
Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in financial assistance
to financial institutions and corporations. According to Citizens for
Tax Justice, 280 profitable Fortune 500 companies, which together paid
only half of the maximum 35 percent corporate tax rate, received $223
billion in tax subsidies.
Even the conservative Cato Institute admitted that the U.S. federal
government spent $92 billion on corporate welfare during fiscal year
2006. Recipients included Boeing, Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Dow Chemical,
and General Electric.
In agriculture, most of the funding for commodity programs goes to
large agribusiness corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland. For the
oil industry, estimates of subsidy payments range from $10 to $50
billion per year.
5. Disaster Costs
Exxon spokesperson Ken Cohen once said: "Any claim we don't pay taxes
is absurd...ExxonMobil is a leading U.S. taxpayer." Added Chevron CEO
John Watson: "The oil and gas industry pays its fair share in taxes" But
SEC documents show that Exxon paid 2% in U.S. federal taxes from 2008
to 2010, Chevron 4.8%.
As if to double up on the insult, the petroleum industry readily
takes public money for oil spills. Cleanups cost much more than the
fines imposed on the companies. Government costs can run into the
billions, or even tens of billions, of dollars.
Another disaster-prone industry is finance, from which came the
encouraging words of Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein: "Everybody
should be, frankly, happy...the financial system led us into the crisis
and it will lead us out."
Estimates for bailout funds from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve
range between $3 trillion and $5 trillion. That's enough to pay off
both the deficit and next year's entitlement costs. All because of the
irresponsibility of the super-salaried CEOs of our most profitable
corporations.
Common Sense
Patriotic Millionaires recently addressed the President and Congress:
"Given the dire state of our economy, it is absurd that one-quarter of
all millionaires pay a lower tax rate than millions of working,
middle-class American families...Please do the right thing for our
country. Raise our taxes."
It's good to know somebody gets it right. Taxes, for the most part,
are not unfair. They represent payment for society's many benefits,
which get bigger and better as people get richer.
Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active
member of US Uncut
Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational
websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the
editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities"
(Clarity Press). He can be reached at p...@usagainstgreed.org.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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