The Arrogance of Wealth

The decision rendered in the Citizens United case was one of the most poorly reasoned decisions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. In this decision the court struck down limitations on campaign contributions and made it much easier to buy our politicians. The only way to lesson the impact of this horrible decision is to require full disclosure. We voters do not just have a right to know who is buying our politicians, we have a need to know. This is not a matter of free speech as the Republicans and the special interests would have you believe. The right of free speech is not synonymous with the right to remain anonymous. The premise of this democracy or any democracy is that an informed electorate will make the right decisions. The advertisements supporting candidates and supporting positions on issues are intentionally deceptive. Knowing who is behind those advertisements and who is supporting political candidates is essential if we voters are going to make informed decisions.

The most recent polls indicate that a large majority of the voters favor full disclosure. They want to know who is buying whom and who is supporting or opposing proposed legislation. Yet the Republicans are almost unanimous in their opposition to legislation that would require this transparency. The Republicans are ignoring the will of the people, and they are using procedural rules to defeat this legislation in the senate. They will not even let it come up for a vote. The reason they are doing this is all too obvious. They have been bought and paid for by Wall Street, the banks, the insurance companies, and the businesses that are exporting our jobs. The Republican Party is not motivated by ideology alone; they are motivated by greed! They are siding with the wealthy because the wealthy are funding the Republican Party.

The evidence supporting my contention is overwhelming. The Republicans sided with the insurance companies over the issue of health care reform. They sided with Wall Street over regulations to reform our financial institutions. They are now siding with the oil companies over liability for spills and compensation to the victims of those spills. They are siding with the wealthy over taxes while trying to deny the victims of this recession the benefits of unemployment insurance. How many ways can you say bought and paid for?

The greed of the special interests the Republican Party represent is detrimental to the economy this country. We are already seeing this in our current recession, in the destruction of the livelihoods of fisherman and others on the gulf coast, in the loss of manufacturing jobs, and in the shrinking market for the goods we still produce. We are seeing it in the concentration of wealth that deprives the middle class of the means to purchase goods and services. The bottom line is that the Republican Party represents the wealthy rather than middle class. They are not doing anything to help create jobs. Furthermore, in spite of their stated concern about the federal deficit, they are actually increasing that deficit by opposing the lapse of tax cuts for the rich. In doing this they are trying to shift the burden of paying for that deficit onto the middle class.

The whole idea behind a progressive income tax is that it shifts the burden of paying for our government onto the people who have the ability to pay those taxes. A progressive income tax involves a fundamental issue of fairness as well as a very sound economic policy. Our economy is demand driven. Henry Ford’s statement that everyone prospers when the people who make the cars can afford to buy the cars is correct. Cutting the taxes of the rich does nothing for the middle class; it does not create jobs. After the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy we saw a job growth rate of 0.28 per year. This is the lowest growth rate since the great depression, and it was accompanied by the largest federal deficit ever.

Make no mistake about it. What we are seeing is the arrogance of wealth. The special interests the Republicans represent think they can recoup the losses in demand for goods in this country with the increased demand for goods in foreign markets. The Republican Party thinks it can get away with representing those interests to our detriment because deceptive advertising paid for by anonymous interests will keep us from finding out the truth. We cannot afford to let them get away with this. We must insist on full disclosure, and we must send a clear message to the Republican Party by defeating their candidates in the elections this November.