Citizens' Daily Lobby

Yesterday we encountered a Secure Arkansas petitioner at the Rodney Parham Kroger.  He was trying to get signatures for the group’s meanspritied and unnecessary ballot initiative.   Mexican immigrants don’t want our jobs, according to this guy.  They just want welfare.  That explains why I see them working everywhere…   I don’t think this is an issue Kroger wants to be mixed up in, and I hope they kicked him off their property shortly after I complained.  For those who don’t know, the ballot initiative is to keep any undocumented person over the age of 14 from receiving government benefits.  It turns out that’s already Federal law, but, hey, who’s counting?

The “grassroots” group has never published its sponsors, as previously advertised on their website.  They even removed the “sponsors” link.

I have been waiting to see how the rhetoric from Progressive bloggers would swing now that it’s Blanche vs. Boozman in the Senate race.   I cynically predicted that there would be a softening towards the incumbent and a move to make amends.  I was wrong, at least on some counts.  ArDem of BlueArkansas had this to say on the topic:

As recently as yesterday I was discussing the possibility of helping Lincoln out if just to try to keep her from becoming a serious drag on the ticket. Some people have already urged me to make that push. After reading this [refers to Blanche Lincoln's apparent concessions for Walton-backed Arvest Bank] today, I realize that that’s not going to happen. …

We are not going to sit down and keep our mouths shut just because she managed to squeek out of the primary. Wrong is wrong, and when she’s wrong we’ll call her and everyone else on it. And if Senator Lincoln really wants to fight a two front war going into the general, then that choice is hers.

I couldn’t agree more.

In spite of the recent hoopla over job exportation, the fact of the matter is that so-called free trade was supported by both sides of the proverbial aisle, and came to full fruition during the Clinton years.  Unless a candidate specifically says s/he would do something about job exportation, s/he probably won’t.  What’s more, “doing something” about the problem is bigger than any one candidate or even one party,  thanks to the international treaties that are involved.   Bill Halter points fingers at Lincoln for voting for free trade agreeements, but doesn’t make it explicitly clear that he opposes these agreements.   (If I’m missing something, please chime in.  My view is that Halter’s views on Labor put him a far better position than Lincoln on this issue to begin with).

The latest news on this front, coming hard on the heels of heavy rhetoric and a racist commercial from Americans for Job Security, is an upcoming Whirlpool plant closure in Indiana.  The AFL-CIO has started a petition drive urging Whirlpool to “keep it  made in America.”  (The group should target retailers with the same message).  You may sign the petition here.  The move by Whirlpool, recipients of $19.3 million in stimulus funds last year, will involve 1100 jobs in Indiana.

HR 1874 is a bill unlikely to see the light of day anywhere but Progressive media.   When I first read the title, I immediately bristled.  The word “Patriot” is not a favorite of mine lately thanks to the Patriot Act and TeaParty Patriots, among other things.   Use of the P word may actually help slip this bill under the radar of those very T.P Patriots and those like them.   This bill is Progressive, and is extremely relevant to yesterday’s discussion of income inequality.   The summary:

4/2/2009–Introduced. Patriot Corporations of America Act of 2009 – Grants after 2009 a preference to Patriot corporations in the evaluation of bids or proposals for federal contracts.  Defines ” Patriot corporation” as a corporation which:
(1) produces at least 90% of its goods and services in the United States;
(2) does not pay its its management-level employees at a rate more than 10,000% of the compensation of its lowest paid employee;
(3) conducts at least 50% of its research and development in the United States;
(4) contributes at least 5% of its payroll to a portable pension fund for its employees;
(5) pays at least 70% of its employees’ health insurance costs;
(6) maintains a policy of neutrality in employee organizing drives;
(7) provides full differential salary and insurance benefits for all National Guard and Reserve employees who are called to active duty; and
(8) has not violated federal regulations, including regulations relating to the environment, workplace safety, labor relations, and consumer protections. Amends the Internal Revenue Code to:
(1) reduce the income tax rate for Patriot corporations;
(2) reclassify foreign corporations created or organized to avoid federal taxation as domestic corporations for income tax purposes; and

3) increase, for the period between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2010, the income tax rate for individual taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $500,000 or more ($1 million or more for joint returns).

I’m for it.  Let’s give tax breaks to companies that make things in the US and take away the tax breaks for companies created offshore as tax shelters.   Along the way, let’s create an incentive for a company to be pro-labor, environmentally responsible, and distribute income more evenly.    Too bad this will never make it to the House floor, let alone the Senate.

Check out this fantastic discussion about income inequality and how we got where we are today at alternet.

Why do truly Progressive income tax rates generally fail the test of time?  Because the wealthy hate them much more than the average citizen loves them.  The average guy on the street just doesn’t connect the police force, fire squads, highways, parks, and other benefits with high tax rates on the super-rich.  I would add that some people believe the “that could be me” syndrome affects the way the American citizen approaches taxes.  Let’s not tax the multibillionaires too much, because “that could be me one day.”  The rich have more resources to throw into the fight, obviously.

Even the tax hike to the rich proposed by President Obama would only raise the tax rate for the top bracket to 39.6%.  That’s equal to what it was before the Bush tax cuts, and less than half as much as the highest income tax rate under Eisenhower.

British Progressives are proposing what my spouse and I often discuss:  a salary cap.  Let’s all get together and decide what constitutes the highest dollar amount that any individual should be “worth,” monetarily speaking.   The key to this plan is to tie the salary cap to the salary of the lowest paid employee.    Under a plan like this, there would be an incentive for those at the top to make salaries at the bottom grow, too.   Britain’s High Pay Commission is proposing to tie government subsidy to the difference in pay rates.  Ecuador already has such a plan.  In contrast, the US and Britain currently have no such policy.  In fact,” the  CEO at Lockheed Martin, a company that feeds almost exclusively off government contracts, last year took home $26.5 million. That’s over 700 times the take-home of the average American worker.”

There’s a discussion about income disparity in general.

How rich—and powerful—have today’s rich become? Some numbers can help tell the story. In 1974, the most affluent 1% of Americans averaged, in today’s dollars, $380,000 in income.

Now let’s fast-forward. In 2007, the most recent year with stats, households in America’s top 1% averaged $1.4 million, well over triple what top 1% households averaged back in 1974—and, remember, this tripling came after adjusting for inflation.Americans in the bottom 90%, meanwhile, saw their average incomes increase a meager $47 a year between 1974 and 2007, not enough to foot the bill for a month’s worth of cable TV.

The bottom line: top-1% households made 12 times more income than bottom-90% households in 1974, 42 times more in 2007.

The numbers become even more striking when we go back a bit further in time and focus not on the top 1%, but on the richest of the rich, the top 400, the living symbol of wealth and power in the United States ever since America’s original Gilded Age in the late 19th century.  In 1955, our 400 highest incomes averaged $12.3 million, in today’s dollars. But the top 400 in 1955 didn’t get to enjoy all those millions. On average, after exploiting every tax loophole they could find, they actually paid over half their incomes, 51.2%, in federal income tax.

Today’s super rich are doing better, fantastically better, both before and after taxes. In 2006, the top 400 averaged an astounding $263 million each in income. These 400 financially fortunate paid, after loopholes, just 17.2% of their incomes in federal tax.  After taxes, as a group, the top 400 of 2006 had $84 billion more in their pockets than 1955’s top 400, $84 billion more they could put to work bankrolling politicians and right-wing think tanks and Swift Boat ad blitzes against progressive candidates and causes.