The Fleecing of America

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By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 10 of 11 page(s)

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-- another one by letting businesses write off advertising expenditures as an expense;

-- additional many billions in political advertising during every election cycle amounting to over 10% of commercial TV revenue;

-- what McChesney calls perhaps the largest subsidy of all - copyrights; "a government-created (and enforced) monopoly right to eliminate the possibility of competitive markets;" and

-- an indirect subsidy in the form of government serving as a "powerful lobbying force for commercial media oversea to see that foreign governments change regulations and divert subsidies to the benefit of US communications firms."

Though no precise calculations have been made on these benefits, McChesney believes combined they're worth up to hundreds of billions annually. Without people even noticing or that commercial broadcasters exploit the public airwaves solely for their own benefit. They and other industries feed at the public trough. The amount of free money they get is enormous. Taxpayer dollars fund it with no reciprocal benefit. Another component of the fleecing of America.

More largesse to the nuclear industry. In the mid-1990s, it was on its knees. Strapped by unmanageable debt from billions in cost overruns and plant shutdowns. Plagued by aging reactors. Expensive and shoddy maintenance. Haunted by Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. No nuclear power plant has been built in America since the 1970s. The last one to start up was the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar reactor in 1996 after 23 years of construction delays.

Today a revival is underway because of unprecedented subsidies from the 2005 Energy Policy Act along with generous state incentives. Without them, no new plants would be proposed. Nuclear power is unsafe, uneconomic, uncompetitive, and unneeded, despite what its advocate say. Its costs are also rising, and the industry is plagued with huge cost-overruns. Building a new plant runs somewhere between $5 - $12 billion dollars depending on its capacity and problems related to bringing it online.

Nonetheless, 30 new reactors are proposed for the US alone. Some in the planning stages. Others close to groundbreaking. Because of more than $13 billion in industry subsidies and tax breaks. Unlimited taxpayer-backed loan guarantees. Limited liability in case of accidents under the Price-Anderson Act. Absolving companies of most costs if they happen. Various other incentives as well to revive a moribund industry. For construction, R & D, operations, nuclear waste disposal, and eventual shutdowns. More coming if the administration's requested 37% FY 2009 nuclear program appropriation increase is approved. At the same time, a 27% energy efficiency and renewable energy budget reduction was proposed.

The Great Social Security Heist

Until the present fraud-based financial crisis, it was the largest modern era wealth transfer from the public to the rich. Engineered by Alan Greenspan in 1981 as head of the National Commission on Social Security Reform. Called the Greenspan Commission to address "the short-term financing crisis that Social Security faced." Based on the fraudulent claim that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund "would run out of money as early as August 1983." It wouldn't then nor will it now.

In January 1983, the Commission issued its report. Congress, in turn, used it to enact Social Security Amendments to "resolve short-term financing problems and (make) many other significant changes in Social Security law" harmful to the public interest.

A menu of changes were enacted, including a "consensus package" to fix the problem by raising payroll taxes on incomes but exempting the rich beyond a maximum level. It also raised the retirement age in incremental steps. The result:

-- working Americans bare the brunt of this unfair regressive tax;

-- the rich barely feel it;

-- low income earners pay more payroll than income tax; and

-- the working poor have an enormous unaffordable burden; many earn too little to pay income taxes; yet they're not exempt from paying 6.2% of their wages for Social Security and another 1.45% for Medicare; employers match them with equal amounts, but it's not surprising that they pass on these costs through lower pay and benefits; an effective and unfair 15.3% of income burden for wage earners.

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I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

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and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.