10
6
6
- Failure to enforce anti-monopoly laws, thus permitting price gouging.
- Failure to cap interest rates on credit cards, thereby further concentrating wealth in the hands of the banksters and curtailing consumer spending, and in these ways dragging downthe economy.
- Passage of laws that encourage union-busting, which keeps wages and benefits down, thereby maximizing profits. Problem is, once again, it undermines the purchasing power of workers, leading to a recession.
- Passage of laws that lead to the privatizing of government services, which makes plenty of money for the rich but costs consumers more in the way of out-of-pocket expenses that were previously covered by government. This reduces disposable income for these consumers, which of course leads to the same kind of business slowdown already described.
- Passage of laws that allow employers to reduce benefits and increase co-pays. This increases the cost-of-living for workers. As a result, these workers once again have less disposable income to spend on goods and services, which, as we've seen, slows down the economy.
Every time the rich reach the levels economic concentration that currently exist, we will have a depression. Economic concentration of wealth and income are currently at levels very similar to those just before the Great Depression in 1929. And the current level of concentration is a direct result of increasingly "Republicanized" governmental policies which the political whores of the rich have been enacting over the past 30 years, just as their counterparts did before the depression of 1929.
The only reason our current situation has not quite deteriorated to that of the last Great Depression is that the Republicans have not (yet?) been successful in undoing all of the protective reforms (like the Glass-Steagall Act which was repealed in 1999 and which had been enacted after the financial collapse in 1929).
Despite repeated attacks by Republicans, the social safety net remains only damaged but not destroyed. Republican attempts to gut Social Security continue. The attempt to "privatize" Social Security (i.e. make all that money available to Wall Street and the stock market) keeps coming back to threaten the stability and viability of this program. However, simply cutting Social Security benefits (instead of increasing them as should be done) seems to be the avenue of Republican attack most likely to succeed. It is an approach that's being pushed by most Republicans and a few corporatist Democrats.
A wiser economic approach to making sure Social Security will never "go broke" would be to simply remove the income ceiling above which Social Security taxes are not paid. Why should almost all workers be taxed at over 13% to fund social security, while those making a million a year are paying closer to 1% and those making 10 million dollars a year are taxed at around 1/10th of 1% on their income?
Social Security surpluses were "borrowed" by the federal government so they could fund annual deficits created by cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans, cutting taxes on corporations by huge margins, and nearly eliminating taxes on imports. Therefore it is only fair that corporations, wealthy Americans and foreign exporters selling in the American market pay higher taxes to compensate for these previous decades of "borrowing," since they reaped the benefits of all that "borrowing."
Conventional economic policy says that government should run surpluses in good economic times and deficits during economic downturns. This helps reduce the severity of economic cycles. Under the Republican presidencies of Reagan and both Bushes, however, we did exactly the opposite, and thereby created both the current downturn and the debt crisis. The vast majority of our total national debt was created under these three conservative Republican presidents.
In the service of their masters
Currently, the Republicans in Congress have fought every measure to increase employment and help small businesses. They have fought all kinds of economic reforms that would curb corporate abuses of consumers, shareholders or workers. They have also loyally fought all attempts to curb excessive corporate political or economic power. They have been against any measure that would increase demand for goods and services or levels of employment. It is therefore not hard not to conclude that the Republicans want to worsen the economic downturn until it reaches Great-Depression levels, and then pin the blame on Obama and the Democrats. The Repugs believe that most voters, political sleepwalkers that they are, will automatically and thoughtlessly blame whatever administration is in power for a collapsed or failed economy. They understand that most voters simply lack the education and knowledge to realize that this economic downturn was created by "Republicanizing" our economy. And with tons of corporate money to fund their efforts, and a corporate dominated media at their disposal, it might very well work.
1 | 2
