Even as Hillary maintained a tactical silence on key issues, Bill kept right on talking. He appeared at several "Fiscal Summits," a series of "buy-partisan" propaganda events funded by billionaire Pete Peterson, the conservative opponent of Social Security and Medicare who took an early interest in Clinton's own career. There, Bill joined with the likes of John Boehner and Paul Ryan in an attempt to sell the American people on cuts to these programs.
(But then, Clinton has yet to acknowledge a new analysis which shows that the welfare reform bill he signed turned out to be a destructive failure which has inflicted needless harm on millions of lower-income Americans, especially children).
Bill and Hillary have used their Clinton Global Initiative as a public-relations platform for Goldman Sachs and other bad corporate actors, and to sponsor deceptive campaigns like Peterson's "Up to Us" essay contest on ... you guessed it: the Federal deficit. But Bill Clinton soft-pedals the anti-spending rhetoric of the Peterson crowd even as he uses his considerable skills of persuasion to sell it. You could call it "austerity lite."
The former president has fiercely defended his Administration's destructive Wall Street deregulation policies, even as the Obama Administration's economic team continues to be dominated by the disciples of former Clinton Treasury Secretary and Citigroup CEO Robert Rubin (Sen. Elizabeth Warren calls it "the Citigroup clique") The Rubin team, whose policies proved so destructive to the economy, would undoubtedly have its contract renewed under a Hillary Clinton presidency.
Few people in public life, outside of the Republican Party, are as publicly tone-deaf about the struggles of the American majority than Bill Clinton. Earlier this year he dismissed concerns about inequalit y by saying "You can say, 'Well, inequality has still increased,' because the top 1 percent did better, but I don't think there's much you could do about that unless you want to start jailing people."
The road ahead
Clinton knows better -- or should. Inequality is the product of a number of policy choices -- choices which can be reversed. How could we reverse the inequality trend without jailing people just for being rich? There are dozens of policies which could help. Here are just a few:
We could take steps to reduce the financialization of the economy, in which a non-productive banking sector takes a growing share of corporate profits without producing very many jobs.
We could reinstate Glass-Steagall, break up the big banks, and improve on the Dodd-Frank law to discourage risky banking. (And we could prosecute crooked bankers while we're at it, instead of pretending all that fraud -- which has led to many billions of dollars in fines -- committed itself.)
We could create regulations to discourage predatory stock-manipulation practices for short-term executive gain.
We could create a better system of taxation, with higher corporate rates and higher top rates for ultra-high-earners. Economic studies show that the ideal top rate for billionaires would be somewhere between 73 percent and 90 percent.
We could pass the Employer Free Choice Act and other legislation to encourage the growth of unions, which have played an essential role in reducing inequality and increasing middle-class wealth. We could encourage the unionization of low-wage workers, raise the minimum wage, and offer tax incentives for labor-intensive enterprises.
We could invest in our crumbling infrastructure, which needs trillions in repairs.
We could lift the cap on Social Security taxes so that millionaires and billionaires pay more, gradually (and slightly) increase payroll taxes by a few dollars a month for the rest of us, and increase its benefits.
Don't buy it
Instead of fighting for these much-needed reforms, Bill Clinton mocks those who support them with facile and ugly comments about "slit throats" and "jailing people." He brushes aside the day-to-day trials of millions of Americans, dismissing them as nothing more than a few "bad headlines." He pitches a glossy-brochure version of our national condition instead of addressing the real-life problems many people face every day.
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