Who has really abandoned America? Corporations and billionaires, that's who!
It is not uncommon for multibillion-dollar corporations to complain about high taxes, yet their effective tax rate typically falls somewhere from 0 to 15 percent--or sometimes even less than 0 percent, since many receive rebates through taxpayer subsidies and credits. The truth is that with their massive fortunes, billionaires have shamelessly and even arrogantly bought an entire political party and a good portion of the other one, urged on by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. They have no loyalty to the country that made them so disgustingly rich, nor are they the least bit concerned about the middle class, the backbone of our economy, which also made them so rich.
As I relate in my book, America Abandoned, billionaires are prone to making bold, revolting statements and rude generalizations about the middle class. For example, Conrad Hilton, that wealthy hotelier, said on an airplane: "I will f**king own anyone on this flight" They are all f**king peasants" I will f**king bury you!"
For some time, Nick Hanauer, of TED Talks, has been trying to tell us that most billionaires see themselves as the only people who matter. This is why they act the way they do, and what they value most are power and control, which they believe they are entitled to, as a God-given right.
Ironic, isn't it. They consider themselves gods above the rest of us, placing themselves on pedestals they believe to be unsurpassable, yet they speak and act as if a wise higher being would grant them special favor and privilege, in spite of their brash pride and lack of humility and gratitude. The common good is irrelevant to them.
We cannot deny that everyone chosen by the President-Elect for his incoming cabinet falls into this category. The frightening thing is that these very people will be given the powerful responsibility to run this country. Altogether, this cast of 17 millionaires and billionaires are worth a whopping $9.5 billion--that's 9,500 million dollars, as much cumulative wealth as the 43 million least-wealthy Americans combined.
How can anyone, even those who voted for the incoming president, many of them middle class citizens themselves, think for even a nanosecond that these out-of-touch bazillionaires will make decisions that are in our best interests?
Folks, the keys to the kingdom have just been handed over to people who think it is their God-given right to possess power and bury us, the lowly peons who fall into a class far beneath their own, with far smaller bank accounts to boot.
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