SURE, IT'S ONLY TUESDAY BUT BARBARA LEE HAS THE BEST IDEA I'VE HEARD ALL WEEK-- LET'S GET SOME PEOPLE OFF TAX-FUNDED WELFARE-- RICH ONES

Recently Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced an interesting bill that makes an awful lot of sense but drives Republicans and Democrats-in-Republican-clothes right up the wall-- H.R. 3876. The intent is to slow down the unconscionable and widening gap between the very rich and the very poor. Since the begiining of the Bush Regime, the rich have gotten richer-- much richer-- and the poor have gotten poorer-- and the middle class has gotten smaller-- and poorer. And this isn't like a coincidence; it's the result of careful planning, Regime policy and legislation.

Congresswoman Lee's bill seeks to slow down CEO and other top management pay growth by capping the amount of executive compensation that can be deducted as a "legitimate business expense" to 25 times the salary of the lowest paid worker in the company. Companies are still entitled to pay their top executive whatever they like but beyond the 25 times mark, those salaries are no longer subsidized by taxpayers. In other words, if the lowliest illegal alien cleaning floors at WalMart gets $10,000 a year, then WalMart would only be able to deduct $250,000 of the CEO's salary as a legitimate business expense. If they add a zero to that salary, then $2,250,000 is not tax deductible. And yes, the Republicans will scream like stuck pigs.

Barbara's PAC, OneVoice includes more information and a petition on her website. Here's the text of the letter she sent out to the PAC list that so inspired me:

We have a problem with our economy. The raw numbers say the economic pie is growing, but the larger pieces are all going to a small minority of Americans-- meaning that for most Americans, wages are barely keeping pace with inflation.

We see this rising income inequality clearly in recent IRS data, which show that the share of income going to the wealthiest Americans is the highest it has been since before the Great Depression. To pick but one example of this disturbing trend, last year the average CEO made more in one day than the average worker made over the entire year.

When the economy is growing and the only people who are benefiting are the wealthiest among us, we have a problem with our priorities.

When the share of income going to the wealthiest Americans is growing, and the number of people living in poverty is rising as well, we have a problem with our priorities.

When issues like income inequality and poverty are not part of our national political debate, we have a problem with our priorities.

It is time to finally put to rest the ridiculous idea that if we just take care of the wealthy then the rest of the economy will take care of itself. The evidence is overwhelming: it is just not true.

That's why I have introduced new legislation designed to fight income inequality in America starting at the top: by reconnecting the economic fortunes of those in the executive suite with those of their
frontline employees.

My bill, the Income Equity Act of 2007, is a simple, common sense piece of legislation that would limit the amount of executive compensation corporations can deduct as a legitimate business expense to 25 times the pay of a company's lowest paid worker.

It's not the government's job to tell corporations what they can pay their executives, but American taxpayers have the right to choose whether or not to subsidize these out of control executive salaries. If a corporation chooses to provide compensation packages that are disconnected from the wages of average workers, then I believe we should have a say over how much of that compensation is tax deductible.

Click here to email Congress today, urging support for my Income Equity Act of 2007!

http://ga6.org/campaign/incomeequity/

While this particular driver of income inequality can be slowed through specific legislation, it speaks to a larger trend that will require comprehensive changes to fully address. In short, the basic
assumptions of the Bush "ownership society" have been shown to be bankrupt: the culture of individualism; the conviction that people who aren't getting ahead "just aren't trying"; the belief that
government's only responsibility is to protect business and the wealthy, and the rest will magically take care of itself-- these ideas are not just unsustainable, but fundamentally at odds with the
sense of collective responsibility that is a core part of who we are as a nation.

The consequences of this flawed view of our government's role were on full display when we witnessed the tragedy in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. People around the nation were scandalized not just by the Bush administration's cronyism and incompetence, but by their long standing refusal to address the structural inequality, the endemic poverty and the flat out racism that transformed a natural disaster into a human catastrophe of epic proportions.

On a very basic level, we understand that our fates-- rich and poor alike-- are ultimately connected. I believe that we should aspire as a nation to be judged not by how well we do by the wealthy, but
rather, in the words of gospel, by how we treat "the least of these."

That's why I hope that you will help us take a first step towards correcting this misguided state of affairs by emailing Congress in support of the Income Equity Act of 2007!

Keep in mind that despite all the corporate scandals that have been one of the many hallmarks of the Bush Regime-- and despite the much-ballyhooed but toothless "reforms" bandied about-- things have actually gotten much worse every single year single the Enron catastrophe. According to The Economist, in 2004 America's top 2000 CEOs averaged pay raises of around 30% bringing their salaries to nearly $6 million annually. And CEO bonuses at the top 100 companies rose gigantically and are well over a million dollars each. If there is any correlation between overpaid CEOs and stock values, it is a negative correlation, with stock prices actually declining as CEO pay packages rise into the stratosphere. Between 1990 and 2004 the average worker's pay remained basically flat at $27,000 while CEO pay went from $2.8 million to almost $12 million. And in the entire industrial world, the U.S. has the worst disparity between workers and their CEO bosses, far worse than Japan, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, England, Canada... more in line with places like Saudi Arabia. The Bush Regime agenda of regressive tax policies are at the heart of this.