Rigging The System-- Our Congress In Action

If there's one lesson I'm getting out of the new Elizabeth Warren book, A Fighting Chance, so far, it's that the system is rigged-- fixed against ordinary Americas to favor economic and political elites. "Economic and political elites"... where is the line that even differentiates them these days? In an essay Bob Borosage wrote for Truthout, Corporate Tax Breaks: How Congress Rigs The Rules, he starts with a quote from Warren:

The game is rigged and the American people know that. They get it right down to their toes.

Most people may roll their eyes when they hear a phrase like "tax extenders." They're meant to. But they shouldn't. Last March we did a two part series on how Congress favors the wealthy through tax policies like the ones Borosage is writing about-- Part I and Part II. The stench of corruption is inescapable-- and it starts with the politicians we elect and the campaign finance system we permit. "This week," writes Borosage, "the House Ways and Means Committee is poised to demonstrate exactly how the rules are rigged. On Tuesday, the committee will begin to mark up a series of corporate tax breaks-- known as “extenders” because they have been extended regularly every year or two for over a decade. Only now the committee plans to make many of them permanent, at the cost of an estimated $300 billion over 10 years. And it does not plan to pay for them by closing other corporate loopholes or raising rates. The giveaway-- almost all of which goes to corporations-- will simply add to the deficit, no doubt fueling the later demands of those who vote for them for deeper cuts in programs for the vulnerable in order to bring 'spending' under control."

The tax measures range from big to small, sensible to inane. Two centerpieces are glaring loopholes for multinational companies and banks, encouraging them to ship jobs and report profits abroad to avoid an estimated $80 billion in taxes over a decade.

Call them-- one known as the “active finance exception” and the other as the “CFC look-through rule”-- the General Electric tax dodges. The loopholes allow multinationals with huge finance arms, like General Electric or Wall Street banks, to dodge paying their fair share of taxes simply by claiming that U.S. based financial income is being generated offshore. These “exceptions” are central to how GE managed to declare a profit of more than $27 billion over the past five years, while not only paying nothing in taxes, but pocketing tax refunds of more than $3 billion. The multibillion-dollar multinational pays less in taxes than any mom and pop store that turned a profit. These breaks don’t pass the smell test.

Making these permanent without offsetting them by closing other loopholes is a brazen insult to American voters. Republicans have railed incessantly about deficits, forcing austerity budgets that have impeded the recovery and cost jobs. They have even refused to pass emergency unemployment compensation for long-term unemployed workers unless it was “paid for” by cuts elsewhere. (And even after the Senate passed the measure with “pay-fors,” Republican House Speaker John Boehner still refuses to allow it to come to a vote.)

Emergency unemployment compensation is temporary, targeted and timely. It goes to sustain the families of unemployed workers who are still looking for work. It is of limited duration. And the families that receive it spend it immediately on food, rent, gas-- helping to boost jobs and the economy. And that can’t get a vote on the floor of the House.

The offshore tax dodges that the committee is about to mark up and bring to a vote will be permanent. They aren’t emergency measures. They are targeted perversely to benefit the biggest corporations and banks the most. And they will cost jobs rather than help generate them.

But in a Congress supposedly locked in hapless partisan gridlock, these bills are greased to go. They are backed by a full-court press from the corporate lobbies. They gain bipartisan support by pairing the obscene with “side of the angels measures” – a deduction for schoolteachers who pay for supplies out of their own pockets, a tax break for employees that ride mass transit to work, a tax relief for families taking a loss from selling a home with an underwater mortgage, a production tax credit for renewable energy.

This is the routine way the rules get rigged, the powerful get the gold and the workers get the shaft. But perhaps this time business as usual may bear a price. Warren is right: Americans are increasingly onto the game. As polling for Americans for Tax Fairness has shown, voters are outraged that corporations and the wealthy aren’t paying their fair share of taxes. They are incensed at the notion that Congress is giving multinationals incentives to ship jobs or report profits abroad. Or that Wall Street banks are paying lower tax rates than small businesses... Washington is a city wired for the insider’s deal to fix the game. And the rules will keep getting rigged until voters sort out who is on their side and who isn’t-- and throw some of the latter out of office.

Excellent idea. I'd suggest starting with crooks on both sides of the aisle, Susan Collins (R-ME) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA), for example, in the Senate. They're both perfect examples of transaction shills for Big Business who are unfit for high office. And in the House... where does one even start? Here are half a dozen of the most corrupt Democrats and half a dozen of the most corrupt Republicans. If I had a magic wand...

• John Boehner (R-OH)
• Eric Cantor (R-VA)
• Fred Upton (R-MI)
• Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
• Paul Ryan (R-WI)
• John Kline (R-MN)
• John Barrow (D-GA)
• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
• Steve Israel (D-NY)
• Joe Crowley (D-NY)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY)
• Collin Peterson (D-MN)

Defeating this dozen crooked political fixers wouldn't alter the partisan balance in America-- except in favor of working families. Noteworthy: the DCCC almost never runs any campaigns against the leaders of corruption of the GOP side... and the NRCC returns the favor. That's how we're stuck with garbage like Steve Israel and Fred Upton in swing districts year after year after year. Instead we should be electing candidates who say things like this:

The challenge of our generation is to resist the multi-national corporate takeover of the United States of America. These corporations have the right to exist in the global economy, but they do not have the right to turn the United States government into their servant or to use the resources of the American people as their cash cow.

The illusion we have been sold over the last few decades-- and which too often we have fallen prey to-- is that these corporations and the industries they represent are key to the health of the US economy. In fact, they are anything but. Our leanings toward economic servitude to these corporations has decimated the US economy, created a systematic pattern of economic injustice, and laid waste to some of the most precious material resources of our country. They have shown repeated disregard for the welfare of our economy, our planet, and even the health of our children.

The way to a healthy economy is not through siphoning the major resources of wealth, education and opportunity into the hands of a few. The way to a healthy economy is through insuring the healthy flow of economic, educational and political opportunity to a majority of our citizens, that they too-- through hard work and personal responsibility-- might participate in that economy, become job creators themselves, and make manifest the real American dream: that anyone and everyone can be a winner in America.

-Marianne Williamson, Independent candidate for Congress (CA-33).