Robert B. Reich's Blog, page 48
January 4, 2019
Why We Must Get Big Money Out of Politics The most important...
Why We Must Get Big Money Out of Politics
The most important thing we must do to save our democracy is get big money out of politics. It’s a prerequisite to accomplishing everything else.
Today, big money continues to corrupt American politics – creating a vicious cycle that funnels more wealth and power to those at the top and eroding our democracy.
In the 2018 midterm elections, wealthy donors and Super-PACs poured millions into the campaigns of the same lawmakers who voted to pass the 2017 tax cuts, which gave them huge windfalls.
Consider conservative donors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, whose casino business received an estimated $700 million windfall, thanks to Trump and Republicans’ tax cuts. The couple then used some of this extra cash to plow more than $113 million dollars into the 2018 election, breaking the record for political contributions by a single household.
That’s not a bad return on investment – for them.
All told, almost 40 percent of total contributions in the 2018 midterms came from people who donated $10,000 or more. Yet these mega-donors comprise a tiny 0.01 percent of the U.S. population.
It’s a worsening vicious cycle: Lawmakers cut taxes and slash regulations for their wealthy campaign donors. Mega-donors and corporations funnel some of that money back into our political system to keep their lackeys in power. Politicians then propose another round of tax cuts, subsidies or bailouts to secure even more donations.
If this isn’t corruption, I don’t know what is. It also breeds cynicism in our democracy. The game seems rigged because it is. A 2015 poll found that the majority of Americans say lawmakers are corrupt, out of touch with their constituents, and beholden to special interests.
In the 2018 midterms, Americans demanded an end to the corruption. And there are signs lawmakers are finally getting message. House Democrats’ first piece of legislation aims to end the big-money takeover.
We must end this vicious cycle in order to reclaim our democracy. We must get big money out of politics. Now.
January 3, 2019
What to Expect of House Democrats
January 1, 2019
Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors?
December 31, 2018
America’s New Year’s Resolution: Remove Trump
December 24, 2018
The Megalomaniac and the Stock Market
December 22, 2018
10 Steps to Save American DemocracyTrump isn’t the only...
10 Steps to Save American Democracy
Trump isn’t the only problem. As Big Money floods our political system, and some in power are intent on making it harder for certain people to vote, we need a movement to save our democracy.
Here are 10 steps:
Number 1: Make voter registration automatic for all eligible voters, using information they’ve already provided the Department of Motor Vehicles or another government agency. This has already been implemented in several states, including Oregon, and it works. In 2014, over 1 in 5 Americans were eligible to vote but did not register. Automatic registration would automatically change this.
Number 2: Pass a new Voting Rights Act, setting uniform national voting standards and preventing states from engaging in any form of voter suppression, such as voter ID laws, the purging of voter rolls, and inaccessible and inadequate polling places.
Number 3: Implement public financing of elections, in which public funds match small donations – thereby eliminating the advantage of big money.
Number 4: Require public disclosure of the sources of all political donations. Much of that is now secret, so no one is held accountable.
Number 5: End the revolving door between serving in government and lobbying. Too often, members of Congress, their staffs, cabinet members and top White House personnel take lucrative lobbying jobs after leaving government. In turn, lobbyists take important positions in government. This revolving door must stop. It creates conflicts between the public interest and private greed.
Number 6: Ban members of Congress from owning specific shares of stock while they’re in office. Require that they hold their investments in index funds, so they won’t favor particular companies while carrying out their public duties.
Number 7: Require that all candidates running for Congress and the presidency release their tax returns so the American people know of any potential financial conflicts of interests before they’re elected.
Number 8: Eliminate gerrymandered districts by creating independent redistricting commissions. Some states – Arizona, California, Michigan, and Colorado, for example – have established non-partisan commissions to ensure that congressional maps are drawn fairly, without racial or partisan bias. Other states should follow their lead.
Number 9: Make the Electoral College irrelevant. The presidency should be awarded to the candidate who receives the most votes. Period. States should agree to award all their Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular vote by joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
10 and finally: Fight for a Supreme Court that will reverse its Citizens United decision, which interpreted the First Amendment to prevent Congress or state governments from limiting political spending.
Follow these 10 steps and begin to make our democracy work again.
December 21, 2018
Trump’s End
December 19, 2018
Watch Your Wallets
December 17, 2018
Why Trump’s Private Transactions are Terrifying
December 15, 2018
How to Hold Corporations AccountableCharles E. Wilson, the CEO...
How to Hold Corporations Accountable
Charles E. Wilson, the CEO of General Motors in the middle part of the last century, reputedly once said that “what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.”
The idea was that large corporations had a duty not just to their shareholders, but also to their employees, customers, and community. What was good for all of these stakeholders was inseparable from what was good for large corporations like GM.
But in the 1980’s, this shifted. The only goal of large corporations goal became maximizing profits and returns for shareholders.
Corporate profits are now a higher share of the economy than they were for most of the past century, and workers’ share of the total economy is the lowest.
Corporations are now amassing huge control over our economy and fueling widening economic inequality.
Workers must have more power.
Elizabeth Warren’s proposal, the Accountable Capitalism Act, is a good start at remaking the economic system so it works for all of us.
It recognizes that large corporations, with revenues of $1 billion or more, are so big and powerful they should be held to a higher standard of conduct – chartered by the federal government to serve all their stakeholders, not just their shareholders.
Under Warren’s proposal, workers would elect at least 40 percent of big corporations’ boards of directors. These corporations wouldn’t be able to make political contributions without the approval of 75 percent of their directors and shareholders. And their legal right to exist could be revoked if they engaged in repeated and egregious lawbreaking.
Effective action to hold corporations accountable needs to be federal because the states, left to their own devices, have to compete with one another for businesses to locate in their states. This has led to a race to the bottom for corporate cash. Two-thirds of big corporations in America are now officially headquartered in Delaware, because Delaware’s corporate laws are weakest.
This would be a huge change, bringing into better balance the voices of American workers with the overwhelming dominance of big corporations and their major investors.
It’s time to demand that the economic system work for all of us.
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