David Cay Johnston is one of the savviest investigative reporters -- and Pulitzer Prize winner -- who has focused his attention lately on how America is being screwed financially. Here's a clip from an interview given just as the financial crisis was becoming a full-blown recession. Johnston had just published a new book: "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill)."
What fundamentally has been taking place in our society? What I’ve done is examine a number of cases to show that government has rewritten the rules to favor the already rich, the politically connected, and the powerful at the expense of everyone else. In effect it’s set up mechanisms that the government itself reaches into your pocket and gives money to rich people; the government allows businesses to reach into your pocket in ways it never did; the government has all sorts of subtle and hidden policies now that funnel from the poor and middle class and upper middle class into the hands of the super-rich. And that is at the core of what’s happening in our society. ...The Scribe
In an interview a few days ago at Democracy Now!, Johnston talked about his examination of Mitt Romney's plans for, well, tightening the screws on the middle and working classes in America. First, the already rich -- we should call them the Reagan-Bush rich -- can expect life to get even better.
Romney’s plan is George W. Bush’s plan on steroids. George W. Bush gave 12.5 percent of his tax cuts to the top 10th of 1 percent. Romney’s plan gives a third of the tax cuts to the top 10th of 1 percent. And Romney’s plan gives 57 percent of the total cuts in his package to the top 1 percent. That’s people who make more than about $400,000 a year. So it’s astonishing how heavily weighted it is to the top. Under his plan, there would be no estate tax and no gift tax, which means that very wealthy families can move money around freely, pass it from one generation to the next. And I believe—and I wrote in my Reuters column—it would lead to dynastic wealth, which is damaging to the idea of a democracy. ...David Cay Johnston, Democracy Now!
How about the rest of us?
One of the things that Romney would do—and remember the deriding that’s going on by Republicans of public education, the attacks on teachers, Rick Santorum about misstating what President Obama said and then talking about colleges being snobs. Romney would not continue the principal tax credit that currently benefits poor families trying to get ahead by having one or more children go to college. And he has no plan to replace that. And, of course, we have turned college from an enterprise that was essentially free, at the time that I went to college in the late ’60s and early ’70s, into now an enormous lending business that, at relatively high interest rates, has kept people in heavy debt who are trying to get ahead. ...David Cay Johnston, Democracy Now!
Are the other candidates any different? Would Romney -- and Congressional Republicans -- succeed in eliminating the deficit?
All the Republicans have the same basic strategy: reduce taxes on people who are already wealthy, and take away tax benefits for poor people, particularly who are striving to try and get out of their poverty, and restrict tax benefits for people who are workers in the middle class. All them say they wanted to lower taxes. Here’s the thing we’ve forgotten, Amy. You remember this bugaboo of the federal deficit? "This is the worst thing hanging over us. We have to deal with this enormous federal debt." Well, these plans would all add to the federal debt. They take us away from a balanced budget. If we simply got rid of the Bush tax cuts for all of us, we’d be very quickly toward a balanced budget. If we just did it for the top, we’d be on that path. And by the way, if we got a modern healthcare system, like every other country in the world has, that alone would also eliminate the federal budget deficit. But the Republicans are going in a different direction. ...David Cay Johnston, Democracy Now!
And that means using government as a tool for benefiting wealthy individuals and corporations, thereby deliberately widening the income gap. This began during the Ronald Reagan administration and was embraced by George W. Bush. It would continue to be the rule of the game with Mitt Romney. One class would reap the benefits of the marketplace while the rest of us are saddled with paying off the debts. As David Cay Johnston noticed, the partnership of government with big business manages to stick us with the bills.
