Give me money, that’s what I want
The best things in life are free
But you can keep ‘em for the bird and bees;
Now give me money, (that’s what I want) yeah
That’s what I want.
“Money (That’s What I Want)” is a rhythm and blues song which was the first hit record for Berry Gordy’s Motown Records in 1959. Many artists have recorded the tune, including the Beatles in 1963 and the Flying Lizards in 1979.
The way today’s financial lizards get their money in America is “buy” the ability to shape government policy. And elections.
Back in 2014, Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page published a study about political inequality in America called “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.” Their central finding was this: Economic elites and interest groups can shape U.S. government policy but Americans who are less well-off have essentially no influence over what their government does.”
No one will be, or should be, surprised by this analysis. An article in the Washington Post quoted Gilens and Benjamin’s finding that “Influence is massively unequal — even when using the ‘merely affluent’ as a proxy for America’s economic elites.” The authors wrote ” …there can be little doubt that influence over government policymaking is massively unequal in America. However we measured it, the results were the same: the affluent have more power than the rest.” Their concluding statement was ” … the gross inequality that our research reveals is strongly undemocratic and incompatible with notions of political equality that most Americans hold dear. Many Americans voting for outsider candidates believe that government pretty much ignores people like them. We think they’re right.”
Why am I stating the obvious in my column today? Because it’s a prelude to what the former indicted and disgraced American president and his MAGA party are intent on doing should he be elected for a second term. This is spookier than any of the Halloween horror shows that have just had their annual day of desecration on television.
Think about what Brookings Institution’s Vanessa Williamson asked: “Have you heard about the ‘Wait Longer for Your Tax Refund Act of 2023’? What about the ‘Millionaire Tax Evader Relief’ package? If legislation were named honestly, that’s what would be making its way through Congress right now, because once again the IRS is facing budget cuts.”
“Cutting the IRS is a top Republican priority,” continued Williamson. “It was their first piece of legislative business once they held a majority in the House. It was a central demand of the debt ceiling negotiation that resulted in a $21 billion cut in IRS funding, clawing back part of an $80 billion increase passed by the Democrats when they controlled Congress. And that is not the end of the story; House Republicans are aiming for even more IRS cuts in future budget negotiations.”
The IRS has been underfunded since the 1980s. Their enforcement budget was cut by nearly a quarter between 2010 and 2021. Cutting the IRS budget does not save money, it costs money. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has conservatively estimated the net budgetary effect of the IRS funding rollback in the debt ceiling negotiation at $900 million.
What the financial lizards want to avoid (at all costs!) is for the IRS to have the capacity to ensure that all taxpayers follow the law. This includes auditing high-income tax filers. Last Monday’s civil fraud by N.Y. Attorney General Letitia James vs. Trump is a case in point. Trump and sons have been found guilty of massively inflating the value of Trump properties by over $2 billion to secure favorable loans. The financial penalties Mr. Trump’s company will incur will be plus or minus $250 million. And he will be banned from doing business in New York and remove Trump Tower and the rest of his holdings from his control.
This is the tip of a dark iceberg.
The $5 trillion in wealth now held by 745 billionaires is two-thirds more than the $3 trillion in wealth held by the bottom 50 percent of U.S. households estimated by the Federal Reserve Board. This obscene level of wealth inequality is a profoundly moral issue that we cannot continue to ignore or sweep under the rug. A society cannot sustain itself when so few have so much while so many have so little.
In the richest country on Earth, the time is long overdue for us to create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent.
Greenfield resident John Bos would be on the streets with so many others were it not for his Social Security support that he earned and which MAGA Republicans want to eliminate. This enables him to write his bimonthly column for the Recorder and monthly column for Green Energy Times. And to welcome comments and questions at john01370@gmail.com.