Right-wing ideas are officially bankrupt
October 1, 2008
If we needed more proof that
right-wing notions about the economy don’t work for working people, we’ve
sure got it now.
On Monday, the U.S. Congress
narrowly rejected a plan by President George Bush to give $700 billion to
the banks and insurance companies that have just blown up the U.S. financial
sector – and gravely wounded the world economy in the process.
But Bush will be back. Chances
are some version of the bailout package will pass before long.
Ordinary Americans will be on
the hook for the mistakes of a few people who have gotten filthy rich.
Sure, taxpayers might get some
of their money back, someday. But don’t bet your lunch money on it. The
reason for the bailout in the first place is that the “assets” the big
players are holding are worthless, or close to it. No private investor
anywhere wants to buy them, even at a deep discount.
So ordinary Americans are left
holding the (empty) bag.
This all started over a year ago
when Americans started defaulting on their mortgages. Why? Because they
don’t have enough money.
And that all goes back to
right-wing economics. While stock speculators have been making hay, U.S.
workers have struggled. According to the
Economic Policy Institute, 2008 marks the first time in U.S. history
that “middle-class families are at the end of a recovery without ever having
regained the ground they lost during the previous recession.”
Profits are up. Wages are down.
And with no universal public
health care, a serious illness or injury can mean the difference between
home ownership and homelessness.
Yet somehow the Bush government
has found $1.35 trillion to pay for tax cuts (with the biggest breaks for
the richest people and corporations), $600 billion so far for the Iraq war,
and now a whole lot more to bail out Wall Street.
It’s all borrowed money. None of
it is helping workers or their families.
Here in Canada, our financial
system seems better-regulated than the one in the U.S. But Prime Minister
Stephen Harper strongly favours the Bush approach.
In his brief tenure, Harper has
pushed through $50 billion in tax cuts, with the biggest breaks for the
richest people and corporations. (To get the U.S. equivalent of these tax
cuts, multiply by 10.)
On the economy, Harper has sat
on his hands and watched as Ontario’s economy gets pounded by the U.S.
slowdown and our high dollar.
Meanwhile, Premier Dalton
McGuinty cuts corporate taxes every year and is now signaling that poor
Ontarians – and their kids – may have to wait a little longer for help from
his government.
Our leaders’ thinking is upside
down.
In a poll a few years back, 80
per cent of Canadians agreed that “When working people do well, the economy
does well.” Most people understand that nothing boosts a local economy like
good jobs. Yet our leaders are still sticking to the “trickle down” theory
that if you make the rich richer, they’ll share the wealth.
They don’t. In fact, when they
get in trouble, they come looking for handouts.
If governments can afford to
help the rich, then they can afford to create good jobs, build stronger
public services, and lift people out of poverty.
Seventy-five years ago, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt saw the need and rose to the occasion. His “New
Deal” cost $500 billion in today’s dollars and helped transform the
United States from a broken-down wreck into a global superpower.
The U.S. needs a new Roosevelt.
So does Canada. So does Ontario. We need leadership now that will put
working people first and build our economy from the bottom up, not the top
down.
Just something to think about
with a federal election on.
In solidarity,
Warren (Smokey) Thomas
President
