Wealth, Political Influence, Tax Breaks

Over the course of my adult life I’ve worked for two companies both of which have been small family owned businesses. The first one grew to about 50 people over the years and the family became comfortably wealthy which they deserved for their hard work, sacrifices and skills. The second is newer and is still growing and I have no doubt the owners will also achieve a comfortable level of wealth. I have never begrudged them their success and have worked hard to help them achieve it as they have also allowed me to share in that success via a good salary and nice bonuses.

The Republican tax plan, which will likely have passed and been signed into law by the time you read this, the entrepreneurs I’ve worked for over the years may benefit a little but 70% of middle and working class families won’t. The bulk of the benefits go to the wealthiest 10% of Americans, the latest in Republican largesse will go to those with massive real estate holdings like Donald Trump and Sen. Bob Corker who suddenly changed his no vote to a yes vote about the same time as the 20% tax break was added to the bill.

Presidents often tout their economic successes by quoting increases in the Dow Jones Industrial Average which now stands at nearly 25,000. The tax plan includes a huge break on corporate taxes especially for international profits that are brought back to the US which are guaranteed to increase stock values which some analysts expect will cause the Dow to hit 27,000. That’s great if you own stocks but nearly half of Americans don’t, in fact over 80% of stock value is owned by the same 10% of Americans who will benefit the most from the Republican tax plan. How nice for them.

Now here’s the problem, the big reason those massive tax benefits go to the ultra-wealthy is that they use a small fraction of their wealth to influence the rules that affect their wealth. Through campaign donations directly to candidates and political action committees (PAC’s) some of which obscure where the money came from, and an army of lobbyists the wealthiest among us pursue further economic advantage over the rest of us.

The McCain-Feingold Act which provided some limits to the amount of money that could be spent by any one individual or corporation on a single politician wasn’t perfect but since the Supreme Court decisions overturning much of those limits, McCutcheon v. FEC and Citizens United v. FEC there has been a tidal wave of money flowing from the ultra-wealthy into campaign coffers of federal and state legislators. It is now ridiculously expensive to run a competitive campaign for any of those offices in nearly every district.

As I said earlier I don’t have a problem with people getting wealthy off of their own efforts, I do have a problem with people getting even wealthier by stacking the deck. It isn’t just tax breaks that enrich these folks either. They also push laws that prohibit competition such as the law in Texas that says no municipality can operate its own internet service provider. The wealthy also push for reductions in regulation that protect the health and safety of workers and consumers alike. One such example is the elimination of rules that coal companies had to abide by regarding polluting streams with runoff from mining waste which can dump high concentrations of toxic arsenic and mercury into drinking water sources.

We’ve returned to the era of the “Robber Barons”, are you comfortable with that?

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 22, 2017