| LONG TAKETruthfully, I was ready to move on to write about the global progress towards a four-day work week or child slavery or a whole host of other things. But, I know most folks who live and breathe policy are wrapped up in the tick-tock over the infrastructure bill. So, delayed by a day… This is not a Budget Clusterf**k 101 because you’all are more sophisticated. It’s a Budget Clusterf**k 201—to consider not so much the details of a bill but why we have this sorry drama and what we should make of it. Three points here, I think, that I’ll anchor partly off of two things I was quoted on in recent days in The Hill. First: Biden seems well-suited to the task. On one hand, he is a lifelong moderate who defeated progressive stars Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for his party’s presidential nomination last year. On the other, the left has been pleasantly surprised by the scale of his ambitions during his first year — the $3.5 trillion bill being the clearest example. “No one would have expected Joe Biden to have this large, broad approach and to really expand the reach of the federal government in very strong and positive ways,” said longtime progressive strategist Jonathan Tasini. “I think that he was shaped by the moment — the pandemic — and also by the process of running and having to bring along progressives in the election.” [emphasis added]
And, second: Many prefer the phrase “corporate Democrats” — which holds a broadly negative connotation across the party — to reflect the decision among some to accept campaign donations from corporations and other traditional funding avenues. On Monday, Sinema drew ire from progressives after a report in The New York Times showcased her plans to accept money from a series of organizations working against Biden’s budget plan. “I don’t consider these people moderates,” said progressive strategist Jonathan Tasini. “I consider them corporatist mouthpieces.”[emphasis added]
So, as readers will know, I’ve differed with the Biden view of the world on many, many occasions, especially on economics. I think it was a significant error to promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000—as if people earning, for example, $300,000 shouldn’t pay higher taxes to fund climate change or child care. And within the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill, there are very bad elements that progressives should not be thrilled with—no one interested in a good use of our money should be a fan of the constant pumping up of “public-private partnerships”, which I wrote in early August is a fraud on the public. But, generally speaking, Biden and his team have put a lot of money on the table for lots of good things within the context of the economic system we have (I loathe the “Build Back Better” slogan—whoever came up with that should be fired). As I said in the above quote, Biden has gone further than his track record would indicate partly because the pandemic exposed the shameful state of the country when it comes to looking out for people who are not white and wealthy, and partly because of the enhanced influence of progressives which eventually led to a circle of progressive economists being recruited to the Administration (note the cautious term “enhanced influence”, not all-world, we-can-win-anything-we-want power) Share Once the deal is made on a bill—and there *will* be a deal of some sort that few people will love—we can put aside the pissing match framed as one between “progressives” and “moderates” and have a much clearer vision of this as something that springs from four decades of subservience to broken economic ideas. Today’s paralysis is built on a collection of bad ideas colliding at once: “The Era of Big Government is Over”, “Free Trade is Good”, “De-Regulation”, “Budget Deficits Are Bad” “We Have A Debt Crisis”, “Entitlement Reform”, “America Is The Greatest Country on Earth”, “Hillarycare” and, of course, it’s fine to sell off nights in the Lincoln Bedroom (a Terry McAuliffe special) to please big donors who embrace all these bad ideas. This is really the bad hangover from the Clinton Administration—though, to be sure, plenty of these bad ideas (American Exceptionalism, for example) existed before. It’s just that Clinton gave them a newer sheen. Here is the simple way to break this down: The “moderates” are nothing of the sort, as I wrote last week. They are corporatists, a better descriptive term when thinking of the various spots on the political spectrum. Sometimes literally: Joe Manchin is a former coal brokerage executive (a company now in the hands of his son). Corporatists” is certainly a pejorative and, though I use it as such, I also mean it in a very straightforward way: they believe that all societal goods flow from the actions of corporate actors and of the so-called “free market”, with as little government involvement as humanely possible. Some of the inferences out of the mouths of dolts like Ted Cruz, warning of (if only!) an impending socialist takeover, are comical. But, taken at face value, the corporatists find a very comfortable place among the Clinton ethos of chopping down government and “entitlement reform” and “free trade” The Clinton-era mindset essentially valued, first and foremost, the financial markets and especially bond market traders—and that’s how you get the foolishness about deficits and debt. There never has been a deficit crisis nor a long-term debt crisis. NEVER. But, this mantra is at the core of the argument against spending big (even more crazy at a time, by the way, when interest rates are at record lows). These bad ideas are bad economics, and should be seen as such even if you aren’t a socialist. Spending 15 percent of the gross domestic product on health care, for example, is a stupendous waste of money. And letting the country fall apart—not to mention sit by while people, mostly people of color, drink water poisoned with lead—is not very good for economic vitality. Which brings us to a very important point: from my own experience, speaking to Members of Congress—even the semi-progressive ones—they don’t no shit about economics. This is even more true of people like Manchin, Sinema et. al. Journalists, who also don’t know shit about economics, treat these people like some sort of geniuses simply because they wear a congressional pin. So, we get pronouncements about the “danger” of deficits and debt that are just plain wrong. All these bad ideas and the tyranny of the corporatists can’t be cited without the obvious point: much of this is possible because of the corruption of money in political campaigns. She isn’t alone but the spectacle of Krysten Sinema, without shame, raising money from corporate donors in the midst of the current fight is bracing—she is cashing in on her service. And that would be true for the entire lot of the corporatists. Of course, the contradictions to this professed fiscal probity are everywhere, no more so than the unrelenting, unquestioned funding of the Pentagon and the broader “national security” apparatus—not something to blame per se on Clinton as the initiator of but, to be sure, the unrelenting stream of dollars to underwrite the Pentagon has always been a bi-partisan mission. The notion that America is the greatest nation on earth, and should reflect that by being armed to the teeth, makes best buds of Robert Reich and Dick Cheney. And one more thing on the Sinema example. That’s simply narcissism devoid of any ideology other than the accumulation of power—a common thread in today’s politics. Share
SHORT TAKESBank workers have been one of the least unionized group of folks, as in almost zero. What’s most interesting to me about an effort to change that, called “Committee For Better Banks” backed by the Communication Workers of America, is the demand: “Support $25/hour minimum wage for bank workers!Big banks have seen record profits this year, but it is frontline workers who drove the success and soldiered on through a global pandemic to ensure communities could continue to function and have access to essential financial services, all while enduring intense stress from increasingly high - and often unattainable - sales goals and performance metrics. So rather than pass these profits onto CEOs through questionable stock buyback schemes, let's support the good jobs our communities need by calling for a $25/hour minimum wage across the major banks!”After all, that’s roughly what the minimum wage should be for every single worker based on productivity over the last 40-50 years. Here was the chart I posted some weeks ago: Maybe it’s obvious to everyone that members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) work for some very, very rich corporations—corporations who are trying to stiff the folks without whom movies don’t get made, leading to a strike authorization vote process that could shut down the film industry. So, I thought it would be good to post a *partial* list of the miscreants so everyone understands who the enemy is—global movie companies, run by CEOs earning multi-million pay and benefits: Marvel Film Productions LLC Marvel Picture Works, LLC Walt Disney Pictures Warner Bros. Animation Warner Bros. Pictures Warner Bros. Television Warner Bros. Studio Facilities Warner Specialty Productions, Inc. Warner Specialty Video Productions Inc. Netflix Studios, LLC Netflix Animation, LLC Sony Pictures Studios, Inc. Paramount Pictures Corporation Paramount Worldwide Productions Inc. Apple Studios LLC Apple Studios Louisiana LLC CBS Studios Inc. CBS Films Inc. ABC Signature, LLC ABC Studios New York, LLC Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation 20th Century Studios, Inc. Fox Studio Lot, LLC Fox Alternative Entertainment, LLC Legendary Features Productions US, LLC Legendary Pictures Productions, LLC 20th Century Studios, Inc. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. MGM Television Entertainment, Inc. Lions Gate Productions, LLC Focus Features Productions, LLC Horizon Scripted Television Inc. Universal Animation Studios LLC Universal Content Productions LLC Universal City Studios LLC New Line Productions, Inc. In the on-going keeping track of worker safety and urging jail, not fines, comes this from the Labor Department’s OSHA: “A Ravenna, Ohio, aluminum parts manufacturer with a history of safety violations now faces $1,671,738 in penalties for 38 safety and health violations following an investigation into the death of a 43-year-old worker struck by a machine’s barrier door on March 30, 2021.The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration alleges General Aluminum Mfg. Company allowed employees to bypass guarding mechanisms designed to protect employees from the barrier door closing on them and that a malfunction in the door’s optic control existed prior to the deadly incident. The worker was loading a part info the machine when the barrier door closed on his head.”So, ok, $1.6 million is on the higher end of fines in the safety and health world. But, that won’t bring back the worker to life—he’s gone. To stop this happening on a daily basis, we need to get laws in place that push indictments of the executives who run these companies that kill people on the job and put them in jail. Otherwise the carnage will continue because fines are just a cost of doing business. I always note that OSHA top folks who impose these fines do not have the authority—but they can refer cases to prosecutors. Fines are not enough. Subscribe now Leave a comment Share Share Working Life Newsletter
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