Posted by Shyam Moondra
Occupy Wall Street, a leaderless protest by mostly young people, started out only about a month ago in New York’s financial district but has now quickly spread to other American cities and across continents. Yesterday, this rapid fire revolution turned violent in Rome, Italy. The House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R) called them a "mob." Some conservative commentators labeled these angry young people as a misguided minority. However, the latest opinion polls paint a very different picture; these young revolutionaries in fact enjoy twice as much support among the general public as does the Tea Partiers. Not only that, the main demand of the protesters, to increase the taxes for the rich, is now supported by a whopping 73% of the people, including 53% of the Republicans.
Many conservative political pundits have taken a dismissive attitude towards the Wall Street protesters by labeling them as a bunch of losers that are anti-rich and anti-capitalist system. That’s a complete misread of the situation. These young protesters, many of them with college degrees and crushing student loans, are faced with high level of unemployment and lack of opportunities to realize their dreams. They are not anti-rich or anti-capitalist system; they are simply protesting against the inequitable system that treats rich and powerful people a lot more favorably than the ordinary folks. They are angry at the excessive compensation of corporate executives (that increased by 300% since 1990), who caused the financial crisis and still got bailed out by the government. They are angry at the Exxon-Mobil Board that granted a $400 million retirement package to a former CEO. They are angry at the report that GE paid zero income taxes in 2010. What these young people are protesting against is a system that’s designed to favor the rich and powerful. The recent census survey results clearly show the disparities and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. The rich people became rich, not exclusively because of their hard work, but mostly because of the pro-rich government policies that granted them special breaks and lower income tax rates.
The Congressional Republicans’ emphasis on spending cuts and no tax increases is just a continuation of their policy of favoring the rich over the struggling working class people. They know very well that spending cuts would negatively affect largely the low-income and middle-income families while no tax increases mean maintaining the status-quo for the rich. The low-income and middle-income families account for 67% of the overall consumer spending, so if they are hurt by government spending cuts then it would make that much harder to recover from the recession and we will continue to see an elevated level of unemployment rate. The Republicans blame President Barack Obama for initiating a class-warfare, when in fact they themselves have been engaged in class-warfare all these years by giving the rich all kinds of special breaks. It's interesting to note that a majority of the members of the Congress are themselves millionaires. Even rich Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan (a flat 9% income tax rate for corporations, a flat 9% income tax rate for individuals, and a flat 9% sales tax for everyone) is laced with the same ill-timed pro-rich philosophy. Most low-income and middle-income struggling families, who live from pay-check to pay-check, would see a net increase in their taxes while the rich people would see a net decrease in their taxes because Cain is also proposing to eliminate capital-gains and estate taxes that largely benefit the affluent people. The 9-9-9 is actually a code language to make rich people richer while piling up on the pain for the struggling ordinary people.
Here are some actionable initiatives that the Congress could look at to reflect the mood of their constituents:
• Reform the tax code. Corporations and rich people must pay more in income taxes; it’s unacceptable when GE pays zero taxes or Google pays only 2% or Goldman Sachs pays only 10% and when billionaire Warren Buffett pays a lower rate than his secretary.
• Close off-shore tax loop-holes that corporations use to escape from paying their fair share of taxes.
• Eliminate tax subsidies to corporations (e.g., to rich oil companies, hedge funds, drug companies, and farmers).
• Impose limits on how much corporate CEOs can make (as a multiple of the lowest paid employee in the company). Ban golden parachutes accorded to executives, especially to those who were fired for non-performance or those who are retiring.
• Ban campaign contributions by corporations and their representatives that are polluting our political system. Big money from big business is drowning out the voice of the ordinary citizens. Through their relentless lobbying efforts, the corrupt corporations are able to win special breaks often at the expense of consumers.
• Create an environment where corporations are induced to become more ethical via stricter enforcement of the laws against insider trading and manipulation by the SEC, CFTC, Federal Reserve Board, and FDIC.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has sparked a debate on how the system is rigged in favor of the rich and how it has made almost impossible for the poor people to climb out of poverty. Given the increasing broad support of the Occupiers among the population, the Republican Party seems to be stuck on the wrong side of the debate just before the up-coming general election. It would be a fatal political mistake to assume that this revolution is just a fad and it will go away, and that it will have no impact on the 2012 elections.
