Cover Story

No More Shellacking: It's Working People vs. the
Corporations

By Jamala Rogers - BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
Black Commentator December 2, 2010

http://www.blackcommentator.com/404/404_people_vs_corporations_rogers_ed_bd.php

From now until the next big election cycle, it will be
a stand-off between the People and the Corporations.
Coming out of the mid-term elections, the corporate
class has clearly won this battle (but not the war) and
has handily seized the momentum that could determine
the outcomes in 2012. Many voters are standing like the
proverbial deer in front of the super-sized headlights
of the corporate truck full of goodies to gain more
power like money, tax cuts, elected officials, banks,
the courts, etc. Most of us don't have the luxury of
waiting for anyone to save us. That's whether it is
Superman, President Obama or God.

So the question is: Are you tired of being hustled by
the Democrats and rolled over by the Republicans?

Since we now understand that getting "shellacked" means
to get your butt kicked, working people in this country
are about to get shellacked to the tenth power. Coming
at us is the expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end
of the year if our Congress does nothing. That's not
going over too well with the folks who've been getting
a free or nearly free ride for a long time.

The first test of the People's collective strength is
about to manifest itself in the show-down around the
tax cuts.

President Barack Obama wants to permanently extend tax
cuts for the first $250,000 couples earn and the first
$200,000 singles, but he would let the tax cuts higher
earnings expire. Obama's proposal would increase the
national debt by $2 trillion through 2020, according to
the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Extending
all the Bush tax cuts would add $2.7 trillion. And if
all the tax cuts were permanently extended, the debt
would balloon by $4.9 trillion, according to CBO. So
much for trying to cut the deficit!

For most of us, we're just catching up to the fact that
those tax cuts were put in place way back in 2001 and
2003 to mostly benefit the wealthy. On top of endless
tax loopholes and other legal (but unethical) holes,
corporations continue to enjoy big profits with no
accountability as responsible citizens. In fact, the
Government Accountability Office reported in 2008 that
two thirds of US corporations paid no income tax
between 1998-2005. During that same period, nearly 70%
of foreign companies doing business in the US also got
the big hook up and didn't pay federal income taxes.
This, despite record profits by most of them.

More than 15 million people in the U.S. are unemployed
and searching for work, with eight million more who are
just getting by with a part-time job, according to the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over two million more
people were working prior to the recession but have now
dropped out of the labor force. About 40 million
citizens are considered chronically poor and for the
first time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is
concerned about escalating hunger statistics in the
belly of the richest country on earth.

Here's why we can't expect the Congress to advocate for
us regarding the tax cuts. Over half of the Congress
members are millionaires - 261 out of 531. The Center
for Responsive Politics further reports that 55 of the
lawmakers have an average wealth of $10 million. The
median wealth in the House is about $765k while the
Senators boast an average wealth of $12.4 million.
These folks will be looking out for their own interests
when the time comes to deal with the Bush tax cuts.

And I'm talking about both Democrats and Republicans.
These so-called public servants are the biggest
investors in the corporations who are whining about
losing money, should those tax cuts expire. Two of the
corporations who see heavy investments by lawmakers are
General Electric and Bank of America. Bank of America
is the largest lender in the country and was squarely
behind goo-gobs of home foreclosures. General Electric
is one of the corporations who paid no income tax last
year, making it look like they lost profits in the US,
while at the same time earning $10 billion globally.

It is imperative that we who have corporate footprints
on our backside interject ourselves into the big debate
over the next few weeks. Call or write your
Congressperson to tell them to support President
Obama's original proposal: letting the tax cuts expire
for the wealthy. That proposal is bound to get watered
down after all the lobbyists get through schmoozing
with our elected officials. We should also call, fax or
write President Obama to help support his sometimes
wobbly back-bone.

The working poor and the middle class must stand in
uncompromising unity on this issue. Corporations
already have unprecedented leeway to make obscene
profits and they want more - at our expense. They must
be stopped and that means snatching our Congresspeople
from their clutches and reminding them about their
constituents back home, struggling to keep a roof over
our heads and food on the table. It means organizing
communities to stand up and move forward around a
strategic plan for political and economic empowerment.
Let's end the year with a victory for the people, not
the corporations.
_________________

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Jamala
Rogers, is the leader of the Organization for Black
Struggle in St. Louis and the Black Radical Congress
National Organizer.

___________________________________________

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