Tag Archives: tax cuts

What Are You Voting For?

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By Jay Hansen

Well, nearly two years of campaigning has surmounted to this. With the election less than a week away, this election cycle is finally ending. At this point, a vast majority of Americans have made up their minds, so attempting to persuade someone at this point is largely a fruitless effort, I feel. This piece will be my last serious commentary on the candidates, and something I feel of which everyone could use a healthy dose. Regardless of who you’re voting for, you need to know what you’re voting for. I’ve gone out and found what I feel are the fifteen worst parts of both candidates and their plans and brought them all here. Sure, there’s a lot more I could have said, and a lot more issues I could have brought up, but odds are at some point in the past year I’ve covered it, and there comes a time in all elections where it’s time to just let the facts speak for themselves and wait for election day.

Remember to click the image for full resolution.

Text chart (with sources):

Obama

Romney
Extended the Patriot Act and our policies of warrantless wiretapping and indefinite, off-shore detention without a trial  Has received more bribes (directly or indirectly) from special interest than any politician in American history, and supports further de-regulating campaign finance to allow special interest to spend unlimited amounts of money on political bribery.
Believes Wall Street did nothing illegal in the crash of 2008, has done nothing to prosecute those responsible, did nothing to stop the risky gambling in the derivatives market and almost nothing to end “too big to fail” banks Believes corporations are people entitled to all the same rights of US citizens, but not the same responsibilities or obligations, nor should they be subject to the same punishments
Partially privatized food inspections from the FDA by allowing private companies to inspect imported food rather than the government, even if the company doing the inspection is owned by or affiliated with the same company producing and importing the food. This coupled with being under-funded leaves us with an FDA that is only checking 6% of domestically produced food and 0.4% of imported food. Supports privatization of most forms of government, including programs like Social Security, Medicare, and FEMA. 
Extended the Bush tax cuts, cut the payroll tax, and has already vowed support for cutting the corporate tax rate Proposes a tax plan that is not mathematically possible (20% tax cut across the board, among many other tax cuts, without adding to the deficit or raising tax burdens on the middle class). He has used similarly dishonest, bad math to describe the debt and job creation.
Rolled back regulation on big polluters even more than George Bush did and cut funding to the EPA Vows to cut the EPA even more, stop limitations on carbon emissions, and believes that carbon is not a harmful pollutant to people’s bodies. Given that, he seems to either not believe global climate change is real or that it is real and he does not care how much damage it does.
Has continuously given concessions to the Republicans during negotiations (especially in budget talks) but received little to nothing in return Horribly bigoted towards homosexuals, having bullied them as a child and to this day expressed no remorse for it even when asked. He continued to insult, disrespect, and bully members of the LGBT community into his adult life, often to their face, and as Governor, intentionally sabotaged the birth certificates of children born into or adopted by same-sex couples.
Has already voiced willingness to cut Social Security and Medicare if the Republicans demand it in negotiations Had a poor performance record as Governor of Massachusetts with the rate of job growth ranked 47th out of 50 states and an approval rating of only 34% at the end of his term.
Won’t balance the budget Won’t balance the budget
His Attorney General established the policy that the constitution does not guarantee judicial process to US citizens as justification for targeted killings of US citizens by the executive branch without a trial. One of his foreign policy advisors is John Bolton, Gingrich’s pick for Secretary of State during his campaign and one of the most extreme right-wingers on the national state in America today. Bolton has been supporting war with Iran for years now, describing break downs in peaceful negotiations as “fortunate.”
His Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has fought Wall Street reform and regulation every step of the way. John Thain is on his short list for Treasury Secretary, the most important economic position in the country. Thain is the former CEO of Merrill Lynch that ran the company into bankruptcy in the 2008 collapse. After crashing the company, causing it to lose $11.67 billion, Thain asked for a $30-40 million bonuses, and still got a $10 million bonus the same year he crashed the company.
Surrounds himself with people who think liberals are “fucking retarded.” He openly admits he’s a conservative, and he himself believes progressives are pessimistic and overly-critical of his work Picked Paul Ryan to be his running mate, possibly after being offered a $100 million bribe by David Koch to do so. Ryan is a right-wing extremist on women’s issues that created a bill alongside Congressman Todd Akin to re-define rape to exclude date rape and other non-forcible forms of rape, effectively startingthe latest national conversation over rape. He’s also an extremist on the budget and taxation, having created a plan to eliminate 91% of the federal government and eliminate so many forms of taxation that multi-millionaires like Mitt Romney would be paying less than 1% in taxes. 
Killed hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilians with drones throughout the Middle East, including children and US citizens. Fully supports Obama’s stance on drones and has indicated he seeks to expand it. He also supports the Patriot Act, the most recent form of the National Defense Authorization Act, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention of US citizens without a trial, targeted killings of US citizens without a trial, and supports re-instituting torture. 
Passed legislation that allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens or foreigners without a trial or charge of crime While CEO and owner of Bain Capital, Romney outsourced American jobs primarily to China, invested in Chinese companies that abused workers and others that profited from abortion, and reaped profits when American companies went bankrupt (in Romney’s own words, Bain Capital “harvested” these companies for “significant profit”).
Oversaw the creation of the “disposition matrix,” a computer program that automatically categorizes terrorists and criminals into “kill” and “capture” lists. It does this continuously, so when one target is killed or captured, the lists are updated with more names endlessly, creating what could seriously be considered a permanent state of warfare. We have always been at war. It is necessary to maintain peace. Therefore, war is peace (I think I read that in a book somewhere…) Has continuously, brazenly liedagain and again throughout the campaign and changed his political beliefs so many times (particularly on the issue of abortion) it’s nearly impossible to say what his actual ideology is on any given day other than “whatever his party wants.” This is especially true for abortion. 
Belongs to an extremely weak, disorganized political party lacking almost any form of leadership or cohesion that has proven itself incapable of providing many of the actual progressive demands of its voting base even with massive majorities in the House and Senate whilst controlling the Presidency too. Belongs to an extremist political party that plans on outlawing abortion and gay marriage, opposes equal pay for women, supports draconian spending cuts to virtually any and all federal programs and expenditures regardless of the merit or importance of the program in question, supports starting another war in the Middle East, and believes that tax cuts and deregulation are always the answer to any and all economic woes.

 

 

The Definition of a Sucker

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By Jay Hansen

I apologize for the brevity of this article, but this week has been very busy. Today I have a wedding to attend and tomorrow is my two year anniversary with my wonderful, beautiful girlfriend, so I intend on spending the entire day with her. I still wanted to get some form of an article up, so I concocted this humorous picture-informative article hybrid.

The Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan, politically neutral organization, has come out with a report on Mitt Romney’s proposed tax plan should he be elected president. I’ll be honest; I’m often very, very skeptical about reports like these because numbers lie. Numbers are extremely easily manipulated to paint whatever picture the person controlling them wants. The Tax Policy Center, however, is on the record as nonpartisan and neutral. Plus, when I heard that Romney himself praised the organization as an “objective, third party group” when they appraised Rick Perry’s tax plan during the primary, I felt comfortable accepting their numbers on Romney’s own plan as fact.

The problem with his tax plan is that he claims he will cut taxes by 20% across the board for all Americans, but that it will be revenue neutral (i.e. it won’t cost the federal government money or worsen the deficit). The only way for that to be possible is if he eliminates a very large number of very large deductions that are used by many Americans. Romney refuses to name specifically which deductions he supports cutting (implying either that his plan is incomplete or he is hiding deductions that he knows people depend on). Nonetheless, the Tax Policy Center extended as much benefit of the doubt as possible to Mitt Romney in their analysis when it comes to cutting deductions. When combined with all of Romney’s massive cuts and some outright terminations of certain taxes like the estate tax and capital gains, both of which are overwhelmingly only paid by the ultra wealthy, the center’s findings were disgusting, but not shocking.

Mitt Romney’s tax plan, when all nuances such as deductions and types of taxes are taken into account, will ultimately cut taxes for those making $1 million annually by $87,000 a year. Those that earn below $200,000 a year, which is 95% of the American population, will experience a $500 tax increase. Mitt Romney himself makes minimum $21 million (which is what was reported on his 2010 tax returns), meaning his tax plan will cut his own taxes by a minimum of $1.8 million.

Some reports have calculated Romney may have as much as a quarter of a billion dollars ($250 million), which would translate to Romney giving himself a $21.7 million tax cut. The Koch Brothers, possibly the largest contributors to Mitt Romney’s campaign, are each worth $25 billion. Romney’s tax plan could give them each a $2.1 billion tax cut, or $4.2 billion for the both of them. Another major Romney supporter, Sheldon Adelson, is worth about the same at $24.9 billion, for another $2.1 billion tax cut.

That’s three people. The biggest three supporters of Mitt Romney, as well as Romney himself, combined will be getting a checks for as much as $6,321,700,000 from the federal government if Romney’s tax plan is implemented.

And who pays for it? To pay for cutting his own taxes, as well as the wealthiest 5% of the nation and his billionaire donors? He’ll raise your taxes by at least $500 a year. Now obviously, those calculations from Forbes on the billionaires likely include figures that wouldn’t fall under the same taxation categories as the calculations from the report, but nonetheless it’s entered the realm of possibility, and no matter how you cut it; anyone making above $1 million will still get a massive tax cut and anyone below $200,000 will get a tax increase. Like Cenk said in the video above, if this was a real democracy, there’s no way Romney could ever stand a chance at winning election. Thanks to all the money that’s been pumped into his campaign to manipulate the masses and cover up just how bad his plan is, however, this tragically wealthy man has a legitimate shot at being President.

There’s no other way to spin it now. It was largely speculative until this report came out, but now I spare no hesitation in saying if you are middle class or poor, and you vote for Mitt Romney, you are, without a doubt, a 100% sucker. Hence is why I had to make this:

The “Free Lunch” of the State

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By Jay Hansen

Conservative state governments seem hell-bent on cutting if not eliminating taxation altogether. Many have already imposed impossible legal requirements to ever raise taxes such as a two-thirds majority of Congress like in California and Oklahoma. Some want to abolish the income tax and replace it with a very regressive sales tax that hits the poor and middle class harder than the upper class. All of this is happening, mind you, at the same time as record-breaking state budget shortfalls and deficits, on which conservatives continually harp and preach about the evils thereof. Despite this, as I started with, it’s also the Republicans that continually push to cut taxes, which lowers budget revenues, and thus, creates more deficits.

Well I’m writing this article to share a little secret with you all that state lawmakers don’t want citizens knowing; there’s no such thing as a tax cut any more.

But perhaps I’ve already made many a claim you question or don’t understand about taxation. Allow me to start at the beginning. Conservatives and others of right-wing ideology oppose most modern purposes and facets of government. To varying degrees within the right-wing, conservatives want smaller government, sometimes to the point of recreating “the wild west,” a land of lawlessness where justice is determined by whoever had the most gun. The problem is a vast majority of civilized people do not like this ideology. We’re trying to build our society and the whole of civilization up, not tear it back down to the point it was centuries ago. I’m not accusing all conservatives of this ideology, of course, but this goal of the extremists within the Republican and Libertarian Parties is achieved through the same means more moderate conservatives (if there are any left) have applied for shrinking the government in the past, and still do today.

I’ve written about this before in my piece The Undermining of America. In the short-term, everyone loves tax cuts. It’s immediate gratification to satisfy our almost animalistic, and consumerist, nature; more money for me, less taken out of my paycheck, and less going into the hands of bureaucrats most will historically agree are either incompetent or corrupt (or both). The problem is, the more we cut taxes, the lower the revenue for the state. This ultimately leads to deficits and budget shortfalls if tax cuts are handed out freely, as the Republican Party always seems willing to do. With deficits comes outrage and perpetuation of the idea that the government is incompetent, thus fanning the anti-government flames. By exacerbating anti-government sentiment and creating a deficit, politicians of both parties are left with no choice but to cut spending in an attempt to quell public outrage and balance the budget, because the last thing they would want to do is raise taxes. It’s what caused the problem in the first place, and it would surely fix it in time, but it would only dramatically increase public outrage for taxes to be raised after the government proved to be so incapable of keeping a balanced budget, not to mention that the conservatives that pushed for the tax cuts would make damn sure through the media and talking points that raising taxes is demonized as thoroughly as possible. With such a situation created, the inevitability is that spending is cut from programs that primarily help the middle class and poor, as the wealthy have no need for aid from the government, and thus government shrinks. This is the back-door way through which conservatives are actually managing to shrink government, possibly all the way back to the point of a lawless frontier land, despite how deeply unpopular such a general idea is among citizens. Therefore, it is in fact in the best interest of the Republican Party, or any party that wants to reduce or eliminate the government, to cut or even abolish as many taxes as possible in a purposeful attempt to ruin the budget and make people more distrustful of government. To put it simply, the Republican’s primary message is that government doesn’t work. Put them in charge, and they’ll prove it (I also addressed this in an older piece, How Corruption Happens through Incentives and Disincentives).

As for the form of taxation, thus far the income tax has been the most progressive form of taxation we’ve developed. I don’t mean politically progressive, but rather in terms of how it works. If you can afford to pay more into the system of which we are all a part, you pay higher income tax rates. If you can only afford a little due to a low income, you are expected to contribute less. If you make very, very little income for yourself, you are not expected to pay the income tax at all because you need 100% of your income just to live in poverty. This is why we have different tax brackets for different levels of income. Many conservatives make the claim that this system is flawed because it allows those that aren’t productive in society (the unemployed) to avoid paying taxes. In reality, they still pay taxes, just not the income tax. They still pay sales tax, property tax if they own land, and even the payroll tax if they’re making any form of legitimate income, just to name a few other taxes they still pay. On top of that, conservatives claim that there are too many people not paying into the system for it to work, or at least for it to be fair to those that do. The problem is that a majority of the people not paying the income tax aren’t paying it for a reason, primarily because they’re retired. The income tax allows us to no longer place as harsh of a tax burden on the elderly who have passed their working years. It allows us to go without taxing those that are struggling to find a job. It protects many of those seeking an education, the disabled, the underemployed, and those that have otherwise fallen on difficult times from having to contribute to the general upkeep of the state. There are also protections for families, veterans, and countless others through deductions and exemptions in the tax code that would not be possible in a sales tax-based system. The very core ideology of the income tax is that we are all in this society together; those that can give more should give more, while those that can give only little or none at all are expected to give as much, all the while everyone, from the very poor to the very rich, are still entitled to keep a huge portion of their income. We take care of each other, look out for each other, build each other up and make others stronger through this system of compassion and care for our fellow citizens. Conservatives will still argue that there are too many “leeches” on the system, often insinuating if not outright saying that all those not paying the income tax are good-for-nothing welfare queens, when I’ve easily demonstrated that is not the truth at all. Still, I’m not one to ignore the fact that there are those at the bottom of society that abuse the system… just as there are great scores of those who abuse it at the top. If anything, the damage abusers from the top of the socio-economic scale do unto our social system is far greater than anything the poor could ever do. But even putting that aside, just because someone abuses a right does not mean we get rid of the right. People abuse their right to free speech by saying hateful, damaging, or downright stupid things every day; do we get rid of the right to free speech because of it? Of course not; the damage ending such a facet of our society would do vastly outweighs any possible benefit of keeping it. The same is true for the income tax. It has served us well for nearly a century (100 years as of next February), and under its framework the greatest economic boom of the nation’s history, if not the world, was created and heralded in the great American middle class for which people all around the world admire our nation and culture. It was in no small part thanks to the income tax that this became a possibility.

Under a sales tax system, no such sense of fairness exists. Regardless of what you can afford, you are expected to contribute equally as everyone else. If you have no money to spare, be it because you’re unemployed, elderly and retired, a middle class, blue-collar worker, or anything in between, you’re still expected to pay as much in taxes and contribute as much to our society as a billionaire. How is that fair? How is that compassionate? Perhaps most of all though, just how high would a sales tax have to be if it is the exclusive source for revenue for the state?

But that’s the catch. That’s the key to my initial statement. That’s the wool that’s being pulled over our eyes by lawmakers; it’s not the exclusive source for revenue. Like I said, many states, Oklahoma included, have made it politically impossible to ever raise taxes. At the same time, we have a horrible deficit in Oklahoma. Lawmakers are doing whatever they can to prevent the budget from getting worse, but spending cuts can only go so far (especially when they’re matched or outweighed by tax cuts). The only other alternative is to raise revenue without raising taxes. This is done by raising fines and fees.

The costs of government fines and fees have been skyrocketing across the country because state governments are desperate for revenue, especially those that have fallen into the Republican trap of effectively outlawing tax increases. If you thought the sales tax was regressive and hard on the middle and lower class, you’d better hold on to your seat. The cost of renewing driver’s licenses, admittance into state parks, vehicle registration, parking or speeding violations, fireworks permits, traveling circuses, and many, many more have all gone up in desperate grabs for revenue by state governments. I recently heard a story (granted, from California, but nonetheless) about how a single speeding ticket was over $400. Now, do you have $400 just lying around to spare? Does the average member of the middle class or lower class just have a spare $400? Of course not. Do the wealthy? Absolutely. Hell, many wealthy people would opt to hire a pricey, high-quality lawyer and challenge almost any financial punishment dealt to them, disincentivizing law enforcement from even pursuing the wealthy when they violate the law. Let’s also not forget the fact that the wealthy could easily make bail while it’s out of the question for the poor.

Coupled with a sales tax system, these fees and fines are the most regressive form of taxation we’ve ever seen implemented in this nation. It’s the fees and fines that are the true culprit gutting the middle and lower class, because they are silent killers. How often is taxation a topic in the news and political talk shows? Nearly every damn day. Not a tax-related issue can come up in government that won’t be discussed heavily in the media, but what about fees? When was the last time you heard the news talking about the cost of getting your driver’s licensed renewed? Maybe if the news day is really, really slow, and it happens to fall around the same time as the increase, it can slip into a five-second long blurb in a news story. For the most part though, you almost never hear or learn about the increases in fees and fines; they just happen as we all go on about our everyday lives, completely unaware of the scheme being pulled on us.

To further elaborate upon this “scheme,” as if I haven’t enough already, and since we’re talking about fees, consider the price of filing for public office. Did you know that to file as a candidate, let alone run for office, for the US House of Representatives in Oklahoma it costs $750? Just to file – $750. On top of that, I once heard a story about someone filing for office who was warned to not do it unless he had at least $10,000 for campaigning, otherwise it “wasn’t going to happen.” If the middle class, let alone the poor, didn’t have the spare $400 to pay for a speeding ticket, how on Earth are they supposed to be able to afford $750, much less $10,000?

Now consider who are the ones making the laws about taxation and fees, and you get this:

Well… there’s your problem. Lawmakers only represent their wealthy donors and wealthy selves. Fair representation for all is a long lost concept in America, and it’s no clearer than when it comes to representation of the poor and middle class. This is why lawmakers don’t bat an eyelash at the idea of cutting federal aid to the poor, spending programs that benefit the middle class, worker’s rights, the cost of everyday fees and fines, fairness in tax burdens, or just economic justice in general.

I’m sure you’re still all itching with anticipation of my initial statement though; there is no such thing as a tax cut any more. How can I say such a thing? Under good economic times, tax cuts can work because when there’s a surplus in a state’s budget there might not be as large of a need for people to be contributing as much. Cutting taxes during this time won’t affect the budget too badly so long as the cuts are modest and revenues are predicted not to go into the red within the time frame of the cuts. Currently though, many state governments are in horrible debt. Tax cuts reduce the amount of revenue the state is getting. Therefore, that money must be made up elsewhere in the budget. As I’ve just thoroughly elaborated upon, this can’t be done through increasing taxes for both legal and political reasons, so many states are forced to do so by increasing fees and fines or other indirect means. The only other option is to cut spending, for better or for worse, and it almost always starts with cuts to education and programs that benefit the poor.

Given that, when a government “cuts” taxes, they’re really just shifting the cost elsewhere to the budget. Revenues lower from tax A, so they go up through fine B. The most direct means through which this is accomplished is by tricky, indirect ways of raising revenues that don’t involve raising taxes. Cutting spending will increase the cost of living for someone, somewhere, and likely a great number of people when these cuts hit public education, Medicaid, financial help for homeowners, or a great number of sectors. If your revenue goes down while already in debt, something will have to make up for it, because people will not respond kindly to increasing the debt further when it’s already gotten so bad. This is particularly true for Republicans who pride themselves on being budget hawks. Someone has to pay for it somewhere down the line.

So, just like there’s no free lunch, there’s no such thing as tax cuts anymore. At some point, somewhere, someone has to pay, be it in money or physical labor, to make that lunch, just like someone, somewhere pays for the cost of cutting taxes that almost always disproportionately benefit the rich over the poor. Until we get serious about fixing our budget, which will require raising taxes, and recover from this debt debacle brought on by years of Republican control and right-wing, supply-side economics, this will remain the case for both state and federal governments facing such deficits.

The core of the problem, as I mentioned above, is that our government does not represent us, and those within the political system; the lawmakers, pundits, and politicians, are incentivized to actually make the budget worse and weaken a once strong government. The only way we accomplish that is by removing money from politics. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and majorities of just about any category of American all agree that this needs to happen; we just have to summon the will to do it.

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The People Behind the Title of “Job Creator”

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By Jay Hansen

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. This old proverb is perhaps most true and apt when it comes to labor. I’ve written about the state of labor on the global level before, but recently I’ve done some homework to brush up on my history regarding the topic. In today’s America, we now are a nation giving millions of dollars to companies in the form of subsidies and tax breaks, and its all in the name of “helping job creators,” as the Republicans put it, but honestly, does anyone really believe it when a politician says “job creator” anymore? Haven’t we all just accepted the phrase as a euphemism for the wealthy, or some other specialized interest group that is not representational of the interests of the citizens a representative is actually supposed to represent?

For example, in New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has given out $1.57 billion in state tax breaks to many large companies in the name of “job creation.” Mind you, he does so at a time when New Jersey’s budget and the budgets of its local governments are so badly in debt they can’t even afford toilet paper in their government buildings anymore. Of the $1.57 billion, $80 million went to the food company Goya, who used that money to create nine whole jobs. Campbell Soup was given $42 million, and they cut 100 jobs. Of course, they were punished for this, and had $8 million in credits taken away. For those of you that aren’t math wizards, that still leaves Campbell with $34 million of tax credits paid for by the New Jersey taxpayers, which the company was awarded after doing them the service of cutting 100 of their jobs.

But no, Republicans tell me we have to cut taxes for the “job creators,” right?

Another recent (and awesomely hypocritical) example of this is the gaming company 38 Studios. They were originally in Massachusetts, but the state of Rhode Island wanted their business, so they spent $112 million of Rhode Island taxpayer money trying to bring the company there, only for… well, this to happen:

Curt Schilling; job creator. Republicans told me so.

Don’t even get me started on repatriation… just click the dang hyperlink.

How did we get to such a sorry state though? That’s where my studying comes in. Prior to the industrial revolution, most of the world still operated on some form of legalized serf or slavery system. A slave is inarguably the most economically efficient form of worker; you don’t have to give them any benefits like sick days or safe work environments, you can pay them almost nothing or nothing at all, and you’re generally free to abuse them however you wish. It just so happens that around the same time (depending on the country in question) as the industrial revolution, there also began revolutions to put an end to slavery. With no slavery the power of business owners to exploit their workers would be greatly diminished. They would have to actually pay those that did work for them, and have no control over their lives outside of the work day, costing them significantly financially and socially since they would no longer command such levels of authority. It was such an issue for those within the industries most heavily dependent upon slavery here in the United States that we fought a Civil War over it – one of the bloodiest wars in which our nation has ever taken part. The American Civil War was one of the biggest “last stands” of legalized slavery in the modernized world, but even afterward these same businessmen, making the transition from “master” to “employer,” would seek to exploit their workers however possible for personal gain.

This was already happening prior to the Civil War, especially in the more industry-based economy of the North where many states had long since abolished slavery following the Revolutionary War over half a century prior. Workers, particularly those of the textile industry, were abused to the point of practically being slaves. Again, they had no benefits or protections, had no limit to the number of hours they could be forced, or expected by their employer, to work, and did so for a pittance of pay; some working from sunup to sundown every day to earn less than $2 a week. This was because we had little to no labor law in the United States at that time (or at least what we would consider labor law today). Employer’s weren’t required to provide sick leave or vacation time, they weren’t required to give out overtime pay, or even pay any sort of any sort minimum wage because no such thing existed. Without these laws, there became a “race to the bottom” amongst potential employees. With no social safety nets or welfare programs, employees were literally dependent upon their employers to physically survive. Without their job, they could not afford the basic necessities of life, such as food and water, even if with their job they could only barely do so. Plus, with no laws or standards in place to protect workers or mandate minimum levels of proper treatment, each worker could work for less than the last. Each worker could work more hours than the last. Each worker could suffer more work-related physical pain and injury than the next. Unless you were willing to take cuts in pay or treatment, your job was in jeopardy the moment someone else came along willing to do the same job for cheaper. When compounded by a booming population as was brought on by the industrial revolution, the world found itself with an even greater surplus of potential workers, significantly more than it did employers, than the world had ever seen before, giving employers all new power despite being stripped of their legal right to slaves. For all too many employers it wasn’t about a person’s qualifications, but rather for how little money they’d be willing to work and what abuses they’d be willing to suffer. This allowed employers to create an environment wherein they could bring slavery back despite it being “outlawed,” and it was a dream come true for them.

It wasn’t until the late 19th, early 20th century that workers in America began to say no more. Ideologies like Communism and Socialism gave them newfound willpower to stand up and say no to these injustices, even if the governing principles of those ideologies were flawed. Employers were displeased with what must have felt to them as an old fashioned peasant revolt straight out of the Dark Ages. The will of America’s newly organized labor eventually collided head-on in many protests that turned tragically violent. A little over a year ago, Alan Grayson sent out an e-mail during the Wisconsin labor protests specifically about the right to collective bargaining, wherein he listed a few of these events. Here is an excerpt;

“On May 4, 1886, in Haymarket Square in Chicago, the public rallied peacefully in support of 40,000 workers in Chicago who had gone on strike, to win the right to organize. The police attacked, and eight died.

On July 6, 1892, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, 3800 workers went on strike, to win the right to organize. Three hundred hired and armed goons attacked them. Five people died.

On April 20, 1914, in Ludlow, Colorado, 1200 coal miners went on strike, to win the right to organize. The Colorado National Guard attacked their shantytown, and burned it to the ground. Nineteen people died. Two women and 11 children were asphyxiated, and they burned to death.”

For one of the last times in American history, citizens were coming together, fighting, and even dying for their rights here on American soil. They were dying for their just beliefs that workers should be treated with a bare minimum level of respect. They were fighting for their right to survive and build this nation to be what it has become today. Had they not, had Americans not earned these rights with the blood, sweat, and tears of these men and women, there’s no possible way America would be the power that it is today, and the American Dream would never have been realized.

Republicans today are always complaining of big government getting in employment’s and businesses’ way, being over-regulating or over-burdensome, making the claim that it would be better if employers were simply allowed to make decisions for themselves on how much to pay employees, what benefits to extend to them, and generally how to treat them. Apparently though, Republicans aren’t too good with their history because as I’ve just highlighted we already tried that in this nation, and it did not work well.

After seeing riots break out in city after city in America, and watching helplessly as entire nations fell to Communism, eventually, to prevent an all out revolt of national proportions, workers were given their rights they have today. Over time, the memory of this struggle faded from the minds of Americans as they grew more and more settled in the middle class, living long, happy, healthy lives the likes of which their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents could only dream. This, coupled with the constant threat of Communism, quelled the rebellious working class and contained the abuses of the aforementioned employers both through a certain sense of nationalism to “fight the Ruskies” and, more importantly, a certain level of fear of Communism taking hold in America should their abuses of workers grow too much for them to bare.

The years would pass, however, as would the threat of Communism. Technology advanced significantly, and our once massive world began to shrink. Transportation technology became much more efficient, and information exchange even more so with the digital revolution of the 1990s. Many Asian countries began fighting for and winning their freedom throughout the mid 20th century, enabling them to bring new forms of employment to their shores. The problem with this, though, was that these nations were at a similar place America was over a century ago in terms of development – perhaps most importantly in the field of worker’s rights. The long dormant employers that sought to create environments that turned their legal employees into slaves found themselves with a new outlet for their abuse; foreign countries. With communication from one side of the world to the other now possible in the flash of a second, any sort of data-related job or telecommunication was outsourced to the nations that did not yet have worker’s protections in place. Later, significant levels of manufacturing were also outsourced as our ability to ship goods was also aided by the technological explosion of the late 20th century and trade routes were safer because there was no significant hostility between world powers in the post-Cold War era. Goods like cheap plastic containers, toys, and other assorted knick-knacks, as well as textiles and anything digital or computer-related are now made overseas and shipped, not to mention consumed, en masse by the American people. This ultimately led to what we now know as outsourcing, and is causing a significant problem when it comes to creating jobs in America.

Labor in foreign nations is just cheaper. Employees are worked to death, sometimes literally, with as many as 100 hours of overtime, in squalor working conditions. Not paying for air conditioning is cheaper. Paying for a bigger factory so workers aren’t crammed together like sardines costs money. Paying for chairs for workers costs money. If the employer or businessman that opened this factory in Taiwan, or China, or a multitude of other nations, had opened it in America instead, he would have been required to make these expenses by law, which exists for the sake and protection of the workers from employers seeking to exploit them. The very fact that American-owned manufacturers exist overseas is proof in and of itself; even employers of today’s America are still looking to cut costs through any means possible, even if that means forcing their employees into a de facto slavery.

Why on Earth should we give them the ability to mistreat American workers, as they so clearly demonstrate they’re willing to do, or at least allow, to workers on the other side of the world? Republicans are currently of the position that it should be allowed to save the infallible, precious “job creators” (i.e. the wealthy) a few more pennies. They want to go back to a time as depicted by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, where there were no safety regulations, no worker’s rights or benefits, not even a minimum wage, as I explained earlier in this article.

But therein lies the problem to which there isn’t much in the way of a specific answer; how do we prevent this? Businesses large enough to be based in America, but outsource jobs to foreign nations, are large-scale corporations. These entities are neither moral nor immoral, but rather amoral, meaning they don’t do or see good or bad. Their entire purpose for existence is to make profits at any costs. Therefore, outsourcing will always happen, because there will always be a “lowest bidder” nation with the fewest regulations and labor laws, yet also with reasonable security and stability. The American people have no say or control over what other governments’ policies and laws are, let alone the indifferent, corrupt American government (even if it wanted to make a change for the better). We could create preventative laws here to stop outsourcing, or at the very least make it the less affordable option to opening factories here in America through our tax and trade policies, but with new free trade deals as recently supported wildly by both Democrats and Republicans, the US government is only putting in an express lane to allow these companies that outsource jobs to re-import their goods manufactured elsewhere without paying standard import taxes and fees on them. Clearly, if my “indifferent and corrupt” comment didn’t make it clear enough, it’s not likely we can count on the government to take direct action on this issue any time soon. Both smaller, more specific steps must be taken on this specific issue, as well as sweeping reform of a broken system, before we could even come close to reaching any sort of policy like this.

But, as the battle of a democracy marches ever-onward, what do we do in the mean time?

This question brings me back to my opening statement; a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. As the working class of this world, we must all look out for each other. This is one of the founding principles of organized labor. It doesn’t take much; if only a single worker out of one thousand, or even one million, is willing to sell out his rights for pay, it lowers the standard for all of us, pitting worker against worker to see who can sell out more. We’re caught in this vicious cycle right now on a global scale, and America is in danger of slipping back in time over a century to “make job creation in America affordable again,” as Republicans often put it. It’s up to all of us to prevent that from happening both in America, and across the world. On the global scale, we can help by supporting democratic efforts in oppressed nations, such as those that took place in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, Libya, and countless other nations fighting and dying for just the tiniest flicker of a hope they may too have a democracy, and a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Only once nations embrace this kind of true democracy, something of which even America has lost sight (but is not yet beyond hope) do we even stand a chance of putting these abuses of the working class by the wealthy and powerful to rest once and for all.

(Note from the author: most of my historical research did come from either my old college textbooks, which I obviously can’t hyperlink, or generalized Wikipedia reading, of which I always checked the sources of at the bottom of the page. I apologize for not linking them all in the text; that would have been a tremendous amount of links and information through which to sift. If you wish to check my facts for me, feel free. Hell, I’d encourage it.)