IT'S INTERESTING TO NOTE that the week after Wisconsin Republicans railroaded a bill through their legislature destroying the rights of middle class workers they were in Washington collecting funding from big corporations.
Scott Walker has touted his approach in Wisconsin as a game plan for other states with Republican majorities, but in fact it's the same old bait-and-switch that's already being played out across the country, and in Congress, at the national level.
- Get elected by false promises to the middle class, using the advantage of the deep pockets of your backers.
- Use the power to give money to the super-wealthy, either as tax breaks or corporate welfare, paying back the people who funded your campaign.
- Use the budget crisis created by the giveaways as an excuse to screw the middle class—fulfilling the agenda of the people who paid for your campaign.
The tactics that were used in Wisconsin are from the same game book they've been using in Washington for the last thirty years.
Remember Ronald Reagan?
He'd be considered a liberal now, but he used the same basic strategy:
- He rode into power in a time of economic problems by promising to make things better for the middle class, financing his campaign with the backing of corporate and private wealth.
- He then cut the top tax rate almost in half, from 50% to 28%, while raising the lowest rate almost by half, from 11% to 15%. He also cut taxes on big oil.
- He then cut back on school lunch programs, payments to people with disabilities, and other social programs—and, incidentally, busted the air traffic controller's union.
The result of this ongoing policy over the last thirty years, mostly but not entirely from people calling themselves "conservatives", has been a declining middle class and an ever wealthier and more powerful upper class.
In return, members of the upper class systematically donate ever greater funds to candidates and organizations that encourage:
- tax breaks and subsidies for the super-rich and corporations,
- budget cuts to the supports and services which make the middle class possible,
- deregulation, to allow corporations to run roughshod over the general public,
- and the destruction of any institution which provides lobbying or campaign support for middle class interests.
If this trend continues, our grandchildren will be living in a banana republic.
But fortunately, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, the American people are waking up.
As are people the world over.
More about that later.
Next: The bigger picture...
