Russ Limbo
As I see it
June 22. 2012
American citizens are being sold out one
Job, one vote and one brick at a time by our major corporations and our political
leaders are doing nothing but counting their campaign contributions while it
happens. Not only jobs, but whole industries, farms and our precious resources
have been steadily moving overseas. This represents more than a threat to our economy;
it represents a threat to the security of the nation and its entire people as
well. We, The People of the United States of America, are in serious trouble.
Let’s go back two years…
President Obama was quoted in The
Washington Post as saying: (Published: Aug. 21, 2010 at 6:01 AM WASHINGTON,
Aug. 20 (UPI):
U.S. President Barack Obama Saturday
warned of a "corporate takeover" of democracy and said Republicans
want the public kept "in the dark" on campaign funding.
In his weekly radio and Internet
address, the Democratic president found fault with a Supreme Court ruling that
permits corporations, unions and other organizations to spend "unlimited
amounts of money to influence our elections."
"They can buy millions of dollars’
worth of TV ads -- and worst of all, they don't even have to reveal who is
actually paying for them," he said.
"A group can hide behind a phony
name like 'Citizens for a Better Future,' even if a more accurate name would be
'Corporations for Weaker Oversight.'"
He blamed GOP leaders for killing
legislation this summer that would require "corporate political
advertisers to reveal who's funding their activities."
(The remainder of this article is listed
on Aug 21 in this blog)
That was an extremely serious warning by
our President, but two days later I was saddened to read that a vote had failed
to pass the “Disclose Act” designed to protect US, the citizens of the United
States. It was a “Low Blow” dealt the people of America by their own elected
officials. Let me include the following article:
Today in the Washington Post:
Senate Democrats again fail to pass
campaign disclosure law
By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 23, 2010; 11:10 PM
Senate Democrats failed again Thursday
in their attempt to require corporations, unions and other interest groups to
provide more details about their political spending.
The measure, known as the Disclose Act,
fell one vote short of the 60 needed to break a GOP filibuster in the divided
Senate, with Republicans uniformly opposed to the bill. The legislation had
also been blocked by Senate Republicans during an earlier vote in July.
The 59-39 vote marks a bitter defeat for
Democratic leaders and President Obama, who has repeatedly urged Congress to
pass the bill in response to a Supreme Court ruling lifting restrictions on
corporate and union political spending.
The outcome represents a major victory
for Republicans and major business groups, which lobbied hard against a
proposal that they said was an attempt by Democrats to silence GOP-leaning
business groups.
Since then President Obama and The
Democratic Party have remained mysteriously silent on the issue. Did the “Threat”
simply vanish with the vote? I think not! But obviously, The Republican
Congressmen and Senators have remained silent as well.
Why should we view this as a serious
threat to US, Our American Republic and our unique way of life?
Let’s talk about corporate
taxation. Oh, I know what all of the so
called “Shock Jocks” and ultra-right wing media pundits will say, “We have the
highest corporate tax rate in the free world”. That may be true on paper, but which
fortune 500 company pays their full taxes? There are so many loopholes in the
Federal Tax Code, if there are any that actually pay the full amount; I’d be
willing to bet you could count them on one hand.
In the old days, when America used to
manufacture things, it was not a critical issue. There were so many blue collar
middle class workers dumping their withholding taxes into the Federal coffers
the government functioned smoothly. It
did not matter that those large employers paid little or no taxes, their
workers did. In those days we could afford to contemplate “The Great Society”. True,
there was a lot of waste; but we were the wealthiest nation on the planet and
had the money to waste.
In the good old days, we had social
programs for everybody in need, we gave ungodly amounts of money as foreign aid
and we policed the world with our mighty military forces. We were also the
leader in the exploration of space. Scientific innovation was our forte because
our educational system was excellent and our government could afford to fund
hundreds of ambitious research programs.
Then, some accountant figured how much
money their company could save by manufacturing overseas in third world
countries. America began exporting those high paying middle class blue collar
jobs to extremely inexpensive labor markets. It was great for a while… we got
some really great deals on radios, cars, television sets and all sorts of great
consumer goods.
Today… we are paying the real price for
those great discounts: our economy is failing. Our children can’t find jobs
when they graduate college. We import so many of the goods we use in our daily
lives that our Trade Deficit has skyrocketed. Still, our elected leaders are
oblivious to the painful cries of the people: nothing is being done about it.
Yesterday I read in the Washington Post:
By Tom Hamburger, Published: June 21
Mitt Romney’s financial company, Bain
Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done
by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and
India.
During the nearly 15 years that Romney
was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded,
it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the
United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer
components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission
While economists debate whether the
massive outsourcing of American jobs over the last generation was inevitable,
Romney in recent months has lamented the toll it’s taken on the U.S. economy.
He has repeatedly pledged he would protect American employment by getting tough
on China.
“They’ve been able to put American
businesses out of business and kill American jobs,” he told workers at a Toledo
fence factory in February. “If I’m president of the United States, that’s going
to end.”
Speaking at a metalworking factory in Cincinnati
last week, Romney cited his experience as a businessman, saying he knows what
it would take to bring employers back to the United States. “For me it’s all
about good jobs for the American people and a bright and prosperous future,” he
said.
For years, Romney’s political opponents
have tried to tie him to the practice of outsourcing American jobs. These
political attacks have often focused on Bain’s involvement in specific business
deals that resulted in job losses.
But a Washington Post examination of
securities filings shows the extent of Bain’s investment in firms that
specialized in helping other companies move or expand operations overseas.
While Bain was not the largest player in the outsourcing field, the private
equity firm was involved early on, at a time when the departure of jobs from
the United States was beginning to accelerate and new companies were emerging
as handmaidens to this outflow of employment.
Now that Mitt Romney is running for President
He thinks that outsourcing all of those jobs was a “Bad Idea”. Ten million
Americans will agree whole heartedly on that issue. Of course he has changed
his mind… he wants our votes, but can we believe him when he says he wants to
fix the problem”? Personally I believe
we would we be electing “The Fox to guard our Henhouse?”
Now we face a situation where our
government has created a huge debt load… and guess what folks… there isn’t
enough money to pay it down. In fact the interest on that debt is killing us.
This tremendous financial burden is forcing Uncle Sam to make some serious cuts
in expenses
Our military, NASA, education, Social
Security, Medicare and a host of other vital social programs have already felt
the knife. Our vaunted right wing shock jocks and media pundits are pointing
the finger of blame at the recipients of benefits from those programs; as if it
were their fault the country was going broke.
It’s true; we don’t have the money to
pay for it all. But I have to ask this question “Is it fair for US, working
class Americans, to suffer while those giant companies are still soaking up the
profit from their cheap overseas manufacturing?” Isn’t it logical that the entities responsible
for the problem pay their fair share? Think about how many of the above programs
could have been kept “As is” if those great corporation had been paying their
taxes?
The average American is already
suffering. Many small companies and workers are dealing with reduced incomes.
The number of private homes being sold for tax liens is steadily climbing. All
of this suffering is due, in a great part, to the export of our manufacturing
jobs.
Large corporations have the ear of our
elected officials because they finance the greater part of political campaigns.
All we, the citizens of the United States, have is our vote and our voices. It
is time that we make ourselves heard. We are after all, “A Government of The
People, by The People and for The People” and not “A Government of The
Corporation, by The Corporation and for The Corporation”; aren’t we?
We still have time to fix our problems
and we need to start at their root cause. We need complete transparency in
political campaign funding. We need to seriously limit the amount any
individual or corporation can donate to any campaign. We need to protect our
markets as strictly as Japan, China, Germany or any of our other so called “Trading
Partners” do. We have not been playing on “An even field” for decades. It’s
time we played by their rules.
Whether you are a Republican or a
Democrat, you had better look hard at these issues. Our factories and our farms
are being moved overseas while we, US, sit back and do nothing. It’s time we
spoke out… No… It’s time we cried out! “Enough… Let’s rebuild America… Not sell
it for scrap to the highest bidder!
Or… some day in the not too distant
future… there will be nothing left to sell!
And this is how I see it,
