Bernie Sanders is standing up in the Senate to filibuster the Obama-GOP tax deal (though it is really still "morning business" and not a filibuster, since the vote isn't scheduled until Monday and Sanders started at about 10:30 this morning 12/9/10). See it live at http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN2.aspx (hat tip to Kirk Stark); see selected comments on Washington Post (where Sanders notes that American people work longer hours than any other industrialized country's people, and states that "it's pretty clear in this economy who's winning and losing. The working people, middle-class people, low-income people are losing.")
At this point, he's talking about corporatism, and the way that multinationals outsource their factories in order to pay as little as possible to workers, even if that is not a sustainable wage. He noted that GE is on record as saying that it would like to have its factories on barges so that they could be moved to the cheapest labor place on the spur of the moment. And Cisco's CEO noted that it would like to "become a Chinese Company" because that's where the cheap labor is. They are, says Sanders, "taking us for dummies" by getting one tax break after another in the name of competition. Corporate America believes, Sander says, "that it is totally appropriate to throw American workers out on the street, pay Chinese workers a few cents and then bring the product back into the country." He noted the way that the Chamber of Commerce raised money from rich folks and billionaires and big corporations to elect candidates sympathetic to their point of view. And what is the Chamber of Commerce's point of view? "One job sent overseas, if it happens to be my job, is one job too many. But the benefits of offshoring often outweighs the cost". In other words, Sanders says, multinationals think making more profits by moving jobs offshores is fine--they don't care about the future of the US or US young people.
An AP story--the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (that lobbies heavily and provides campaign contributions) "urged American companies to send jobs overseas" because exporting high-pay, tech jobs to low-cost countries saves companies money". Three million members of C of C champion "tax cuts" and "workers compensation reform" and "more liberal trade policies." It's easy to see what the big corporations support, and then they get implemented into policy through lobbying and campaign contributions.
At the same time that the Republican party supports all kinds of tax breaks for multinationals, there is also talk among members of the GOP of abolishing the minimum wage.
The result, Sanders notes, is that blue collar jobs have been decimated, and the high-technology service jobs promised to substitute for them are now also being transported out of the country to India and elsewhere. Our manufacturing base is going, and our trade policies, pushed by the Chamber and others, are hurting the middle class. The people who built companies into what they are today, Sanders says, are being sold out to give jobs to lower-wage workers elsewhere. Yet when things get tough for US MNEs, they run to American taxpayers to get bailed out.
Sanders asks us to call our Congressman and tell them whether we really believe that the rich need a tax break that drives up the national debt so grandchildren will pay higher taxes. If we don't, we should let the White House, our Senators, and our Congressional representatives know that we don't. If just a handful hear, maybe this deal will stop.
You can call your Congressperson at the Congressional phone number:
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