Week Ahead: The "we can't afford it" bullsh*t
Even the mainstream media is misleading America about Biden's plan
Congress is back this week, so you can expect more of the “we can’t afford it” bullsh*t from every Republican member of Congress and two Democratic senators (Manchin and Sinema) — aimed against Biden’s and the Democrats’ social investment bill.
Behind the scenes, big corporations and Wall Street are paying huge bucks to feed this hokum to the public. And the mainstream media is doing their bidding. So it should be no surprise that Americans are utterly confused and many are misinformed about what’s at stake in this important legislation, which will come to a head in the next few weeks.
Let me use my Friday interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett as Exhibit A.
Note that she starts by asking me: “The big question is whether Democrats can afford all of this.” By making this her first question, she’s already framing the debate around the cost of the plan. And by phrasing it as “whether Democrats can afford,” she’s making it a partisan issue.
Let’s be clear: Every rich country other than the United States already provides childcare, pre-K, child assistance, paid family leave, subsidized college, decent housing, and health coverage extending to vision and hearing. Every other rich country is taking measures to reduce climate change. We are the richest of the rich. Of course America can afford these.
In fact, there’s a good argument that making these investments will grow the economy (childcare will free more people to join the workforce, pre-K and community college will make our workforce more productive, and so on), while not making them will create huge costs down the line (the tab from wildfires and floods due to climate change is already mammoth).
Erin Burnett’s other guest, a former Republican governor, then argues we can’t afford these things because the national debt is too high.
This is a slight-of-hand. The national debt isn’t at issue. There’s no reason for the debt to grow if we tax the wealthy and big corporations to pay for the plan, as Biden and most Democrats — and the vast majority of the public — want to. Simply repealing the Trump-Republican tax cut to the rich and big corporations would pay for almost half the cost of the plan.
Biden is asking the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, but Burnett shows two slides purporting to show that they already pay their fair share (one showing the richest 20 percent of Americans pay 78 percent of the nation’s taxes, the other showing that the richest 1 percent – who pull in 20.9 percent of the nation’s earnings -- pay over 40 percent).
This is seriously misleading because the ultra-wealthy pay almost nothing in taxes. For example, Jeff Bezos, the richest person in America, didn't pay any income taxes for at least two years between 2006 and 2018.
How can the ultra-wealthy maintain their lavish lifestyles and pay almost no income taxes? By keeping their incomes small and borrowing against their vast wealth. (Bezos’s yearly income is only around $81,000.)
To give you some idea of how much wealth is now at the top, America’s 660 billionaires increased their wealth by $1.8 trillion just since the start of the pandemic. That’s half the cost of Biden’s entire plan right there.
Hence the fallacy of using shares of income rather than wealth to determine what’s a fair tax. Wealth is far more concentrated at the top than is income. The wealthiest 0.1 percent have as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent put together. This argues for a wealth tax or higher capital gains taxes, increased inheritance taxes, and a bar on heirs inheriting vast fortunes without paying capital gains on them.
Finally, the figures Burnett cited only look at federal taxes. State taxes – which comprise half the total tax revenue going to government – impose a disproportionate burden on lower-income people. That’s because they come largely in the form of sales taxes, which take a bigger chunk out of lower incomes.
Biden’s plan may be the last chance we get to fix what’s broken in our system. But the public knows little or nothing about it — other than it will cost a bundle. Even if Biden and other Democrats are doing a poor job explaining it, the mainstream media is doing a horrendous job. A democracy requires informed citizens. How are Americans to be informed about something as crucial to their future as this, when they’re being systematically misled?
PS: People often ask me “how do you keep your cool on these TV shows?” The short answer is I often don’t. I almost lost it with Erin Burnett.
You can't fix stupid and the vast majority of the media feeds BS to their viewers every day. Oh, how I yearn for the Walter Cronkites that used to give us the facts and let us come to our own conclusions instead of brainwashing the those of us who do not have critical thinking skills.
At various points during the primaries leading up to the 2020 election, Senator Bernie Sanders would call town halls in communities across the country. At such town halls, Senator Sanders would calmly and honestly describe where we were (are) as a nation and as individuals and what progress and improvement in all our lives would look like and how it would be financed. His explanations were always clear, direct, and respectful to his audience, many of whom were not political or financially savvy--they were people just concerned about their turn of their own lives, their communities, their social safety net, and the environment. His explanations were often directed to specific questions from audience members and he always did his best to be honest, direct, and persuasive. In almost every case, he managed to convey essential information to his audiences and give them a sense of what his specific plans plans entailed, what they would cost, and where the money would come from. It all sounded a bit like "soak the rich" but the facts (were) are that the wealthiest members of our society have coasted for years, they have squirreled their wealth away and left us with deficiencies in the most basic needs and services of a well-run and decent country. Of course, our deficiencies have hit people of color especially hard since the leaders have pursued policies and programs that favor elderly white males. Bernie never really had a great chance of winning the primary and the election and this was in part due to the Democratic Party leaders who were (are)--when all is said and done--almost a carbon copy of the Republicans, people who cater to corporate Democrats and hang the rest of us out to dry. I feared that Biden would prove too conciliatory and willing to cut deals with the opposition party at substantial cost to the ordinary working people in this country. I am sure that Bernie Sanders is doing his best and remains true to what have been his ideals and principles for years; however, Bernie is not in charge, Joe Biden is. It seems to me that Joe Biden should stand up for the people and be able to convince a good many of them that we do need to demand that the wealthy address the social needs and the poverty that they have created. "Pull out your wallets, old white guys, and right the many wrongs you have done to the most defenseless in the country."