Ultra-Rich are Working to Mount Anti-Democratic Coup
Under the cover of religion, and promotion of social-political issues, some members of our ultra-rich class have launched a coup. They have insinuated themselves in the government and judiciary to vote themselves huge tax breaks.
Under the last administration, a $1.7 trillion tax cut was enacted. It was heavily tilted to favor the top one-percent. No cuts in spending were enacted to pay for those cuts, so the amount of taxes not collected was added to the deficit.
That was highly inflationary. Also, who will pay the bills if the top one-percent does not? It is the average middle class and worker taxpayers. Warren Buffet has recently said that if the ultra-rich and big corporations paid a fair tax on their yearly wealth accumulation, the middle and lower classes could get a huge tax cut, as well as an increase in services and infrastructure.
In the 2010 Citizens United ruling, a majority of big money justices on the Supreme Court made it legal for the wealthy to give as much money as they want to political parties and campaigns.
The ruling was that money represented their voice in government and therefore is constitutional. The result is that their voices are amplified millions of times more than the average person. The Citizens United decision is distinctly antidemocratic and needs to be overturned. Money is not the same as the voices of individual citizens, and corporations are not people.
Corporations are not mortal. When corporations break the law they do not go to prison. If they kill people in states with the death penalty, they do not suffer execution. They are important economic organizations, but corporations are not social and political entities. It will take action to limit the influence of money in politics. We will have to reorganize the way the Supreme Court is run.
Justices should not be on the court for life terms. There must be controls limiting the flow of money into the pockets of corrupt justices.
The ultra-rich have an $168,600 income cap on the Social Security tax they must pay, so while the average person pays a 6.2% tax on most of their income, the ultra-rich only pay on a part of theirs. If they had to pay like the rest of us, Social Security would not be in financial trouble.
Their media outlets howl about the cost of aid for childcare, Medicaid, low cost housing, and other social programs benefiting average income taxpayers, but are silent on the huge subsidies given to businesses, and tax breaks to those with wealth. Additionally, if one puts their wealth into trusts, one can declare bankruptcy while still protecting assets. With a battery of good tax lawyers, wealthy people can use bankruptcy as a tool to stiff creditors while still remaining rich.
Highly educated politicians have attacked public education in favor of funding for a variety of private schools. Instead of using tax money to invest in improving education for the majority of Americans, they have opted to take money out of the public system in favor of giving it to largely unaccountable, special/and or exclusive schools for their children. They have also attacked higher education, but if you look at their families, most themselves attended elite schools, and so do their children.
Why the disparagement about going to universities? The elite class of wealth that feels they should run the country would not want our talented kids competing on an equal educational ground with theirs.
The Heritage Foundation, with the Project 2025 blueprint for an autocratic/ plutocratic America run by and for the wealthiest of us, endangers our country’s tradition of democratic recognition of the middle class as the true engine that drives the economy. The wealthy elite are mainly white and male. They have worked hard to institute a worship of wealth and power among the working classes that distract them from their loss of political power and financial welfare.
Attacks on racial minorities, immigrants, women’s health issues, and gay rights, under the guise of a nationalist/ Christian ideology, are the emotional smokescreens they have used to carry out their coup on democracy.
Rick Lohr, formerly of Marathon City, is a retired history teacher and former owner and manager of Pine Valley Golf Course. He has been retired for over 20 years but has given about 650 talks to schools, service groups and senior centers related to the 45 countries he has traveled to.