Working Poor Have No Voice In DC When Drowned Out By Lobbyists & Dark Money….
We’ll jump right into the articles from the newsfeeds this week illustrating the problem. I don’t mean to sound like a Debbie Downer, but the working poor have been virtually ignored for far too long, with our political leadership derelict in their duties by failing to find viable solutions! It’s inexcusable not just the lack of action, but the lack of good ideas! The trends of stagnant wages & widening wage/wealth gaps have been unmistakable for decades! With the mirage of a reportedly strong economy & the American Dream virtually dead for much of the population, these excerpts from this article sum up the plight of the working poor 43percent-of-us-families-
The economy may be chugging along, but many Americans are still struggling to afford a basic middle class life. Nearly 51 million households don’t earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone, according to a study released Thursday by the United Way ALICE Project. That’s 43% of households in the United States. The figure includes the 16.1 million households living in poverty, as well as the 34.7 million families that the United Way has dubbed ALICE — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. This group makes less than what’s needed “to survive in the modern economy.” “Despite seemingly positive economic signs, the ALICE data shows that financial hardship is still a pervasive problem,” said Stephanie Hoopes, the project’s director. California, New Mexico and Hawaii have the largest share of struggling families, at 49% each. North Dakota has the lowest at 32%. Many of these folks are the nation’s child care workers, home health aides, office assistants and store clerks, who work low-paying jobs and have little savings, the study noted. Some 66% of jobs in the US pay less than $20 an hour.
On a similar note, we see these excerpts highlighting the financial insecurity of the working poor from americans-who-cant-afford-midd
At a time of rock-bottom joblessness, high corporate profits and a booming stock market, more than 40% of U.S. households cannot pay the basics of a middle-class lifestyle — rent, transportation, child care and a cellphone, according to a new study. Quick take: The study, conducted by United Way, found a wide band of working U.S. households that live above the official poverty line, but below the cost of paying ordinary expenses. Based on 2016 data, there were 34.7 million households in that group — double the 16.1 million that are in actual poverty, project director Stephanie Hoopes tells Axios. Why it matters: For two years, U.S. politics has been dominated by the anger and resentment of a self-identified “forgotten” class, some left behind economically and others threatened by changes to their way of life. When you add them together with the people living in poverty, you get 51 million households. “It’s a magnitude of financial hardship that we haven’t been able to capture until now,” Hoopes said.
It’s not as was hoped when the bill was passed & based on the promises we heard: heres-how-americas-biggest-com
Americans were promised an avalanche of jobs and tsunami of wage growth if tax reform was passed. However, nearly five months after passage of the tax bill Americans are left waiting for those jobs and wage growth while the national debt and stock buybacks keep piling up. What do you do as a member of Congress if you promoted and voted for the tax bill that promised jobs and wage growth but still haven’t occurred in a meaningful way? You sell the American people on something else — stock buybacks. While jobs and wages growth were the justification cited for a massive increase in the debt burden placed on the American people, that is no longer the focus of the supporters of the tax bill. Suddenly, stock buybacks are the economic elixir Americans should have been seeking all along. In the recent “Tax Facts Tuesday” put out by the majority in control of the House Committee on Ways and Means, stock buybacks were extolled as something every American should be grateful for. The document title sums up the sales job, “Stock Buybacks and Investment: Good News for American Workers.”
First, they refer to promised increases in investment, because that actually hasn’t happened yet. Second, I guess I’d be forced to sell stock buybacks if what I promised wasn’t occurring. Just how many stock buybacks are we talking about? Hundreds of billions. Apple alone recently announced $100 billion in stock buybacks on top of its $23.5 billion in first quarter stock buybacks. JPMorgan Chase estimates that firms will buyback at least $800 billion in shares in 2018. Not only is that an astounding amount of money going to stock buybacks instead of the hiring or wage growth Americans were promised, it is 50-percent more than 2017. So, tax reform was passed and share buybacks are now expected to increase 50 percent. It sure would be nice if instead, employment and wage growth increased 50 percent in 2018; I wouldn’t hold your breath for that. Those who sold the tax bill to the American people are now treating the American people like children. They are like the parents who cajole their child into doing something in return for a goody, and then when they can’t deliver, try to pawn off something else as being much more valuable. It is insulting.
In this article the-birth-of-a-new-american-ar
Lost in this faux-euphoria over this so-called booming economy, the working poor remains the group falling through the cracks: according-to-the-poor-peoples-campaign-leaders-the-poor-are-truly-americas-forgotten-men-and-women. In this next link, we’re seeing the jobs being created are mostly low-paying service jobs, while automation offers an even more bleak future if nothing is done: the-wage-crisis. I would say this accurately depicts Trump’s supply-side trickle down economic adviser: larry-kudlow-has-no-idea-whats-going-on. People young & old are getting caught in the money pit: wealth-inequality-families-children-elderly. The young are strapped with big student loans theres-no-denying-it-a-student-loan-crisis-is-coming & also the-steps-trump-has-taken-to-undermine-student-debt-reform, plus the older workers keep plugging away so-why-are-baby-boomers-still-working. There is another ominous trend from this article & excerpts us-birth-rate-hit-all-time-low-demographic-time-bomb, especially with entitlement obligations already way beyond our ability to pay:
Economists are sounding the alarm about the effect the falling number of American babies will have on the future labor force. They sometimes refer to this effect as a demographic time bomb.When the economy shrinks, people often opt to have fewer kids. When there are not enough young people growing up, entering the labor force to replace workers, and paying into social security, that can become a big problem. The phenomenon can build over time, leaving old people in need of care without youngsters to help. Kathy Bostjancic, an economist at consulting firm Oxford Economics, told the Associated Pressthat falling birth rates have already had a crippling effect on the US economy over the past 10 years because there are fewer Americans working or looking for work. The impact is equivalent to a 0.7% drag on the US’ long-run growth rate, she said.
Other Ideas
There’s very little I agree with concerning whirlybird Rand Paul. His libertarian approach would not fix our problems & dovish international posture only makes our enemies stronger. But I’m intrigued with this penny plan. In this polarized climate, how else is Congress ever going to agree on cutting spending & reducing deficits? By cutting out a penny for every dollar the government spends, it spreads the pain across the board evenly, with every agency knowing they must identify & cut 1% of the waste in their area. Every department should be able to find a penny’s waste from every dollar spent. And the motivation would come from the realization everyone in the federal government is doing likewise, & that it’s being done for the common good. This is the opening to senate-rejects-pauls-balanc
The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) plan to balance the budget by making steep cuts in spending. Senators voted 21-76 on taking up Paul’s legislation, known as the “penny plan.” The legislation would have balanced the budget in five years and cut spending by roughly $13 trillion over 10 years compared to current spending levels. Paul used an arcane Senate rule that allowed him to force a vote on his plan because leadership has not introduced a budget.
It looks as though Trump is striving to make China great again, helping to save their ZTE telecom company, allowing them access to the American market so they can probably spy on Americans. None of this on the surface makes much sense, until we look at it through the lens of the Chinese government providing a half-billion dollar loan so the Trump Organization can develop a real estate project in Indonesia: trump-zte-order-after-china-ga
Never mind Trump’s shoddy business record prior to his becoming president, which included such highlights as lying about his net worth; refusing to pay small contractors who worked on his projects; ripping off people so desperate to get ahead that they paid upwards of $35,000 to Trump University, where sales brokers were told to “always assume our attendees need the program to succeed;” his longstanding ties to Russian oligarchs and other unsavory businessmen from the former Soviet Union; and his deals in such countries as Azerbaijan, where he partnered with the son of a former high-ranking government official who, as the New York Times ever-so-delicately described him, “had dealings with front companies for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and was corrupt.” As president, Trump claimed the tax-reform package he signed would leave him a “big loser,” something that is almost certainly a lie. Trump has turned his presidency into a seemingly nonstop marketing opportunity, including, among other things, doubling the initiation fee at his private Mar-a-Lago Club. As for his eponymous Washington hotel, it’s rolling in money, a seemingly required stop for almost anyone hoping to make a good impression on the president.
So why on earth would anyone believe an innocent explanation for the ZTE move, such as the one National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow offered to Mike Allen of Axios? Kudlow said there’s “a bromance” between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and that Trump, forever a businessman, is willing to mix up economic and national-security interests in pursuit of a trade deal. Please. Whatever Congress does — or, more likely, doesn’t do — Trump has provided no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt. The idea that he is motivated by pathos over the plight of any workers, whatever country they live in, or even a simple desire to make a deal on behalf of the United States, is a triumph of hope over experience. Don’t we know better by now?
Our prez known for his art of the deal doesn’t seem up to the task in this start to the article from the-worst-deal-maker-ever, one reason being he is ignorant of the details he negotiates over:
President Trump assaults democratic norms, lowers the level of political discourse, spreads prejudicial animosity and undermines objective truth. All of those are long-term challenges for the country, requiring an exhausting battle to hold back the tide of authoritarianism and nativism. But with regard to these issues, democratic institutions — the media and the courts, primarily — are holding. There is, however, another immediate worry for which there is only a passive and compliant Congress standing between Trump and disaster: that the supposed master of “The Art of the Deal” will make horrible deals that impair American security and economic prosperity.
We should bring back that political candidate who ran on a platform “the rent is too damn high”: a-country-as-wealthy-as-the-un
His tax plan hugely favored the rich and corporations. The promised benefit to workers (thousands of dollars in increased wages!) has yet to appear. CNBC reported earlier this month, “Through the end of April, S&P 500 companies are on track to give back a record $1 trillion to investors through dividend increases and stock buybacks, according to data compiled by Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices.” That dwarfs any one-time bonuses given out by corporations, in the interest of good PR, after the bill was passed. Meanwhile, Trump’s other domestic “achievements” are shrinking government payrolls (i.e., eliminating jobs) and cutting back on regulations. Not much there for the non-college-educated voter in the upper Midwest. Moreover, the massive debt increases and potential for inflation spawned by the tax cuts are beginning to be felt in the form of rising interest rates. Meanwhile, evidence grows daily that Trump’s dealings with foreign countries may be influenced, at least in part, by his personal finances and those of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. CNBC reports, “Republicans and Democrats alike slammed Trump’s sudden declaration that stiff U.S. sanctions for Shenzhen-based ZTE meant ‘too many jobs in China lost.’ Not only had ZTE defied strictures against commerce with Iran and North Korea, U.S. intelligence officials warned that its devices could be instruments of Chinese espionage.” In sum, Trump’s populist-sounding promises were flawed, phony or counterproductive for his voters. His actual policies favor foreign countries, his rich friends and himself. He is the poster boy for insiders who game the system at the expense of average Americans who lack connections. If Democrats cannot make hay out of that in 2018 or 2020, they might need to close up shop. The entire Trump presidency has begun to resemble the corrupt and heartless caricature that populists — on the left and right — have railed about for years.
Our healthcare system is also way out of whack & far too expensive: medical-mystery-something-happ
The United States doesn’t exist in a geopolitical vacuum — a rising power on the other side of the Pacific is challenging its global leadership. In the time it took California to build a bridge and a few miles of overpasses and other structures for high-speed rail tracks in the Central Valley, China has built thousands of bridges and 18,000 miles of high-speed rail with operating trains connecting all the major cities in its vast nation of 1.4 billion people. China’s present prosperity, like that of other Asian outposts like Singapore, is built upon the millennia-old belief that government is a “necessary good” for society that provides essential services and complements private economic activity. The state invests heavily in infrastructure and education.
Misplaced Vitriol
I’ve alluded recently to the antagonistic attitude towards John McCain coming from certain conservative circles. I keep saying there’s a demented evil spirit running throughout some in the GOP base, which we might even consider demonic: john-mccain-trump-attacks-brain-cancer-american-republican-us-conservative. (And speaking of demonic, yet another deadly high school shooting in Texas today.) Some of what’s animating Trumpeters are deranged old-fashioned race-baiting: donald-trump-has-only-delivered-on-half-of-his-promise-to-white-voters. But there are legit concerns that need addressed, since regardless of race the working poor are getting a raw deal, as seen below from opinion/working-class-voters:
Racial biases and animosities are deeply entrenched in America, but aside from ideologically committed racists, they often ease in periods of inclusive economic progress, and even coexist with more egalitarian sentiments. Except for a brief period in the late 1990s, since 1980 each generation of young white working-class men has earned less, in real wages, than their fathers did at the same age. Despite this, many white working-class Americans — like those in the distressed logging counties here in Washington State — voted twice for Barack Obama’s “hope and change,” switching to Donald Trump’s rage and blame only after years of neglect by both parties. We won’t convince those swing working-class voters that they have picked the wrong targets for their rage if we ignore their legitimate grievances and judge them only by their biases.
A Broken Government Can’t Produce Good Ideas
Can somebody please figure something out? With the GOP in disarray, broken & beset with delusional extremism, we may need to hope the Dems figure something out: progressives-are-struggling-with-an-economic-agenda & also charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article. But to be reasonable, realistic & long-lasting, answers really should be bipartisan: u-s-senate-talk-splinter-caucus-force-compromise. In an article on the need to raise productivity from the-tax-plan-didnt-do-what-it-promised-but-heres-what-might, it starts out with this:
On Wednesday, former car czar Steven Rattner testified before the House Ways and Means Committee. He began his prepared remarks by telling the committee members what they should have done on tax reform:
1) It should be deficit neutral, given projections for rising fiscal gaps.
2) It should be fair and certainly not diminish the progressivity of our system.
3) It should be growth and investment enhancing.
4) It should improve our international competitive position.
Now, one year later, we know that what was ultimately passed failed to address most of these tests. On the debt, Rattner explained, “According to the Congressional Budget Office, the fiscal gap could total as much as $2.7 trillion over the next 10 years. Supporters counter that added economic growth of 0.4% percent per year would offset the cost. But every reputable forecast of which I’m aware puts the likely incremental growth at a negligible amount.” As for the fairness issue, he argued that “it is not fair; just 16% of the benefits will go to individuals making less than $75,000 per year.” Now if we were going to get huge growth and millions of new, good-paying jobs all this might be worth it. However, we now have an economy a little less robust than it was under President Barack Obama (“the average number of jobs added each month has been lower since the Trump Administration began — 187,000 jobs per month versus 201,000 jobs a month between October 2010 and December 2016.”) That’s not surprising considering we are into the ninth year of an economic recovery, but with a tighter job market, we still haven’t see a boost in wages. “Under the prior Administration, average hourly earnings (after adjusting for inflation) grew by 0.8% per year; so far under President Trump, they have grown by half of that amount. Last month, real wages for private employees even declined.”
Crossfire Hurricane….
Inside these links is a code name for an FBI operation since there was compelling evidence the Trump campaign was up to no good: fbi-code-names-investigations-crossfire-hurricane & also surveying-storm. The code name came directly from the first line in this song. And if Trump or Spicer were to claim it’s the largest crowd ever, this time they’d be right:
(Click on image for full video)
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