Moneyed Politicians

… yet missing some very critical questions.

By Jack E. Lohman

Same old, same old, but absolutely nothing on how they are going to get the state legislature — which is owned and operated by special interests –  to put meaningful legislation on their desk. Until that happens there will be nothing good to be signed.

Wisconsin’s big problem is spending money on special-interest giveaways rather than needed state infrastructure, like schools and special education. But school kids don’t fund the elections; the Fat Cats do, and neither candidate wanted to tackle that.

Neither of these guys really get it. Our country and state are in deep financial trouble, and 80% of the problems can be traced to bribery in the political system, and 20% to stupid attempts to satisfy voter pressure. So what do they concentrate on? The latter.

Jobs

First and foremost we must get back into Wisconsin the jobs that were lost due to NAFTA and CAFTA trade giveaways our corrupt congress created. Jobs will only be created by cutting to zero the taxes paid by corporations who employ Wisconsin workers. And we must eliminate corporate healthcare costs, which is best done by supplanting ObamaCare with a state-run single payer system.

Only then will corporations be able to compete with foreign manufacturers and only then will we be able to attract new businesses to the state and keep the ones we have. Reducing unemployment increases the tax base.

Legislative Reform

None of this will occur as long as state legislators and their re-election campaigns are funded by special interests who want in taxpayer pockets. Election reforms are absolutely mandatory — like public funding of campaigns, instant runoff voting, none-of-the-above ballot choices, pay-for-performance for politicians, and smaller districts and more representation.

Can you imagine corruption being bad in Afghanistan but okay in Wisconsin?

Government Reform

Indeed we have great waste, much because government departments are always created but never eliminated. An independent commission must be established to review the size of each department, its purpose and need in today’s world, and the salaries as they relate to private industry. Departments no longer needed must be eliminated. Salaries and retirement benefits must br brought into line with private industry.

As a disclosure I am a Neumann supporter, though I can imagine that he wished I weren’t. I do disagree with some of his positions. But if a good bill on public policy were to reach his desk, I see him signing it. Scott Walker does not have that history.

Wow. And this from a Republican? With 9 “R” cosponsors?

By Jack E. Lohman

Great idea, this makes all the sense in the world, even for Wisconsin’s state legislators. Pay-for-performance for politicians.

But I get nervous — extremely nervous — when politicians are set to balance the budget and must decide between (a) their fiduciary responsibility to the voters and taxpayers and (b) the moneyed special interests that funded their campaign. Something tells me that the beast they starve will be the citizens of the state and US; not their campaign contributors.

Can you imagine how the bankers would fare under this scenario? Or am I just being cynical?

Here’s the bill:

H.R. 4336: Fiscal Responsibility Act — To provide that pay for Members of Congress be reduced following any fiscal year in which there is a Federal deficit.

Provides that, if there is a deficit in a fiscal year, then:

(1) any pay adjustment (including a cost of living adjustment) for Members of Congress scheduled to take effect in the succeeding calendar year shall be null and void; and

(2) rates of pay for Members shall be reduced by a specified percentage, but not below zero.

Specifies the mandatory pay rate reduction at:

(1) 5%, for the first year; or

(2) 10%, for any consecutive subsequent year that expenditures exceed revenues.Specifies conditions for restoration of the original pay rate, together with otherwise scheduled adjustments. Vests authority in the Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to make determinations of whether or not a deficit exists in any fiscal year. States that, in making any such determination, the Director shall exclude any budget outlays which directly relate to a military conflict that lasts over 30 days or that is in direct response to a terrorist attack on the United States.

Better that they pass public funding of campaigns first.

Nothing is going to change until we have public funding of campaigns. We have high taxes because we have high spending, and we have high spending because the corporate funders have paid the politicians to spend. That’s what political bribes are all about. Corporate leaders buy politicians because it works.

There is a partial solution… The Fair Elections Now Act … not perfect but progress. It’s a 4-to-1 public match on donations of $100 or less. Sans four sensible Republicans it is primarily a Democrat bill, which irritates the hell out of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner. They get really really mad when the Dems do something smart.

Our economy has been trashed because our politicians are owned by corporate America — the bankers, oil and coal, defense, you name it — all because they need campaign contributions to get re-elected. And our current system virtually demands that the money comes from private interests, unless you are a multimillionaire and can fund your own race (which our Senator Kohl did, and you can see what we got).

But if the money came instead from public funds — incidentally at a cost of less than $5 per taxpayer — our politicians would only have to do what’s right for the public. And they’d get re-elected without having to become a member of the world’s oldest profession.

What’s not to like about that?

His Roadmap leads only to the castle.

By Jack E. Lohman

Let’s call this what it is. Congressman Paul Ryan (“Critics detour on ‘Roadmap’ to solvency“) wants to privatize Social Security and Medicare, not because it saves money for the taxpayers, but because “private” companies can give campaign contributions and “public” entities can’t. Add in their corporate profits, executive salaries and bonuses and “private” will be more costly and less useful every time.

Taking people off of Social Security and putting them onto food stamps, which is what will occur, is foolish. As is moving people from Medicare to Medicaid and keeping seniors in the workforce taking up jobs.

But I will agree with Ryan that ObamaCare is atrocious; the most cost-effective system would have been to extend Medicare to all. Its 95% ownership by private doctors and hospitals is a winner, and though far from perfect it is better than private insurance and would save our nation over $400 billion in unneeded administrative costs.

And incidentally, would have allowed American companies to better compete with foreign product whose manufacturers do not fund their health care systems. More American jobs would be created and saved.

But I digress. Can you imagine the crash of Social Security two years ago with the rest of the market, had President Bush won SSI privatization in his first term? The taxpayers would again have had to bail out the SSI losses, though by now we have become pushovers.

And understand this: private Medicare already exists as an option, as 20% of seniors have chosen. It’s called Medicare Advantage and costs the taxpayers 17% more than traditional Medicare. I thought private was supposed to be less costly than public, but the Pols defend it because the private companies are very, shall we say, “politically active” with their cash.

But before we touch SSI and Medicare, I want to see congress swap their Cadillac health care and retirement plans to those they propose for us!

Save the Bush tax cuts???

As a former small business owner I can assure you that ZERO of my colleagues were in the top 3% of wage earners that would be affected by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. And if we wanted to expand business and create jobs we’d simply use pre-tax company checks rather than writing a personal after-tax check. Too simple?

Besides, those making over $1M a year are not investing in America. They invest where workers get paid $1 per hour and profits are high and their economies are growing!

The bottom line is that the poor people are not going to pull us out of our recession; only the rich people can. And that will take a repeal of the tax cuts, at least until we get our feet on the ground.

But our core problem is far more serious than all of the above. Taxpayers (and Ryan) have yet to understand that politicians spend money because the special interests WANT them to spend money on pork and other no-bid contracts and giveaways. And these special interests fund the elections so they get what they want. And corporate executives give money because money works. Go figure.

And when state and federal money goes to the Fat Cats instead of to communities in revenue sharing, local taxes must rise to compensate. Fighting taxes at the local level does not change the corruption at the top.

Nothing is going to change until we have public funding of campaigns. If politicians are going to be beholden to their funders, those funders should be the taxpayers. And at $5 per taxpayer per year it would be a bargain.

But Paul Ryan has not lifted a finger to fight the cause; he is too focused on the effect. And moving up the Republican ladder.

Two foolish burdens we place on employers…

By Jack E. Lohman

Number One… Taxes!

All businesses that manufacture their products in Wisconsin should pay ZERO Wisconsin taxes. And if that isn’t practical, they should receive a state subsidy equal to the taxes paid. Or compensate them with a rebate on wages paid. Whatever.

It is absolutely foolish that we burden businesses with a cost that is simply passed on to the consumers anyway, especially after they add their expensive accounting and legal costs to minimize them. We reimburse them at the cash register, and these business taxes nail not the corporations but the people who buy their product. And regressively, for those who care.

That is a tax on consumption and jobs, all when we need exactly the opposite. It is counterproductive.

Number Two… Healthcare Costs

Like taxes, after adding administration these costs are passed on to the consumer and jobs leave the state or country as a result.

Over $7000 per employee per year in the U.S., but $800 in Canada. Is it any surprise that GM makes more cars in Canada than in the U.S.?

ObamaCare is an atrocious deform. Not only will it burden the state with 400 new mandates and add payroll where we can’t afford it, it is also going to require massive new hires at the IRS to oversee the “mandated insurance” called for by the Feds. That is said to require 17,000 new IRS agents, though that number has been challenged.

Even if half that number, it is bad. But just think “more jobs” and you’ll get over it. (Or maybe you won’t; they are taxpayer funded.)

All of this when a Medicare-for-all single-payer system would have been less expensive and more inclusive, covering 100% of Americans and saving $400 billion per year and affecting the best bailout ever for 100% of our businesses rather than just the banks and car companies.

But $125 million in campaign bribes won the day for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Aren’t you glad your politicians don’t come cheap?

If our state politicians were smart…

… they would implement our own single-payer healthcare system. Call it what you want, though I like “Expanded and Improved BadgerCare Plus-Plus” that pays Medicare rates plus 10% to keep doctors and hospitals fairly compensated. Make coverage equal to the state employee’s and teacher’s plan. Allow Gap insurance if employers want to enhance the coverage, but little of that should be needed.

How to fund it? Well, the taxpayers are currently paying for all of our health care needs today, even if only at the cash register. But an added surcharge on criminal fines and added fees on lobbyist licenses is a start, and there’s clearly other “less harmless” pockets that can be found. Let the lobbyists pass the cost on to the corporations that are trying to manipulate the politicians (and ultimately the people).

But let’s get moving on this before we start losing jobs to states that beat us to the punch. Minnesota is far ahead of us on this. We need employers coming and staying in Wisconsin. Not leaving.

Will we ever learn?

“America will always do the right thing, but only after everything else fails.” Winston Churchill

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And a note from my friend Jim Wrich (Madison, WI):

“A tax burden on business is just a round-about way of taxing people — and it is usually regressively. A tax on gasoline, for example, affects middle and lower income people far more than it does the wealthy. Any tax on food or clothing, especially sales taxes, are regressive.”

“A graduated tax on all personal income — not just earned income — with no exemptions or deductions, would be the fairest and most efficient system. If a property tax is deemed necessary, the first $500,000 for a personal homestead should be exempt, and the property tax should not be used to fund education, only local services.”

I couldn’t agree more. We need help from the wealthy… the poor are not going to get us out of this mess.

But who can provide them the needed security?

By Jack E. Lohman

It used to be that motes around the castles would protect the rich from club-wielding peons, but now with shoulder-fired missiles that’s out. And with our new breed of pirates, not even small islands in foreign countries will protect them. Where will the rich go (the poor babies…)?

Why don’t they just say enough is enough and do the right thing?  They will not like where their cash is leading our country. Without a middle class to buy their product it will be dry sailing.

It’s not that they have gotten rich that is so bad, it’s that many have acquired it from ordinary folk and trashed the economy in the process. The top 1% of the public now owns 22% of the nation’s wealth — the same as in 1929 — not so much by expanding the GDP but by dishonest and clever manipulation of the stock market.

Where, incidentally, many of our 401(k)’s and retirement plans once resided but has recently transferred to the wealthy.

Source: Inequality.org

“While the world economy collapsed, the Fortune 400 richest Americans increased their wealth by $30 billion. From where did that new wealth transfer from? From the poor and middle classes. It could come from nowhere else. But for better or worse, the perps stole from all countries that had assets, and not just ours. That also makes prosecution more complicated.” Source

Yea, I get tired of talking about it, but it isn’t changing for the better. It’s getting worse. Estimates are that it will be ten years before our economy rebuilds itself, and even then the jobs of old will be gone for good. It is best that today’s unemployed train in new fields that can’t be outsourced.

It’s a hard subject because even the conservatives have room to complain. Like against public sector unions demanding and getting $150,000 per year jobs with Cadillac health care and retirement at 50 with 90% of your last years’ salary. And in Bell, CA, the city manager earns $787,637 — with annual 12 percent raises and 80% of salary for retirement — and it pays its police chief $457,000. See this video.

Wow, even as a CEO I didn’t take home that kind of dough.

Cities and states will simply have to declare bankruptcy and rebuild from scratch, but can the U.S. do that?

The fact is, the top 10% are getting richer and the bottom 80% poorer. No country can sustain itself with imbalances of that kind, and history shows that when the bottom tier gets trampled enough they fight back. Physically. A bloody rebellion is unavoidable with our current trend.

We really lose the battle when we allow the corporate interests and elites to divide the community into sectors fighting each other when the real culprit is the campaign cash that corrupts the political system. They like that a lot!

Can it be stopped?

Not with corrupt politicians who are willing to take bribes and a piece of the action for services rendered. Only a 100% turnover in November will suffice.

We need “pay for performance” for politicians!

By Jack E. Lohman

Like when I ran my business, politicians should adhere to three, very basic, business principles:

1) Do their best and get paid accordingly. If taxes go up and tax money is spent on useful public needs and a balanced budget results, their incomes go up. If the opposite occurs, their incomes go down. Pay for performance. Accountability. That’s what they expect of teachers, isn’t it?

2) Do not take bribes from outside sources and give away company assets in return. If you do this in private industry you go to jail; not get re-elected. Work for the voters, not the bribers.

3) If I pay you to work full time, work full time! Don’t take off six months to prepare for the next vacation (or election).

Too simple? Is there something about normal business ethics that politicians don’t understand?

Not taking bribes should be a no-brainer, but the politicians call them “free speech.” That they buy legislation beneficial to the contributor and detrimental to the taxpayer should say enough.

If I give a bit of free speech to a cop to avoid a ticket, why is that illegal?

Can you imagine the results of a clean political system? Lower taxes, more jobs, fewer wars. What’s not to like about that?

Welfare Payments, Unemployment Benefits?

I have a real problem with welfare and unemployment payments when given to people who are able-bodied and can work.

Can’t find a job? Then the state should pay them $10 an hour to sweep sidewalks, shovel snow, work in humane societies, non-profit nursing homes, charity work, or whatever, for 20 hours each week. Whatever. Spend the other 20 looking for a real job. But do SOMETHING useful! Even a volunteer job.

That’s $200 per week getting paid for what could turn out to be a new profession. Certainly not in sweeping sidewalks, but working at non-profits would be useful. Even the state paying them to re-educate in a usable profession like health care would be more productive than paying them to watch television.

In the process we could reduce the number of excessively-paid government workers! Do it through attrition.

We must also help the disabled, but I know that many of them are able to and want to work. Especially the Vets. If nothing else, doing telemarketing or mailings from home. We are not doing them a favor by paying them to do nothing. In fact, letting them remain isolated is the cruelest thing we can do.

But we have serious problems…

They’re called Liberals and Conservatives. Too bad they aren’t called pragmatists.

20% of CEOs are bottom-feeders, yet control 80% of our politicians!

By Jack E. Lohman

Not all CEOs are bad guys. Easily 80% of them invested their own blood, sweat and tears starting their own company from scratch, risking everything they had and providing good jobs to the vast number of Americans. They should be admired, and deserve every bit of salary they can afford to give themselves.

But 20% of CEOs are bottom feeders — interlopers — and the 80% suffer because of it.  Some never started anything, yet gained their position because they became members of the good-old-boy network of CEOs that sit on each others’ Boards. They vote $10 million compensation packages for their buddies because the shareholders and taxpayers pay the bill, and they usually hire an outside “independent compensation consultant” to provide legal cover.

Nor are all politicians bad guys, but the ratio is reversed. Power and fame attracts them, though they claim otherwise. Easily 80% are bottom feeders seeking to expand their personal wealth over the best interests of the constituents they are supposed to serve.

The 20% of CEOs seek to own the 80% of politicians so they can implement and control, and they find that acquisition one of the easiest they’ve ever made. The Pols are glad to hop aboard because they share the booty they’ve made possible through their writing and voting for and against laws and deregulations… like the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall act that trashed the financial world and the nation’s economy, all to benefit the bankers.

Sorry, but this comparison is apt: Even 80% of our nation’s convicts look down upon the 20% who are child molesters and murderers — the bottom-feeders of that community.

It bears repeating:

“There is only so much growth that we can squeeze out of GDP to satisfy the Fat Cat appetites for further wealth. The rest must come from other people’s wealth; their houses, their jobs, their 401(k)’s and retirement plans, and their kids’ schooling.” (Source)

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Disclosure: Until retirement 6 years ago I was a CEO (I like to think in the 80% bracket). I started my 25-year-old business in my basement and grew it to $6M and 70 employees in four states, and I had only one shareholder to rip off. Me. I had my family house on the line and sometimes went without a paycheck to make payroll.

At one point I thought I’d lost it; I had to lay off a nurse, the only layoff in 25 years. But I was able to hire her back two weeks later and we kept growing.

Wow, what a difference from today’s dilemma.

So I’m critical of today’s 20% of CEO interlopers and the bankers who have ripped off the public, but more because they are stealing from my kids and grandkids than anything else. I *DO* understand personal motivation and I also understand unfettered greed. One of them I like.

But I wonder why the 80% of good CEOs tolerate the other 20% not only leaving the profession with a bad name, but also allowing them to help trash the economy as they have.

The D’s and R’s are corrupt and must all be fired…

By Jack E. Lohman

We know the Fat Cats want to own everything they can’t acquire legitimately, but where are the heads of our voters?

The liberals want only democrats to be elected and conservatives want only republicans… even when both political sides are corrupt as hell and trading our country for campaign bribes!

We must throw them all out; at least those that do not vote for the Fair Elections Now Act. Even if a change in leadership were to occur, national stability is more important than a corrupt government.

Neither the voters on the Left nor the Right fully understand the long term effects of our corrupt political system, and how every issue is affected. The Fat Cats have gotten stronger with each new congress and now totally own our politicians, who in turn will trash our jobs and economy as long as the campaign cash keeps rolling in. They now only pass or defeat laws to satisfy their campaign contributors rather than the voters.

That’s called an oligarchy, not a democracy, and a civilian rebellion is likely next. Take the food from their tables and Americans will rise up. They’ll get shot at by our own government troops and some will be killed, but that’s what happens when the political system fails.

If you haven’t seen this chart on inequality, you must. We are at the exact same point we were at in 1929, just before the crash. This time too, our politicians are very complicit. If you favor privatization, you ought to be tickled pink. We now have a privatized congress; how are you liking it so far?

There is only so much growth that we can squeeze out of GDP to satisfy the Fat Cat appetites for further wealth. The rest must come from other people’s wealth; their houses, their jobs, their 401(k)’s and retirement plans, and their kids’ schooling.

The top hedge fund managers are pulling in salaries of several billion dollars per year, and this is not coming from GDP growth. It’s coming from low and middle-income nest eggs when government bailouts occur.

Jobs that will never come back…

Companies outsource our jobs for $1 per hour so they can pocket the rest, thanks much to NAFTA and CAFTA and the politicians they bribed to pass the laws. These jobs are not coming back, so our staying a first-world country is at stake.

Our politicians are co-conspirators, enabling the wealth transfer because they share in the booty. Their salaries are paid by taxpayers but their campaigns are funded by the Fat Cats, and that virtually guarantees their job and increases their own source of wealth.

They are taking bribes to do the wrong thing at the right time. They should go to jail but they’ve twisted the laws to make the taking of political bribes legal.  If the political campaigns were instead paid by the taxpayers, the politicians would do what is in the best interest of the country.

They could pass meaningful reforms and the country would flourish. But all of our wealth would rise proportionately and the wealth divide would narrow. That’s what the Fat Cats dislike, so they bribe our politicians to keep the status quo.

This duo is stealing from my kids and grandkids. But so are they stealing from the families of my conservative friends, and I don’t understand their tolerance of this corrupt system.

I agree with the Right that government is too big, that unions are part of the problem, and that bureaucrats are over-paid. But they must agree that politicians are corrupt and we must — together — put a stop to the political bribery that is trashing our nation’s economy.

Wisconsin can lead the way… if its politicians will let it.

By Jack E. Lohman

Many things are wrong with today’s wealth inequality (see chart) and many on the Right like to excuse it as “free enterprise.” But when that free enterprise compromises the sustainability and safety of a nation it ceases to be free and it must be regulated. But it must be regulated by politicians not regulated themselves by the campaign contributions from those who benefit from the laws they write.

Where to start?

Corporate Reform: We must give control of corporations back to their owners; the shareholders. They must have authority to approve CEO salaries and pay packages, to (dis)approve of political expenditures, to call for an independent audit, and to appoint board members. We must eliminate proxy votes that automatically transfer to the Board, and the conflict of interest that results when CEOs of one company sit on the board of their buddy-CEO’s other company.

As one who lost over $100,000 because of investments in four corporations with arrogant CEOs, I feel the pain of those who lost their home or life savings. This legalized robbery must be stopped, but first we must stop the legalized political bribery that allows it.

CEO Pay: As it stands, $100 million CEO packages are simply written off as a company expense and the taxpayers end up subsidizing the CEO’s wealth. This write-off should be limited to $1 million, because there’s not a CEO in this country worth any more than that. But if the shareholders disagree they can divert some of their dividends to satisfy the CEO needs. Or they can fire him, whichever they prefer. But they can’t use any more taxpayer dollars.

Individual Tax Reform: The Bush tax cuts must be allowed to expire, and we must increase taxes on the rich. They helped us into this mess and they are the only ones that can afford to get us out of it. The poor people cannot.

Yea, I’ve heard it before: “The rich invest their wealth and create jobs!” That’s (usually) baloney… though IF that were true we should make their taxes zero and they could pull our country out of recession tomorrow. But instead they’d send their tax savings offshore and create jobs in China and India. They’re not dummies. You’d do the same thing now that our politicians have given foreign investments a tax break.

VAT and consumption tax: These must be taken totally off the table. The rich love them, because they are equivalent to a national sales tax and are “regressive” and disproportionately paid by lower-wage families who buy product. Aside from that, “consumption” is the last thing in the world we should penalize.

Corporate tax reform: Taxes on corporations that employ US citizens should be zero. And if they can’t find a way to do that, an increase of all corporate taxes but a heavy per-employee subsidy will help make US manufacturing attractive. Corporate taxes, in the end, are simply passed on to the consumer at the cash register and are regressive. Under this proposal only foreign product will be taxed.

Single-payer healthcare: Why we give away to the health insurance industry $700 billion per year, when this middle-man should go the way of first-class mail and other obsoleted technologies, is beyond me. It is, at least, until I look at the $125 million the health industry made in campaign contributions to our esteemed politicians.

Health costs are an unneeded corporate burden that is passed on to our nation’s consumers and should be paid by the taxpayers directly. They’ll save $400 billion in the process. That bureaucracy adds 20% to our costs and is killing American competitiveness and jobs (though admittedly it makes our politicians very rich, and they like that a lot).

How nice to be rich…

Indeed some wealthy folks, after pillaging the American people, will relocate to quieter countries to spend their wealth and last years. If they are lucky they’ll pick one that stays democratic and is not overthrown. If they are not lucky they’ll need to spend their wealth on their own army to protect them and their families from kidnapping by goon squads demanding ransoms. Or hoping the local politicians don’t confiscate it. It could be a very miserable life of isolation.

I found amusing the Billionaire Sea Castles, which of course faces only sea storms, pirates and torpedoes. But well-deserved anyway.

Even if you like some of these ideas, our corrupt political system will block them. Only passage of the Fair Elections Now Act will give them (and the nation) an opportunity to survive. Pressure your congressman to co-sign the bill. Our government is controlled by corporations rather than voters, and with political complicity they trashed our economy.