Monday, November 06, 2023

To me, it doesn't seem like a close call

A year ago, heading into the 2022 US midterm elections, I posted:
With corporate profits at a 70-year high … and CEO’s pay rising about three times faster than everybody else … I don’t think it’s a freak coincidence that *Inflation* is at a 40-year high.
I’m thinking about that in this midterm election between the party that wants America’s corporate citizens to pay their fair share for the upkeep and advancement of the nation and the party that’s intent on supporting corporate free riders regardless of the drain on the real economy.

Oh, man, has that aged well politically....

On the business end, it's not clear that folks at the topmost corporate earning pyramids have yet rediscovered the concept of 'enough' ... but a lot of workers have made headway on wages in the real economy. Find a just and reasonable equilibrium in all that, and history demonstrates what common sense declares: that there is enough for everyone when we regard our neighbors as we regard ourselves.

On the political side, a vanishingly small minority of the US House majority took national and global security hostage last week — giving aid and comfort to enemies of democracy in general (looking at you, Russia) and the United States in particular. Why? Maybe they're on the take ... maybe they're neo-fascists ... maybe they suffer from peripheral vision loss *and* nearsightedness.... In any event, the net effect coddles wealthy individual and corporate free-riders and tax cheats by hobbling the good faith efforts of the Internal Revenue Service — and US law — to locate and collect taxes due to the US Treasury for the benefit of us all, as a people.

Now, one year out from a profoundly important election season, I am [still] paying attention to the differences between the party that insists on America’s corporate citizens paying their fair share for the upkeep and advancement of the nation and the party that protects the interests of already wealthy free-riders at the expense of everyone else.

To me, it doesn't seem like a close call.

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