By Deborah Craig
Are you kidding?
$600? Businesses are closing, millions face losing homes or eviction, and 40 million Americans filed for unemployment. Our medical system is caving under the weight of an oppositional faction claiming the pandemic is a hoax while literally dying from it. Due to a pandemic-induced economic downturn, holiday requests for extraordinary charitable giving dramatically increased as more Americans — particularly children — go hungry.
And after nine months of flailing and failure to act — while collecting $174,000 annual salaries — the best Congress can offer is a 5,593-page bill including provisions that tax experts are already calling a massive giveaway to the rich, plus a small unemployment check increase and a pitiful $600 for average Americans.
[President takes aim at relief bill]
New Zealand gave citizens $600 weekly until their economy started to recover. Their citizens followed the advice of their leaders and medical professionals, hunkered down and have returned to relative normality. Several European nations also implemented regular cash payments during the pandemic, keeping citizens fed and sheltered while money filtered throughout the economic system to keep businesses afloat and people employed.
The first pandemic relief package concocted by Congress purported to help small business. While it benefitted many small companies, it’s still unclear how many millions also flowed to businesses owned by the Trump/Kushner family and members of Congress, including Mitch McConnell’s wife. In the wake of public disclosure, some businesses actually paid back distributions that were blatantly usurious. This second relief package mimics the first in primarily benefiting the rich. Adam Looney, a former Treasury Department Tax official, estimates that $120 billion of the $200 billion in tax relief in the package will flow to the top 1% of Americans. Your tax dollars at work.
During the pandemic, U.S. billionaires’ net worth increased by half a trillion dollars. This after their taxes were reduced by Congress and the Trump Administration. PEW Research Center notes U.S. income inequality grew dramatically over the last 50 years, and the highest earning 20% of U.S. households now own almost half of the U.S. wealth. Recent research about trickle-down economics confirms that 50 years of tax cuts for the rich never actually trickled down. Only up.
America’s wealthy contribute millions to political candidates who promise to reduce taxes and then — in a spectacular sales job — convince the middle class that “taxes” and “government” are “bad” despite the fact that taxes pay for roads, schools, public safety, public health, water and sewer systems, airports, emergency services and assistance for the vulnerable. This isn’t socialism — it’s the basic role of government. We’ve been collectively sold a bill of goods when the wealthy pay politicians instead of taxes while Americans struggle for basic health care and decent education.
This could not get more dysfunctional and at its heart is a powerful segment of Congress that continues to fail to serve average Americans in deference to those that fund their campaigns or support their political aspirations. It’s easy to blame Trump for perpetuating this spectacle, but he was enabled by members of Congress who failed to act, undermined our electoral system and blatantly ignored medical advice while quickly lining up for the first vaccine. It’s equally hypocritical that Trump now calls for bigger payments after assuring Americans for months that there was no pandemic. Pandemic relief would have confirmed the obvious.
A make-over in the White House will occur Jan. 20. We need a make-over in Congress. Americans deserve term limits on congressional service and key congressional committees so that no one is able to accumulate excessive power and block progress. Americans deserve a Congress judged by their productivity just as employees are evaluated in the workplace. That job performance assessment should occur at the ballot box but it’s no longer valid when elections are bought and paid for by big money donors. Thus, Americans deserve campaign reform including publicly funded campaigns that eliminate big money from elections and force candidates to debate actual policy and plans of action. Americans should also vote for tax supported congressional pay raises rather than Congress rewarding itself.
Perhaps Congress should return the salaries they didn’t earn for the last nine months and accept the $600 payment they are offering Americans. Not kidding.
• Deborah Craig resides in Juneau. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a letter to the editor or My Turn .
