Swooning for the Rich
A lot of totally irrational forces seem to be swirling around the midterm elections this year. The media tell us that people upset with President Barack Obama for not creating jobs fast enough to dig out of the deep Republican recession are so mad they’re going to vote for Republicans who oppose every government program to create jobs.
Republicans, the party of Wall Street and corporate wealth, somehow have made voters so mad about Wall Street bailouts that people are ready to put Republicans back in control to oppose regulating Wall Street and to give $700 billion in tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires.
Somehow caught in the middle of all this craziness is Feingold, one of the few truly maverick Democratic senators the Tea Parties should embrace because of his principled opposition to government intrusion in our liberties and his budgetary conservatism.
Even more surprising is that Feingold’s re-election this year is threatened by Ron Johnson, a shockingly lame Republican candidate.
New York Times columnist Gail Collins was being kind recently when she referred to Johnson as “not all that impressive. Unless you like Ayn Rand and are yearning to see the country run just like a plastics business.”
Feingold and Johnson engaged in three debates. The enormous intellect and substance chasm separating the two candidates was glaringly obvious.
The problem was anyone watching or listening had trouble paying attention. Minds kept glazing over while Johnson was talking. Not to denigrate the numerical professions, but, frankly, he’s about as interesting as an accountant.
Actually, being an accountant is one of Johnson’s two or three talking points. In some of the millions of dollars’ worth of Johnson ads gushing out of our TV sets, Johnson counts up 57 lawyers in the U.S. Senate—writing laws, go figure—and only one accountant!
Imagine what an impact Johnson could have if he were elected. “Hey, you guys, come here and look at this! I just added up some really exciting numbers!”
Big-Money Influence
Feingold has come up with a far more relevant
accounting of the 100 current senators, noting Johnson would be the 70th
millionaire.
Being possibly the poorest member of the Senate
seems to shield Feingold from the corrupting bias toward Big Money afflicting
most other politicians.
In addition to nominating clumsy amateurs making
headlines with embarrassingly colorful pasts, the Tea Parties hijacking the
Republican primaries seemed to have a particular affinity for colorless
millionaires.
California Republicans went for a super two-fer,
running millionaire Carly Fiorina for the Senate and billionaire Meg Whitman
for governor. The good news for democracy is that despite combined spending of
hundreds of millions of dollars, both are currently behind in the polls.
Johnson has gotten much more out of his millions. A
man with no political experience or apparent qualifications—and who most voters
had never heard of until recently—has been running ahead in most polls.
Johnson’s campaign amounts to two or three simple
ideas—very simple—and none of them true.
The first is that businessmen, not politicians, know
how to create jobs. No. Businessmen, God love them, know how to create profits.
One of the primary ways businessmen maximize profit is by hiring as few people
as they can and paying them as little as possible.
Isthmus columnist
Bill Lueders once wrote: “Profit, honestly defined, is the difference between
what workers earn and what they get paid.”
That is what’s behind the current wave of
employer-extorted contracts allowing the hiring of “casual workers” at
drastically reduced pay and no benefits.
During this campaign, we’ve learned how Johnson
maximized his own profits by employing prison labor and paying some of his
employees so little they receive BadgerCare, taxpayer-funded health insurance
for the working poor and unemployed.
The other pillars of Johnson’s campaign are “the
economic stimulus failed” and “health care reform is a budget-buster.”
Both statements are false. The stimulus bill
prevented a second Great Depression and stopped 3.5 million more people from
losing their jobs. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the
health care law would save $138 billion the first 10 years and $1.2 trillion
the second.
If Johnson succeeded in repealing health care
reform, as he wants, he would exorbitantly increase the federal deficit he
rails against.
The same would be true, of course, if he delivered
on his only other specific promise—to pass a $700 billion tax cut for
millionaires like himself.
Other unqualified millionaires around the country
are having trouble buying elections. It will be Wisconsin’s shame if a not-very-impressive
one defeats Russ Feingold, one of the truly unbought and unbossed independents
in the Senate.
Well, everything McNally has said in his column is essentially true, especially with regard to Johnson's mediocrity at best as a candidate. But the glaring omission is that there has to be a reason why a dud such as Johnson has any shot at winning against an experienced legislator and intelligent man of principle such as Feingold.
And that reason is that the Obama Administration went about the necessary task of reforming the healthcare situation in exactly the wrong way. The "healthscare deform pill", as I call it, allows the corrupt and dysfunctional health-insurance industry to maintain its iron grip on how healthcare is rationed out to the population and does nothing to control costs.
And most of all, what on Earth made the Democratic Party political machine think that mandating that people buy insurance from this corrupt and dysfunctional industry was going to end well or not make voters very angry? Yes, the new law mandates that insurance providers will have to provide a certain minimum level of coverage for the premiums they will charge, but does anyone who is not drinking the Kool-Aid on this issue think that will be enough to prevent the new captive customers from having to buy essentially useless junk-insurance? I suspect people would be even more furious if they knew that the healthscare deform pill taxes employer-based insurance programs, which can only increase deductibles and reduce benefits for those who have health insurance through work:
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff12292009.html
The sad thing is, when a bunch of right-wing nuts win control of the House and maybe even the Senate because of this unpopular boondoggle, you will undoubtedly see Democratic Party Kool-Aid drinkers such as McNally continue to refuse to face this glaringly obvious fact.
But, look at it this way... now that Healthcare is there, those who have the "right" address and skin color are going to make sure it is not completely dropped, at least not for them. I know too many Wal-Mart and McDonalds workers on BadgerCare in the suburbs for that to happen. It will be fixed, somewhat, but it will never be dumped. Half-white, raised white, Ivy league Obama knew that, and so did Feingold.
We did not dump Brown v Board of Education, we did not dump Roe v Wade, and we did not dump Social Security. It will just keep being "fixed" until the initial anger has died off (literally).
BTW, I would strongly caution thoughtful voters against voting for Johnson or any Republican hoping they will repeal "Obamacare". Health insurance companies are channelling a great deal of money to the Republicans hoping to get them to keep the mandate that everyone buy insurance while at the same time get rid of the few provisions of the healthcare law that are helpful to people but that undermine the industry's profitability:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-health-politics-money-20101005,0,4869233.story
And if you don't think that will happen, then you should ask yourself when have the Republicans ever *not* done the bidding of their friends in big business? And if you still want to vote Republican to punish the Democrats for pushing bad healthcare reform onto the people, that's what's known as "spite-voting". You should never do *anything* motivated by spite, because actions with such motivations *never* have good outcomes.
BUH BYE RUSS!! You can thank the Chicago thug-in-chief for destroying your senatorial tenure. Congratulations Senator Johnson and please began the repeal process on the socialistic ObamaCare.
Even though I said you should be ignored in another comment-thread, you have finally managed to say something worth addressing. Mandating that all citizens buy a product or service from private industry is hardly socialism. In fact, it's about as right wing a fiscal policy as one might possibly conceive.
If Obama's health care reform is socialist, so are street signs, paved roads, police officers and fire fighters. Please give those up, too, Corrina.
Another consideration is that even if Republicans win as big as they are expected to by the largest estimates in their favor, they still won't have enough votes in both houses of Congress to override President Obama's veto in attempting to repeal Obamacare.
Clearly we need to make profit illeagal, as every penny of profit amounts to a social injustice. If there were no evil profits than more workers could be hired, thus lowering unemployment.
Anyways, why is McNally knocking badger care? Johnson shouldn't have hired someone on Badger care? Seriously, that makes no sense.
Babylove: Good comments on Obamacare, it is just another corrupt bill from corrupt politiaicans.
I don't think McNally is knocking BadgerCare. You have to be pretty impoverished to qualify for BC, and McNally is actually knocking Johnson for paying some of his employees so little that they did indeed qualify for this program.