[Mb-civic] Is This Your Ownership Society?

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

This article from a month ago more poignant with the recent passage of the 
Bankruptcy Bill and upcoming attempt by Republicans to repeal the Estate 
Tax (which applies only to 1 percent wealthiest Americans)

Today's commentary:
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-03/05sklar.cfm

==================================

ZNet Commentary
Is This Your Ownership Society? March 09, 2005
By Holly Sklar 

Would you invest in a company that cut your wages, laid off your cousin,
polluted your neighborhood, cut your health insurance and raided your
retirement fund? If so, you'll love President Bush's "ownership society."

At a time of rising support for socially responsible business, Bush's
ownership society offers less social responsibility, less opportunity and
accelerating dis-investment in the future.

Extensive studies demonstrate the economic benefits of corporate social
and environmental responsibility, including improved financial
performance, productivity, quality, innovation and reduced operating
costs. "For example," says Business for Social Responsibility, "many
initiatives aimed at improving environmental performance -- such as
reducing emissions of gases that contribute to global climate
change...also lower costs."

The ownership society backed by Bush's fiscal year 2006 budget is the
worst of all worlds: fiscally, socially and environmentally irresponsible,
morally bankrupt, and toxic to democracy.

Lincoln fought for "government of the people, by the people, for the
people." Bush stands for government of the owners, by the owners, for the
owners.

The richest 1 percent of households already owns more wealth than the
bottom 90 percent combined. Take-home pay as a share of the economy is at
the lowest level since 1929.

Bush is reshaping the tax and budget system so workers pay a greater share
of the costs and owners pay less. As wealth is increasingly sheltered from
taxes, inequality will become more entrenched and hereditary in Bush's
ownership society.

While Bush runs up the national debt to reckless levels, risking economic
crisis, to give more tax breaks to millionaires, his budget cuts
education, a pillar of individual and national progress, on the pretense
of fiscal responsibility.

The unemployment rate is 30 percent higher than it was in 2000. About one
out of six Americans has no health insurance, and half of all bankruptcies
are illness-related. One out of eight Americans lives below the meager
official poverty line -- and many more can't make ends meet above it.

Yet, Bush's budget slashes already inadequate small business assistance,
workforce development, community economic development, public health 
and
safety, Medicaid, housing assistance, public transit, food stamps,
childcare and much more.

Bush is building a bridge to the 20th century -- the pre-New Deal 20th
century. Givebacks to wealthy corporations and people have already given
us mid-20th century revenues for 21st century challenges.

Total federal tax revenues, says the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities, "are a smaller share of the economy than in any year since
1959, a time when Medicare, Medicaid, most federal aid to education, most
child care and environmental programs, and anti-poverty programs such as
food stamps did not exist."

With time running out to turn back the global tsunami of global warming,
Bush keeps energy policy hostage to the oil and gas lobby. His budget
slashes natural resources and environmental programs 23 percent by fiscal
year 2010.

Tax cuts for the richest 1 percent will cost more than $120 billion in
2006, Citizens for Tax Justice projects. That about matches Bush's total
2006 budgets for the Environmental Protection Agency, Education, Housing
and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs combined.

Instead of making irresponsible budget cuts, we should be repealing
irresponsible tax cuts.

Wealthy Americans have reaped the lion's share of economic growth. Without
fair and adequate taxes, we cannot rebuild the public infrastructure
inherited from past generations. We cannot invest in the research and
education vital for our future.

We will not prosper in the global economy relying increasingly on low
wages and outsourcing in place of innovation and opportunity.

Bush is undoing the New Deal and later advances that made the American
Dream real for millions of people -- and made the nation we own together a
better one.

Bush wants us to unlearn the lessons of the Great Depression and more
recently burst stock bubble. He wants to transform Social Security's
retirement insurance, with guaranteed lifetime benefits, into a more
costly, risky, privatized investment gamble.

Bush's ownership society would replace the American Dream with the
American Gamble, rigged for the wealthy and well connected.

For the Gamble Generation, insecurity would be the norm and opportunity
increasingly the birthright of wealth, not democracy.

Holly Sklar is coauthor of "Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work
for All Of Us" (www.raisethefloor.org). She can be reached at
hsklar at aol.com.


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean at sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
   ---   George Orwell


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20050418/e29a1b2a/attachment.htm