Economic Issues

The most recent "compromise" negotiated by President Obama has deepened the conversation about his tendency to compromise when the American people, and the rest of the world, expect real leadership. In the next few weeks we'll carry a number of different approaches to the President by cherry-picking from the web. In the present piece, political psychologist Drew Westen reconnects us with those heady days that followed the election in 2008 and shows us how the capable story-teller President failed to offer a counter narrative that "bends the arc of history toward justice." 

Two recent polls by Gallup affirm support for the idea that the rich must pay their fair share. On April 11, 2011, 59% of the respondents indicated that next year's budget should include "higher taxes on for families with household income higher than $250,000 and above." Another Gallup survey (on April 14, 2011) with somewhat different wording found a statistical tie in response to the question, "Do you think our government should or should not redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich? The results should 47% choosing "should" and 49% opting for "should not" (with a 4 percent margin of error). Given the loaded wording, it is a remarkable percentage in favor of heavy taxation. Nearly 60% also indicated their preference that "money and wealth should be more evenly distributed" among Americans.

Today states and nation states compete with one another for investment and the resulting jobs. In the end, politicians of whatever stripe are more accountable to investors and less to voters. This situation is often presented as a natural outcome of globalization and economic development. In a review of two recent books, David Runciman, a well-known British political scientist, shows that seemingly unrelated developments: the resurrection of London as a center of global finance, the stationing of corporations in Delaware, the rise of sovereign wealth funds, and even Saif al-Islam Ghadaffi's philanthropy, are all connected with the relentless pressures of pro-business lobbyists and less with elections.

Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs was interviewed by Democracy Now on April 11.   He explained that the American people want control of corporate power, less mlitary spending, and public health care.

Welcome to Democracy Now!  Your understanding of what this agreement is?

JEFFREY SACHS: Well, this is a miserable step in the wrong direction. It started last December, when Obama and the Republicans agreed to cut a trillion dollars of taxes by extending the Bush tax cuts. And now, even though the details aren’t even worked out, apparently, they’re slashing into programs for the poor. So this is all going in the wrong direction, and many of us who supported President Obama just feel that he’s abandoned the field. He’s left it to the right wing, which wants nothing more than taxes cut for the rich, whereas the American public is saying very clearly, in every opinion survey, one after another, if you want to close the deficit, go after taxes for the rich, raise them, cut military spending, cut the excess profits in the insurance industry and healthcare, do things that would really make a difference—don’t punish the poor.