Support Small Business and American Made Goods

This article appeared in the November 23 Dawson News and Advertiser

Support “Small Business Saturday” on November 26

After we give thanks for our family and friends, our community, our men and women in uniform, and our nation on Thanksgiving Day, we begin one of the rituals of the holiday season, shopping.  Many of us will begin our Christmas shopping Thanksgiving Night or on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.  Many will shop at stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, Belk’s, or Macy’s.  But Saturday, November 26 has been designated as “Small Business Saturday”.  This is the 2^nd year of the promotion and it is a day dedicated to supporting small businesses on one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.  If millions of Americans all over the country would “shop small” the results could be huge!
Think about the small businesses in Dawson County, in Dahlonega, or in Gainesville.  It could be a gift shop, a clothing store, a decorating studio, a jewelry store, a bird store, a golf club, or a small restaurant. If everyone in North Georgia picked 3 or 4 of those small businesses at which to shop on Saturday, what an impact that would make!  It used to be that small business was the backbone of our country.  But unfortunately huge corporations such as Wal-Mart have pushed many small businesses out of business.  Small business cannot compete with the might of Wal-Mart which has become the largest retailer in the world.  Because of their might, they can dictate to manufacturers what to manufacture and what price to charge for the goods.  This has led to many companies sending their manufacturing to China or India where they can get cheap labor to produce their products and then sell them to Wal-Mart for distribution in the US.  The problem they have created, however, is that now middle class American has no manufacturing jobs available, jobs that used to pay $15 or $20 an hour.  Now all they have left is jobs at Wal-Mart making $8 to $10 an hour.  Even though retail sales are up at Wal-Mart, they are cutting employees hours and health benefits. If we don’t shop there quite as often, the Walton Family will be just fine!  Why?  Because the owners of the Wal-Mart Empire include 5 of the top 11 wealthiest individuals in America.  But the extra sales created by shopping small businesses this holiday season could make their year a success.
It would also be a boost to our economy if everyone would shop for American made goods.  Again these are hard to find, but if you buy from small businesses and get personal attention you may be able to find “Made in America” products.  When Sam Walton first began Wal-Mart in the 1960’s he promoted Wal-Mart as selling products “Made in America”.  But you would have to look very hard today to find anything in Wal-Mart today that is made in America.  So step out of the “Big Box” store for one day (or everyday!) and shop small—shop the small businesses in your area!  Look for local artists, seamstresses, bakers, and craftsman!  In fact, if we would all shop small and shop American made every day, we could probably turn this country and this economy around! 

Comparing Jobs Plans

This article will be published in the November 9 Dawson News and Advertiser.  As the Republicans continue to vote down every part of President Obama's jobs plan, our country continues to struggle, especially the middle and lower income people.  Yet the Republican jobs plan cuts taxes for the wealthy, does away with Wall Street and Bank regulations, and would practically eliminate the Environment Protection agency.  And the CBO says it wouldn't create any jobs in the short-term!

Comparing Plans to Create Jobs

President Obama has presented the American Jobs Act to the public and to Congress.  According to polls, the majority of the public is in favor of the provisions in it.  The Act includes things like giving grants to states to hire teachers, firefighters, and police, putting construction workers back to work and rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.  It also includes support of green industry—an industry where we must get a foothold or the rest of the world will pass us by.  This all would be financed by a small increase in taxes on millionaires and billionaires.  But the Republicans don’t like it and even if they did and thought it would get our economy going again, they wouldn’t vote for it.  Remember Republican Sen. McConnell and Rep. Boehner both said their main goal was to make sure President Obama wasn’t re-elected, so they can’t let the economy get better even if it hurts the middle and lower income Americans!

The Republicans have come up with their own plan.  They claim that the Obama Administration has had enough time (2 ½ years) to straighten out the economy.  This economy was on the brink of total destruction when President Obama was inaugurated because of the policies of Republican Administrations since 1981.  But the Republican’s plan is to go back to the very policies that brought us to the current economic state such as:

1. Tax reform which would include a flat tax of 25% for those who make over $100,000 and 10% for those who make less than $100,000.  This would have higher income people paying more taxes if all deductions, exemptions and loopholes were eliminated.  However, it would leave almost all middle income and low income people paying more taxes also.  So the people who have already suffered the most during this recession would get hit with higher taxes. (In fact under Perry’s and Cain’s proposed tax plans, people like Warren Buffett would pay almost no tax.)  In a recent speech Eric Cantor said The Republican Party would help “a single working mom…a small business owner…and make sure the people at the top stay there”.  The problem is that taxing a single working Mom at 10% will not help her, especially since she is already paying 26% in payroll taxes, sales tax, state tax, and indirect property tax.  But the people at the top will be just fine!  "Republicans favor tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, but these had no stimulative effect during the George W. Bush administration, and there is no reason to believe that more of them will have any today," writes Bruce Bartlett, former Reagan Economic advisor.
2. Do away with regulations on banks and Wall Street.  By deregulating these two industries we will allow them to create money at will.  But wait a minute!  Isn’t that what got us into this recession?  Sub-prime mortgages, derivatives and hedge funds got us where we are today, but let’s do it again!  As for the idea that cutting regulations will lead to significant job growth, Bruce Bartlett said in an interview, "It's just nonsense. It's just made up."
3. Do away with the regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and open up all federal lands to drilling.  Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Senate Republicans have put weakened environmental protection at the core of their plans based on a study done by the American Petroleum Institute claiming that doing away with regulations will be favorable for employment.  Republicans are claiming that if we create 1 job by drilling more, it will create 2.5 jobs elsewhere.  Of course when this claim was made with Obama’s jobs plan to put teachers, firefighters, police and construction workers back to work they said it wouldn’t create more jobs elsewhere.  Go Figure??  Damages to our world by doing away the environmental regulations would cost more than the sum of the wages and profits that would be made by cutting these regulations. Even global warming skeptic Robert Muller now agrees that there is global warming, probably caused by fossil fuels and that we should start cutting back on the use of fossil fuels to curb the over abundance of carbon dioxide.  This revelation came after a study, actually funded by the Koch Brothers Foundation (one of the biggest global warming naysayers) found the data on global warming to be correct!
4. Shrink government and cut the deficit.  More budget cuts will cost the economy around 700,000 jobs this year and next.  In addition to increasing unemployment, a tax decrease will further increase the deficit.  And their plans to decrease Medicare and Medicaid will shift the burden of this recession even further to the low and middle income American.

As Robert Reich (Economics Professor at Berkley and former Clinton Labor secretary) said, “Demagogues through history have known that big lies, repeated often enough, start being believed—unless they are refuted.”  These . . . economic whoppers are just plain wrong.  Make sure you know the truth—and spread it!”

Why Occupy Wall Street

This Article was published in the October 26 Dawson News and Advertiser.  Hopefully many of you have had an opportunity to participate in the Occupy Wall Street movement if not by attending a rally, by learning and supporting their cause through donations or conversations!

Why Occupy Wall Street?

A couple of weeks ago I worked at our Democratic Party Booth at the Dawsonville Moonshine Festival.  At our booth we had flyers to hand out and posters with pertinent information about our economy.   Reputable sources such as the Census Bureau, the Congressional Budget office, the Center for Tax Policy, and the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (all non-partisan organizations) were used.  Much of what was in this information concerned what the people, young and old, rich and poor, white and black, are protesting at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations across the country.

1.        The top 1% of Americans own 42% of the financial wealth and 24 Percent of the National Income, which is more of the nation’s income since the 1920’s.  This great shift in wealth has taken place since the institution of “Trickle-Down Economics”, i.e., the wealthy pay less taxes in the hopes some of their money will “trickle-down” to the rest of us.

2.       Middle Class wages have not risen over the last 30 years, (the beginning of Reagan’s economic plan) and in fact over the last 10 years wages have gone down (since the Bush Tax cuts).

3.       Although the top 1% pay a large dollar amount in taxes, that is because they also have more money than 90% of the rest of the country.  But in percentage terms, they pay (after exemptions, deduction, loopholes) an average of 17% federal, state, sales, payroll, and property taxes while people in the low and middle income bracket pay an average of 37%( federal, state, sales, payroll, and property)

4.       Jobs!  The unemployment rate remains at 9.1% but is at 14.7% for high school graduates between 18 and 24 (23% for young black Americans).  Meanwhile corporate profits are at their highest level since WWII but corporations refuse to invest their more than $1.9 trillion in cash.  The so called job creators are not creating jobs!

5.       The corporate tax rate is 35% but no corporation pays this much because of loopholes and subsidies.  In 2011 corporate taxes equaled 1.2% of GDP, the lowest in the world (NY Times, 5/11). Big U.S. companies (among them GE, Exxon Mobile, Chevron, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs) have become experts at hiding profits in tax havens overseas.

6.       In 1959 the poverty rate among those 65 and older was 35.9%.  Since the broadening of social security benefits and the beginning of Medicare in the 60’s, the poverty rate among seniors has dropped to 9.2%.  But the Republicans want to do away with both programs!

These are just some of the disparities that have evolved over the last 30 years of cutting taxes for the wealthy (corporations and individuals) that the Occupy Wall Street movement is pointing out.  The conservative view of our economy is that everyone is individually responsible for themselves, but that they have no social responsibility to their country.  Liberals on the other hand also believe in individual responsibility, but also believe that citizens of America should also take responsibility for their community, country, people in general and the planet.  As Elizabeth Warren has said, “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own.  Nobody!  You built a factory out there—good for you! But . . . you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for.  You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.  You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. . . . It turned into something terrific. Keep a big hunk of it.  But part of the underlying social contract is that you take a hunk of that and pay it forward for the next kid that comes along.”
If you listen to the pundits on Fox News or CNBC, these folks that are part of Occupy Wall Street are just a bunch of “hippies”, socialists, lazy or worse.  To quote Paul Krugman in an Op Ed in the New York Times, he explains these reactions very succinctly…. “The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.”
Occupy Wall Street is a patriotic movement based on a deep and abiding love of country.  This patriotism is not about the self-interests of individuals, but about what our country is to be.  Do Americans care about other citizens, or just about themselves?  99% of the people in this country are in the same boat!  That is why we need to stand up for the Occupy Wall Street.  Democracy is about citizens caring about one another as well as themselves.  Let’s get back to “we the people”!