A few posts back (and in others as well) I posited that all Congress need do to fix the “too big to fail” problem with the Wall Street Banks was to reinstitute the Glass Steagall legislation which was repealed with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999.  As I said at the time, it was put together (the bill that is) by republicans, but it was signed into law by Bill Clinton.  Well, so much for wishful thinking with the present “reform” that is heading through the senate.  There won’t be any Glass Steagall type legislation involved and we won’t be able to blame this on the republicans this time.  Last week an amendment was put before the US Senate to the bill designed to re-regulate Wall Street (from the deregulation which began under Ronald Reagan) which would have broken up the “too big to fail” banks and the amendment was defeated with the help of something like 27 democratic votes.  This bill, presumably, would have prevented Bank of America from also being Merrill Lynch – it would have prevented Citibank from being a bank, an investment brokerage house, and an insurance company (among other things).  It would have, as I understand it, required banks to be banks – which was one of the important regulations coming out of the Great Depression that led to many years of prosperity for the middle class of America.

I really want to say here, “with the help of republicans” the middle class is being “hammered” by government policies which favor the “rich.”  The problem that’s becoming more and more apparent as time goes by is that the democrats are complicit in this “attack” as well.  Yes, there are many in the democratic party who seem to be acting as if they are traditional democrats – favoring the blue collar working class of America – but, the problem is there are many in the democratic party – enough to offset the others – who have not only enabled this deregulating frenzy of the republicans, but gone along with it.  And, along with the policies themselves has come a vicious propoganda campaign which, along with the recent “Citizen’s United” decision by the Supreme Court, has made and will continue to make a “change in direction” IMPROBABLE at best. 

Last week President Obama was whining and dining Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, CEO of one of the 6 Wall Street Banks that control, essentially, over 60% of America’s GDP – a frightening statistic in itself.  Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, Obama’s top economic advisors, are right out of the culture of Wall Street.  Eric Holder, Obama’s Attorney General spent eight years at a prestigious corporate law firm (handling cases for the major corporations which will be peddling even more influence now, thanks to the aforementioned Supreme Court case), and one by one as Obama’s administration comes under the “microscope” I keep seeing politics as usual instead of “the change I can believe in.”  I keep remembering the slogan “yes we can,” and feel a bit embarrassed that I allowed myself to get sucked in.  “Yes we can” what?  I forgot to ask – or to make sure I understood what that meant.  I still remember all the “pundits” bringing up the first hundred days of FDR with the obvious reference to the difficult situation Obama inherited – and, that he was going to bring an FDR type response to the republican nightmare inflicted on all of us.  I also remember telling myself that if I continued writing (this blog started as a response to Bush’s absurd Iraq policies) I would not “rubber stamp” President Obama as the republicans had done to Bush should he come up “short” of my perception of his promises.

Not that my opinion means much in the big picture, but, if you get enough people thinking in the same direction who knows, maybe that can influence the “machine” in Washington DC.  One thing’s very clear after watching Obama’s first year and a half in office (well, not quite) is that it’s very difficult to steer the ship in a different direction.  And, the reason for that seems quite clear in my mind.  MONEY!  The “chaps” back in D.C. have been corrupted by corporate money almost beyond hope.  The “Tea Party” solution?  Get rid of government – or, at least, reduce it even more than was done during the Bush/Cheney fiasco.  My solution?  Clean up government.  Get rid of the lobbyists who are throwing good money around in order to create bad!  I still remember Ronald Reagan turning up the “heat” on government, as if it was government that was causing all our problems.

You have to keep in mind some of the reasons Reagan was unhappy with government.  On the surface he railed against deficits (that proved to be quite the joke, didn’t it?) but what he was really angry with was the “New Deal” phenomenom which had brought prosperity to so many “ordinary” Americans.  Reagan claimed that Medicare would be the end of us – something like it would be the beginning of the end of our freedom, just as the republicans before him pronounced Social Security as socialism which would destroy our nation.  Reagan HATED the fact that people making MILLIONS were being taxed at a higher rate than those of us down near the bottom.  That led to the massive assault on the New Deal regulations which were designed to prevent the very problems we’re all experiencing today – including the tax cuts on the “rich” which have led this nation into or near the “poor house.”  Additionally, Reagan opposed the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s to the point that he announced his candidacy for president in Philadelphia, Mississippi – the place made “famous” by the deaths of three civil rights workers in 1964.  Reagan was unhappy with the role of government because it was empowering “ordinary people” – and, I’ll let you surmise what that means.

And, what’s wrong with taking the “lid” off what people can earn?  Why is it wrong to claim, as the republicans do, that the rich people know better what to do with their money – and that, ultimately, when they are “richer” the excess will “trickle down” to the rest of us?  I suppose that theory comes from people who believe we’re all saints (of course, it’s being pushed by many who profess to be Christians, people who suposedly believe we’re “fallen”) and will share any excess they earn with the less advantaged.  We see evidence of that type of thinking all over the world, with the resultant unrest among the “haves not” that seems to be “flying below the radar screen” of those at the “top.”

For example, I’m presently reading a (very interesting) book, titled “Search for Al Qaeda” by Bruce Riedell, a former CIA agent and national security advisor to two presidents, and he points out that the “heart” of the problem in the middle east is that Palestinian refugee camps have been holding people in untennable situations for decades.  It is from these camps that many of the terrorists are coming, and the rest of us seem to be turning a “blind eye” to the fact that so many people are living in these deplorable conditions.  As I wrote recently, in our own American cities, we have ultra high levels of unemployment and children are being gunned down, due to similarly deplorable conditions,  regularly with hardly a “whimper” from those of us fortunate enough to be in better circumstances.  At the same time, the headlines are full of stories about people at the “top” raking in BILLIONS gambling on stocks and commodities using other people’s money – and paying little to no taxes on the “bounty.”  And, then our leaders claim we can’t “stimulate” the weaker parts of the economy because of lack of money.  Or, you have the “tea partiers” out there clamoring for laws that order cops to pull over “suspected illegals,” ask for papers, and if they’re not produced the person goes to jail!  For God’s sake, how many of those inner city Chicagoans I talked about in my previous post do you think carry their “papers” around with them?  (now that I think about it – what about me? What papers am I supposed to have?)

The bottom line here, as I see it (at least tonight :o) is that we have a Wall Street “run amock” and we have a United States senate which has been bought and paid for by the same Wall Street.  There’s no other explanation I can come up with that would present the facts as they seem to appear.  These “gamblers” (hedge fund operators and others at places like Goldman Sachs) are paying taxes at a lessor rate than I am (I believe it’s 15% or less – and in one instance, at least, on 4 BILLION in income).  Before Reagan (and after Hoover), anyone making more than what I will call the “marginal” income paid at least 50% of that income in taxes.  In fact, during World War II the rate was 94%!  This marginal income amount, in today’s dollars compared to the $200,000 it was defined as in 1944 would be something approaching $3 MILLION.  That means, on the first $3 MILLION you would pay the same taxes as you do now.  Anything over $3 MILLION the rate goes up substantially.  The idea was – and, in my opinion, should still be – that when you start earning more than that it becomes all about the money (OK, this is getting into my philosophical thinking, I’m no economist) and we end up with a problem of SYSTEMIC GREED!  This is what Marx was talking about as he predicted the collapse, ultimately, of capitalism.  Too few at the top, and too many at the bottom.  I’m oversimplifying this, but it’s going to be more of a problem in this nation if our US Senators continue to kiss up to the ones at the “top.”  I mean, when does it stop?  How bad do things have to get for the actual people who vote them in before our US Senators figure this out?  Or, do they care?  Do the “moneychangers” just assume that anyone new to the Senate will “succumb” to the money as well?  Is the only way to fix this to have the people who are corrupted do the fixing?  That’s not very encouraging!  THIS IS GETTING DEPRESSING!

How do I connect this to the Obama administration?  Well, as I’m watching them “progress” through their first two years I’m seeing a lot of “politics as usual” from the “centrist” or “pragmatic” approach to governing.  An attempt at “consensus building,” or something that looks that way to me.  Obviously, if you’ve read many of my previous posts about President Obama, I’m not altogether that happy about what his administration is doing.  Yes, they passed a “health care reform” bill.  I see it as something that needs a LOT of fixing and is in the (hopefully) better than nothing category.  There’s now the Wall Street reform.  As stated above, without something along the lines of reinstituting Glass Steagall this reform appears to be something that will be “better than nothing” to people like me, but accpetable to people like Jamie Dimon.  There was the “stimulus” bill, which needed more stimulus – sacrificed “stimulus” for three republican votes.  Iraq?  Nothing at all new or courageous there.  Just following the “Bush” plan – all the way to the end.  Avoiding any kind of real decision regarding Iraq.  What I’m seeing is more of a return to the Bill Clinton approach to government, than a return to FDR.  I realize that it was my wishful thinking, at this point, which was expecting more.  But, I believe with all my heart that it’s the people in the above referenced “deplorable situations” which are the problem.  And, we won’t solve the problem of people in destitute situations through “trickle down” politics.  When the people at the “top” understand they are better off when the people at the “bottom” are healthy, the United States will be on the road to real recovery!  The republicans would claim “socialism,” and this will never happen without strong courageous leaders willing to take a principled stand against the greed which is destroying America like dry rot destroys a house.  As of the present time, there is a void of this type of leadership in Washington DC!