Who Is Running America, Anyway?

“Justice is indiscriminately due to all,

without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.”

(John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 1794)

 

The concept sounds simple enough.  “We the People … do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  We the People run our government, versus thousands of years of the government running the people.  A radical concept in the development of civilization.  And each of us has an equal say in how it is run, by right of citizenship rather than the right of royalty, ownership, wealth, or heredity.  But 225 years later, how is that concept working out?  At best, a cautious “OK.”  Which is all the more frustrating since we have had over 200 years to try to get it right (while criticizing “emerging democracies” for not getting it right in just a few years!).

 

Clearly, wealth buys favoritism in running our government.  The influence of wealth on government has been a problem since America’s founding, influencing the design of the Constitution itself to protect property (wealth) as much as ensuring human rights and liberty (for some).  Until presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy called out federal troops to protect civil rights protestors fighting then-legalized discrimination, all previous use of federal power was to protect business property and wealth against protests from the working population.

 

Today wealth control of government shows up as lobbyists stalking Congresspersons and Executive agencies personnel, out of the limelight, pleading their cases for special treatment.  Or, more directly, bundles of cash are given to finance candidates’ elections, or for the wealthy to publishing whatever statements they wish without regard to truth, reasonableness or relevance.

 

The result shows up in legislation and tax rules that upend the “level playing field” of competition needed for true capitalism to thrive.  It shows up in the tax code that now results in a “reverse” graduated income tax system – the more you make, the LESS you pay.  It shows up by neutering regulations that seek to keep consumers, and the general public, safe from unethical/criminal actions by companies unconcerned about the products they make and sell.

 

And it shows up in Congresspersons doing whatever corporate moneymen tell them to do, regardless of the convoluted explanations they give to a dubious public.  Just when you think you have seen it all with Congress’ incompetency, ineptitude, and indifference, they still manage to leave us shaking our heads is disbelief.  Witness a here-to-fore unknown Representative from Kansas who inserted a rider into the federal budget that reversed the Dodd-Frank prohibition against “derivative” trading – the very activity that brought about the 2009 recession.  It was a rider written by Citigroup banking corporation that once again puts the American taxpayer on the hook for losses from these banking speculations.  A taxpayer guarantee not available to the local Mom and Pop business on Main Street.  A guarantee any other business person would certainly love to have.  A guarantee I would like to have for my own pension investments.  But it is clear that Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase and “the king of Wall Street,” is running the country far more than I.  As entertainer Will Rogers said back in the 1930s, “We have the best Congress that money can buy.”

 

We also have elected officials who wield unequal power among themselves.  Our Constitution said we would elect persons from our residential entity to go to Washington to represent our needs.  But the Constitution never mentioned Majority/Minority Leaders and their deputies, or legislative committees and their Chairs who control legislation.  Our Declaration of Independence said that all men are created equal.  But our Constitution forgot to say that all Congresspersons are created equally.  So the truth is that some representative or senator far away from where I live likely has more control over my political agenda that does the representative or senator subject to my vote.  So when I am told to “write to my Congressperson,” to whom should I really address my letter?  My locally elected officials?  Or the person who actually controls all the marbles on my pet issue, but who does not even accept my email on his/her website?

 

Congressional “procedures,” bewildering to most common-sense Americans, further hide the real power, and makes folly of “majority rules.”  Committees, chairs, and leadership decide whether my issue even gets heard for a vote.  40-50 Tea Party House Republicans manage to control their party’s agenda over the other 175 Republicans.  The Senate has its overused and abused filibuster procedure such that 60% is the real majority vote on most all issues.  And it has a lesser known “privilege” called “Holds”: that any one senator can prevent a vote – especially on executive appointments – without their name or their reason for objection being revealed.  It all means that regardless of what the majority of Americans may want, some hidden minority of legislators can effectively block those wishes.  Do we wonder why Congress now has only a 10% approval rating?  And 2/3rds of American voters did not bother to vote in 2014?

 

We are told that the way to fix this broken system and to return equal citizen ownership is to “throw the bums out.”  Exercise the power of the ballot box.  Except that the ballot box has a “going out of business” sign sitting over it.  Access to voting is the first key to making a democracy work.  But that access is being closed in by the powers-that-be in order to protect those same powers-that-be.  The tools of such exclusion are the Voter ID, costing millions of wasted dollars to solve a voting fraud problem we do not have; reduction in days/hours of early voting to make it harder for busy people to get to the polls; more restrictions on who, when and how people can register for voting.  But he most insidious tool for undermining our equal government ownership is the gerrymandering of legislative districts.  Instead of bringing like-minded voters together, districts are blatantly hacked out to divide the electorate into safe, political camps designed to overwhelm opposition voters.  Hence in North Carolina, for example, 44% of Congressional votes went to Democratic candidates, but 10 of 13 seats were awarded to Republican candidates.  Lesson: when you cannot win on principled arguments, then change the rules and eliminate the argument.

 

Jamie Dimon and I are not equal owners of our government.  My Congressman does not have an equal say in federal spending as does Paul Ryan.  My Senator does not even respond to my monthly letters anymore, and has not cast an independently-minded vote in years.  David Koch and George Soros have millions of dollars to spend on commercials to express their highly divergent opinions; I have none.  The CEOs of auto, high-tech, energy, medical, financial and agribusiness industries all have dependent friends in Washington ready to do their bidding.  Mom and Pop on Main Street and I have none who even care what we think (versus how much I can donate to their campaigns).

 

America is still a land of opportunity, but not one of equal opportunity.  So who is running America anyway?  Not me.  Not anyone I know.  Not the 2/3rds who did not vote.  Is it you?

 

“This would be a great time in the world for some [person]

to come along that knew something.”  (Will Rogers, 1931)

 

©  2015   Randy Bell              www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com