Thursday, July 21, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

Here’s an eye-popper for you: “America’s richest 400 people own more wealth than the bottom 150 million.” Nicholas Kristof in today’s New York Times. That says it all: the maldistribution of wealth, the plight of the shrinking middle class, and the unfair and unjustified tax cuts for the wealthy. Our cities are going broke, pensions and services are being cut and Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are under attack from all sides. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s state capital, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, is the first municipality that finally had the courage to reject the plan for “salvation” offered by Wall Street-controlled politicians which calls for slashing pensions and services, selling off city assets and freezing wages in order to pay bondholders. One council member who voted against the bailout for bondholders, in a moment of blinding clarity, said “When you take a risk on Wall Street, guess what? Sometimes it’s a loss.” That, Mr. President, is real capitalism, real common sense. It’s about time somebody said that. All over the country cities are struggling and there’s no help coming from Washington. The only people who can count on government bailouts are the banks, the big corporations and those wealthiest 400 Americans. What about the retirees in Prichard, Alabama whose pension payments stopped in 2009? How are they surviving? Or the pensioners in Central Falls, Rhode Island, another city headed for bankruptcy and under the control of a state-appointed receiver who put a gun to the heads of its pensioners by offering them the choice of cutting pensions by half or filing for bankruptcy and eliminating all pensions. As one of Central Falls’ citizens said, “It’s just insane that this is happening in America.” Yes, it is, Mr. President, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s the down payment on the wars you continue, the tax cuts for millionaires you’ve extended and the cave-ins to Republicans’ obsession with reducing government and dismantling our social programs. You’re willing to make “tough choices” on reducing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits, you said. That may be just a tough choice for you, a millionaire, but to the rest of us, it’s what’s left of the social contract and the vision of an equal and just society, of what democracy’s all about. Think about that in your backroom budget deals with the Republicans. And if you don’t care about that, then think about your re-election chances in 2012.