Common Sense
"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil." – Thomas Paine
We have reached a point where our government no longer fulfills its primary purpose: to serve its constituents. At least some of this populist dissatisfaction can be traced back to the 2008 government bailout of big banks, the TARP program. Email and phone calls to congressional offices ran about 300-to-1 against TARP, but Congress approved the massive bailout with very few strings attached. Add in the bailouts extended to other crippled financial institutions such as AIG and Fannie Mae and the government’s plans to rework the U.S. health care insurance system, and the sense that the government and the nation’s financial elites are failing the citizenry has reached new highs.
It has become increasingly difficult to draw a distinction between Big Government and Big Business. Recently, politicians have stated the banking lobby controls Congress and that the TARP recipients have donated tens of millions of dollars to Congressional representatives.
Banks Own Congress
I recently read a terrific article on Daily Finance that got me thinking about the origins of populist distrust and concentrations of power. It actually precedes the American Revolution where America was seeking to recover the cost of its seven year war with France and the British government imposed a number of taxes on as well as the American colonies. The famous phrase “taxation without representation” was coined by the middle-class and working-class artisans in America before the revolution, doesn’t shed any light on the fact that many of them were also fed up with the homegrown elites which had concentrated great wealth and power under British rule.
During this time, 5% of the citizenry of Boston control 50% of the city’s taxable assets. In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation’s wealth. [Source] Generally, colonial government at the time was controlled by a patrician elite. In his pamphlet common sense, Thomas Paine indicates the revolution was needed not just to break away from British rule, but to broaden the representation in government to include lower and middle-class citizens. It is this disconnect that threatens the very fabric that binds us together as Americans. No longer does the power rests with the populace, but rather with lobbyists.
The buying of Congress is precisely what the TARP recipient banks have done, and done so effectively that Representative Collin C. Peterson (D- Minnesota) was recently quoted as saying, "The banks run the place. I will tell you what the problem is — they give three times more money than the next biggest group. It’s huge the amount of money they put into politics."
The important issue now is whether or not we can find a solution to this problem. It has become a disease that in my opinion, will ultimately destroy our once great country. I honestly don’t believe that there is an answer to this as those in power are able to exude efforts and measures as to make any reform virtually impossible. In theory, the ballot box would be the solution, but in practice any sane person can realize that that has had little to no effect in any recent election.
God bless America indeed.
Daily Finance: Big Bonuses and Bigger Deficits are Driving New Waves of Populist Anger
.
