Do Something!

Who creates the disparity in the U.S.? Me, maybe you. My wife and I made a good income. We sent our kids to private schools, paid for the college education, leaving them with little college debt. Was that a bad thing? No. Did it give my sons an advantage over many Americans? Yes. Does that mean that they have information-driven jobs? Yes. Good incomes? Yes. Will they pass on the same to their children? Yes. And my parents did the same for me. There’s no evil in any of this. Nothing prejudicial. It leaves us, meaning those in the top 30%, with a social obligation. We need to help those in the remaining 70%. It would be easy: Vote to increase taxes on all families earning more than $150,000 progressively until you reach the top 1 percent. As New York Times columnist David Brooks noted: “The top 20 percent is not going to stop spending heavily on their kids. We have to give the bottom 80 percent the resources to do the same.”

One way: Encourage Congress to pass a living wage act.

There’s even more to be done.

Watch our representatives in Congress.

Recently Congress passed a bill to help small businesses. Some representatives tacked on several other provisions as noted in the New York Times:

"One provision tucked into the federal economic-rescue law increases the amount of deductions companies are permitted to take on the interest they pay on large quantities of debt. Only companies with at least $25 million in annual receipts can qualify for that break.Another change lets people deduct even more of their businesses’ losses from any winnings they reaped in the stock market, sharply reducing what they owe in capital gains taxes. Only households earning at least $500,000 a year — the top 1 percent of American taxpayers — are eligible.

"And yet another provision in last month’s rescue package allows companies to deduct losses in one year against profits that they earned years earlier. The tax break most likely won’t put any extra cash directly into the hands of companies hit by the current crisis for at least a year."

We must recognize that some politicians are helping the rich get richer, thereby denying opportunities to most Americans.

Meanwhile, companies that spent billions on stock buybacks and dividends, each enriching shareholders including many executives, have asked for aid under the Covid-19 rescue package for businesses. As noted in another Times article: “The crisis has exposed the potential failings of a strategy embraced by many big companies: aligning their priorities with the interests of shareholders, many of whom are narrowly focused on the performance of a company’s shares. Shareholders, wanting stock prices to go higher, pushed management to use up cash on buybacks and dividends. And senior executives, paid largely in stock and on the basis of how the stock performed, were happy to oblige. The result was that companies often didn’t have much spare cash, leaving them even more exposed to economic downturns.”

Naturally companies have the right to do what they can legally to ensure a return for their stockholders. Why should they receive rescue help when they have exhausted resources in order to enrich their shareholders, already an enriched group. The nation is spending trillions to stem the health and economic impact of the pandemic. Taxes will have to go up. Why inflate the debt with contributions to individuals and companies that don’t need it?

Hazard Pay for Essential Workers

In a capitalistic society, we express respect for the value of an individual's work. Of course, there's thank you, but as a the old saw cuts, "Thanks never put food on the table." For a couple of weeks, we have forgotten to help essential workers put food on the table. Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) proposed the Federal government give essential workers 50% in hazard pay:

"New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Monday called on the federal government to pay bonuses to front line workers who don’t have the 'luxury of staying home,'" as noted in a post from The Hill. 

"Cuomo, during his daily press conference, said health professionals, first responders, transit workers, grocery store employees and other essential workers should receive 50 percent bonuses over what they’re being paid to work during a pandemic. 

“'We all say, ‘"'boy they did a great job, the health care workers did a great job, the police — they’re heroes,’”' Cuomo said. 

“'Yes, they are, but you know? Thanks is nice but also recognition of their efforts and their sacrifice is also appropriate. They are the ones carrying us through this crisis and this crisis is not over,' he continued."

Many or even most of the services these people provide are essential with or without Covid-19. Isn't it about time for the nation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, as Mark Cuban suggested in the interview on The Daily Show (see yesterday's post).

To Demand More from Ourselves

In 1946, the Allies believed they destroyed the evils of fascism. Hilter was dead. World War II was over. His rise and the outcomes of his power were not, as Albert Camus noted in a lecture at Columbia University about his homeland: "And it’s too easy…simply to accuse Hitler and say that the snake has been destroyed, the venom gone. Because we know perfectly well that the venom is not gone, that each of us carries it in our own hearts.”

It applies today. To America, the herald of individual liberties and equality.

The Covid-19 crisis brings out the ugliness of our failure as a herald. In communities of color, the virus spreads faster than that of white Americans. The death rate for African Americans, for example, exceeds that of European Americans. The shortage of protective equipment in those communities is more critical than in other areas of America. Yet nothing changes.

At the same time, people of color are facing greater financial troubles at this time. Because of bigotry and lack of opportunities, these people work in fields that provide little or no chance for them to accumulate wealth. Therefore, when they are laid off, they lack the resources to weather the Covid storm well. To top that off, African-American men worry that following the C.D.C. recommendation to cover their faces in public could expose them to harassment from the police.

The NAACP has railed against these state of affairs. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has questioned why this state of affairs. Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, raised similar issues on a recent episode of The Daily Show.

In an opinion piece for the The New York Times, Jeremiah Bey Ellison, a member of the Minneapolis City Council, wrote, "During every crisis, well-meaning white people here make a ritual of acknowledging the city’s steep inequities, but we’ve been hearing the same 'woe is you' sentiment for a long time." Isn't it time for European Americans to stop nodding in agreement when someone like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren talks about the nation's inequities? Isn't it time for European Americans to act? To demand more from their politicians. More from themselves.