During the big Washington showdown over the government’s debt ceiling, it looked possible for a brief moment that Joe Biden might bully GOP leader Kevin McCarthy into hurting one of America’s most vulnerable minorities: The überrich.
Republicans were pushing hard to “fix” the government’s financing crunch by imposing vindictive new work requirements that would cut off benefits for older, low-income Americans who need Medicaid and food stamps to get by. Democrats had denounced the cruelty and rank unfairness of punishing the poor, while requiring nothing from millionaires and billionaires. Biden twitted McCarthy with the threat of putting some of the burden on the privileged – before backing away from democratic principle, jovially assuring Kevin that he was just pulling his leg.
And a good thing he backtracked, too. Are you aware that the richest among us are suffering? CEO pay hikes have slowed to a trickle, with honchos of major corporations getting their incomes increased last year by an average of only about $15 million each. How can Washington expect such hard-hit families to help with the national debt?
Besides, many top executives are already making painful sacrifices to keep corporate profits soaring. Not sacrificing personally, of course, but sacrificing employees. Google’s top boss, for example, punted tens of thousands of workers last year, just before rewarding himself with a $226-million paycheck for doing the dirty deed. (By the way, it would take several lifetimes for a regular Google worker to amass the fortune the chief pocketed in that one year).
But hey, that’s how the system works, right? And it’ll keep working like that as long as corporate-financed political operatives like Biden and McCarthy are the ones making the “compromises.” After all, it’s not really a compromise when two foxes and a chicken vote on what’s for dinner.
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