Debt? Look at the Profits!
Bill Onasch argues that the "Great Budget Battle" has little to do with debt. And the ideological obsessions of the Republican right are leading many capitalists to shift their support to more 'moderate' candidates. Including Democratic incumbent Bill Clinton
Both the Republican- the benefit of the ruling controlled Congress and class, at the expense of the the Democratic White working class [...] House consider that a
Are there any real balanced budget is a sacred, self-evident differences between
Clinton and the prescription for economic Republicans? One pundit health. In fact there is no consensus about this holy suggests that Clinton principle among bourgeois reflects the thinking of the economists. Balanced Fortune 500 [the country's largest corporations] while budgets - where the
[Republican demagogue] government takes in at least as much as it spends Newt Gringrich's supporters reflect the - have been rare in the interests of strip-mall 20th century. And there has
[shopping center] only been one two-year period in US history - merchants. under president Andrew The Republican right Jackson's term - when 'Contract On America' Washington was debt-free crowd is more ideological, and turned a surplus. while Clinton and the New The neo-liberals claim that Democrats are more a state deficit must be pragmatic. Which puts balanced, just as every moderate Republican family continually manages challengers to Clinton such its own expenditure in as Bob Dole in a difficult function of its income. But position. this family budget doesn't Top ruling circles seem hold water. Few people increasingly disaffected worry about spending more from the Republican Right. than they earn in any given A recent Business Week year. If we did exercise editorial complained: "The such restraint, we wouldn't Republicans have stuffed be customers for buying their temporary spending houses, cars, or sending and debt limit-extension our kids to college. Debt bills with extraneous - but financing has become politically charged -essential to both families measures. There is, for and government. As long example, a death-row rider as debts can be properly
[amendment] that limits the serviced they contribute to ability of convicts to appeal a profitable economy [....] their sentences. Not much The fact of the matter is to do with budgets and that the Great Budget deficits there.... The major Battle has little to do with players - President Clinton, debt. It has a lot more to do Speaker Gingrich, Senator with redistributing wealth Dole - profess to want to and power in this country to balance the budget. They are not far from a deal. It's time for politicos to start negotiating in earnest. Stop acting, and get off the aching, and get of the The ruling class has definite practical objectives in Washington. They want to shift more of the tax burden from themselves to the working class. They seek to weaken the "safety net" to keep workers in line. They want more deregulation and privatization. And they want a stable currency and a strong bond market. All this is much more important to them than death-row appeals, trimester [late] abortions, or prayer in the schools. It is of course futile to call on politicos to stop acting. The political minions of the bosses wouldn't get very far if they frankly stated their subservience to Big Business. The Comeback Kid [Clinton] has, in the past, occasionally stumbled over his lines but he seems to be a good bet to keep his role another season. He will probably get the nod from the show's principal financial backers. And he has already been blessed by the labor bureaucracy, who greeted him at the AFL-CIO [trade union contederation convention with chants of "Four More Years!" * Source: Bulletin in Defense of Marxism #130, January/February 1996
International Viewpoint n° 276
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* USA
THE UNITED SINES 838699764F
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838699764F 2 it s very nature to cut deeper into the social fabric of American life in order to maximize profit rates.
Every cut, every budgetary minus, in health care, welfare, education, environmental protection, and the myriad of other social services that American workers have fought for and won in past decades, is a direct plus, a direct grant to the ruling rich whose domination or control of government has one purpose, to defend and advance the interests of capital against all comers from the U.S. working class and their allies, to the oppressed of the world who suffer direct U.S. military intervention or indirect methods of maintaining their neo-colonies with the help of their local patrons.
The daily attempt of the ruling class elite and its controlled media, to portray American politics as a vibrant and democratic arena for a debate over essential differences and ideologies, is absolutely essential for the functioning of capitalism. It is needed to convince as many as possible ic needed to convince as many as nossible that their interests are being considered by at least one of the two capitalist parties.
This 'three shell game' is not limited by any means to the arena of politics. Literally every government institution of this country operates to advance the interest of the capitalist class. A January 3 headline in the Business Section of the New York Times makes this point quite well. It reads, "G.M. Reports Record Profits, Party Because of Tax Gains." The article begins: "General Motor Corporation's core business suffered several reversals last year, but nimble work by the company's tax accountants sent its net income soaring to another record in the fourth quarter and for the year.
G.M., the nation's largest auto maker, reported that a series of problems combined "to reduce its pretax profits for the automotive operations by 42 percent in the last quarter:"
"But the conclusion of several tax disputes," the Times notes, "some of which dated to 1982, allowed G.M. to post a gain of 19% in net income to about $1.87 b. in the fourth quarter." How many billions the government's tax courts had to pay G.M. to turn a 42% loss into a 19% gain would not be too difficult a math problem to solve!
Profits are increased by a host of techniques from the most obvious, on site union-busting efforts, lower wages and health care benefits, to the seemingly
28 International Viewpoint April 1996 incomprehensible manipulation of international currency rates of exchange.
The largest source of "profits" however, is the combined revenue the federal, state and local governments collect in the form of taxes from American working people. It is fight over the redistribution of this income from us to them, that is at the heart of the budget battle.
The fact that there are some differences between the mega-corporations, financial institutions, and their political ruling class leaders, is what generates the "heat" and occasional excess in some of the debates. In the end, however, the booty is shared, more or less in proportion to the relative strength of the contending ruling class factions.
There are no defenders of the interests of the working class in this arena. The working class, lacking its own political party, is
IN HELL largely excluded from the Congressional debate.
When big money is involved, the matter is never left to chance. The entire capitalist system, from the construction of the budget, to every tax law, to interest rates, to what country will be invaded, etc., is decided a ruling elite, a tiny number of ruling class families that sit on the top of the ruling class structure, perhaps 1% of the 1% that already owns 40% of the nation's wealth and controls significant portions of the rest.*
(natching T snaring -