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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Crocodile Tears From The Corporate Right

If you're tired of talking about inequality now, we have a feeling that by the time August gets done you'll be ready to do whatever it takes to get politicians to make inequality go away - which may indeed be part of the President's broader plan.

The fact is, severe inequality is at the root of nearly every major political dispute going on in America right now - which is why President Obama is absolutely correct in focusing on trying to solve it.

We're well aware that Republicans and those on the corporate right want the discussion of this topic to go away. They're already bawling crocodile tears to right-wing media outlets about one part of the President's "Grand bargain for middle-class jobs' that he laid out in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Tuesday.

As the President himself admitted, parts of that plan are items he's already offered in the past, multiple times. For example, the President's proposal to drop the top corporate tax rate, in exchange for closing tax loopholes that corporations use to get out of paying their taxes, is one he's made before, repeatedly.

One of the newer pieces of the President's plan, however, is the prevalence of the idea of an increase in the minimum wage, to effectively make it a living wage. Of course, as soon as the corporate right hears this phrase, they immediately explode into tears as fake as their concern for the working class of America.

As Jamelle Bouie pointed out on Tuesday, business in America would actually really like to have a plan like the one President Obama suggested at the Amazon warehouse in Kentucky on Tuesday. When corporate tax rates fall and the government invests in new infrastructure, business gets a win-win situation.

Ironically, as Bouie also pointed out, American corporate executives want the kinds of jobs that Amazon became notorious for in 2012, when investigative journalist Mac McClelland exposed Amazon's warehouses as less then desirable places to work.

The key fact remains, however, that in an economy fueled by consumer spending, if consumers don't have money to spend, that economy will be running on fumes. If those consumers have enough money to live decently, those consumers - who are also often the workers for companies in that economy - will go out and spend that money, and the company will end up making more money and being more successful.

Contrary to right-wing blowhards, raising the minimum wage does not increase unemployment. As a new study shows, if corporations like McDonalds used their resources wisely, for less than 70 cents more per Big Mac, the entire company could double the salaries of every low-wage worker in their company.

To anyone not blinded by partisan rhetoric and classist weeping, President Obama's plan for middle class jobs is a big win for Americans of all economic classes and American businesses too. That still won't prevent the corporate right from bawling those crocodile tears to their propaganda outlets.

If you'd like to stop their hypocritical blubbering though, we recommend you do as the President did in Chattanooga: Ask them to present their own alternative plan that will help working poor of America.

We'll guarantee then all you'll hear from the right is silence...