A Bitter Harvest

                         

By Reginald Johnson  

                                           

  It was last April 24, the day Donald Trump came to Connecticut during the Republican presidential primaries, that I realized something unusual was going on in this country.

 That was the day Trump visited Bridgeport and Waterbury, two once powerful industrial centers that have been struggling for years to recover after a succession of companies closed down their factories and left town.

  The lines of people waiting to get in and see Trump at two rallies --- many of them waiting for hours in a light rain --- was amazing.  In Waterbury, the line to get into Crosby High School stretched along one building, down a hill and up along another building. In Bridgeport, people queued up through the length of the parking lot outside the Klein auditorium where Trump was set to speak.

   Something about Trump’s message and persona attracted these people, in both cases, a mostly white, middle-aged crowd. “He does something to me, I don’t know what it is,” said one woman waiting in Waterbury.

 As I watched these people line up both in person then on the news, and then heard Trump speak at the Bridgeport event recorded on You Tube --- an absolutely raucous rally (what else in Bridgeport?) with Trump blasting away at a “60 percent loss of manufacturing”  in the region and denouncing NAFTA --- it occurred to me that Trump had really hit on something.

People lining up to see Donald Trump in Bridgeport last April. Trump decried the loss of manufacturing and blamed trade deals like NAFTA.

 For the past 40 years, the middle class in this country --- mostly white --- has been sinking.  You can tie that decline very much to the disappearance of manufacturing.  People with only high school educations back in the day could walk into the GE plant in Bridgeport, or the Uniroyal plant in Naugatuck, or Scovill in Waterbury, and get a decent paying job, with medical benefits and a pension. But those plants are long gone.

  Try and find a quality job today with just a high school diploma. Forget it.

  The process of plants closing and corporations fleeing overseas to make more money didn’t just happen back in 1970s and 1980s. It has continued into the 1990s and 2000s’ courtesy of the pro-corporate North American Free Trade Agreement --- promoted by leading Democrats like Bill Clinton and Al Gore --- which laid out the red carpet for companies to leave the country.  And leave they did in droves, from the Northeast to the northern Midwest.

  

  People’s lives have been ruined in the process and communities devastated.

  I got the feeling that day back in April that many of the people going to hear Trump either had worked in now closed factories or maybe their parents had, and their lives were better then, and their communities were stronger. They were also likely upset over the hollow  “economic recovery” since the 2008 Wall Street bank crash. They came believing that Trump could turn this sorry trend around, and Trump --- though a billionaire capitalist --- knew what they were thinking and catered to it.

  Except for Bernie Sanders, no one else among the presidential contenders saw this major undercurrent in the electorate --- the rage of the middle class. I don’t think too many people in the media saw it either.

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 While I felt blue collar anger would be a powerful force in Trump’s favor, I never thought it would be enough to overcome Hillary Clinton’s advantage in key battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. So I was shocked, as many were, by the result last week, with Donald Trump capturing the presidency by winning the most votes in the Electoral College, copping 290 votes to Clinton’s 228. (Clinton won the popular vote.)

 When Tuesday’s election results first came in, I thought for sure the Democratic ground game and union power would be enough to give Clinton the edge in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. But it wasn’t. It turns out there was a “Brexit Effect” going on --- a lot people angry at their economic status declining , angry at the Establishment, angry at being ignored --- turning out in surprisingly large numbers to say “enough.”

   When I related what was happening in the Rust Belt states with what I saw earlier in Connecticut, it all made sense. The white working class was pissed off and making their feelings heard.

  Was race a factor in the election? It might have been for some voters. There’s no question that Trump demagogically played on voters’ fears about job loss and terrorism/security by engaging in constant immigrant bashing and slamming Muslims.  Some Trump backers, particularly the rabid followers at his rallies, responded to this.

  But I do not think that all the 60 million voters or so that voted for Trump in the end were racists and xenophobes --- an argument some liberal commentators seem to be making. Most people voted for him due to anger over their declining economic fortunes and the perception that Trump, and not the Democrats, had some kind of answer for the malaise: rewriting trade treaties, stopping the corporate exodus, lowering taxes, as well as restricting immigration.

  As the old saying goes, people vote with their wallets.

A Trump banner hangs on a tractor trailer in Skowhegan, Maine. The area of central and northern Maine, which voted for Trump, has been hit by plant shutdowns and a general economic slowdown.

 This is not to imply that Trump’s prescription for an economic recovery is the right one. While rewriting the trade deals is a good idea, other ideas of his are the same old Republican bromides --- like cutting corporate taxes and lessening regulations --- that have been tried before and don’t work.

  Trump is basically a populist demagogue. While he has correctly identified some real economic problems, he’s mixed his message with hateful and divisive rhetoric. This is to be condemned.

  Since the election, numerous acts of bigotry directed against minorities have been popping up around the country. Trump needs to come out and make a firm, public statement renouncing this behavior.

  It needs to be recognized that it is the U.S. economic system --- corporate capitalism --- that is the real reason why an irresponsible candidate like a Trump can succeed. The system --- with corporations dumping millions of workers as they relocate to other countries to gain higher profits and with big banks engaging in risky investment schemes that crash the economy --- has created masses of people frustrated with their lives and resentful towards government.

Desperate for answers, they fall prey to someone like Trump.  

 

Raise Taxes on Corporations and the Wealthy

                             

By Reginald Johnson

  There’s a sorry spectacle going on right now in Connecticut, the wealthiest state in the nation.

   The state’s governor and some mayors are going around like paupers, hat in hand, saying they’re broke and can’t pay the bills.

  Gov. Dannel P. Malloy told the legislature that revenues are down this year, and as a result there needs to be $570 million cut in the state’s two-budget. Malloy is proposing to lay off 1,000 people from the state workforce, and has told agency heads to come up with ways to cut their budgets by over 5 percent.  The governor also said higher education has to be cut by $40 million.

   In the state’s largest city, Bridgeport, Mayor Joseph P. Ganim said the city is facing a $20 million budget deficit. Ganim is hinting that union contracts may have to be “restructured” --- meaning wages and benefits will have to slashed.

   Bridgeport schools --- which are funded with both city and state money --- are also facing a financial crisis. Schools Superintendent Fran Rabinowitz said the system has a $15 million budget deficit.

  You would think that in a state like Connecticut, you wouldn’t hear these cries of poverty. Connecticut has a lot of wealth.  The state is number one among all states in per capita income. It is ranked one of the highest in median household income. It is the home of many billionaires, some multi-billionaires.

  The state is home to many Fortune 500 corporations which enjoy substantial profits.

   All that personal and corporate wealth could be taxed a lot more, but it's not.

   Right now, corporations pay at a modest 9 percent rate on their income. Taxes from corporations account for just 4.6 percent of the state's revenue.

   For wealthy residents of the state, Connecticut's income tax is really not much of a worry. The top income tax rate for the state's highest earners is 6.7 percent.

 

A mansion in Southport. Connecticut has the highest per capita income in the nation.

  Politics has a lot to do with why the rich and big corporations aren’t taxed more. Large companies and the wealthy spread their money around for political candidates, and those who benefit are averse to raising taxes on their donors. The attitude is, don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

   Corporations and wealthy individuals also scare state officials by talking about leaving Connecticut if taxes are raised.

   Citing the decision by General Electric to pull its headquarters out of Fairfield and relocate to Boston --- a decision company officials said was driven in part by the lure of a better tax deal in Massachusetts --- Gov. Malloy said the state must avoid raising corporate taxes and keep Connecticut ‘business friendly.’

  It is true that in some cases big corporations and a few very wealthy people will leave Connecticut if their taxes go up. There’s no question that corporations around the country for years have played the game of “hopscotch” --- jumping from one state to another, or even leaving the U.S. altogether, to go where there’s a better tax deal, or where wages are lower.  Corporations hold states hostage with their threats to leave if taxes are raised.

  It’s going to take some changes on the federal level to start restricting the ability of corporations ---  those that are profitable and employ a lot of people --- to just up and leave a state and go somewhere else simply to make more money. What’s needed is a law that provides for a stiff financial penalty to be levied on a corporation that wants to leave. One idea is to pass a law which requires corporations to pay a 40 percent charge on profits to the states they're exiting.

   Such a penalty would make some corporations think twice about leaving, or if they still wanted to move, it would at least give the state they were leaving some compensation for the economic hardship the company was causing

  Unfortunately, that type of penalty is not in place yet. Hopefully, penalties or other restrictions on corporate activity will be put into effect as more and more people see the harm that corporations cause through relocations.

  But right now Connecticut has to deal with the cards it’s been dealt. Even though it’s a risk, I believe corporations should be made to pay more. Surely, it would not be that onerous that companies pay another 1 percent, boosting the corporate income tax rate to 10 percent.

  And wealthy individuals can certainly pay more than 6.7 percent on their state income tax bill. A 10 percent rate would be appropriate. A person making say $5 million in a year, and there’s plenty of those here, would pay $500,000 to the state. I think that person would still have a lot left over, even after paying federal taxes.

 The need to raise additional revenue from corporations and the wealthy is a moral issue as well as a practical one. Those who are able to pay more should pay more, simply because there’s less hardship for them to do so.

People waiting for food donations in Bridgeport. The city has high social service costs and a weak tax base.

  

  Ideas being tossed around now like raising the sales tax rate, bringing tolls back, or increasing various use taxes to close the budget deficit only penalize the middle class and poor --- those least able to pay.

   Another key step has to be taken to raise more money for government operations, particularly on the local level. Tax exemptions have to be ended for private universities or colleges that are financially well-off.  The tax exempt status for churches and houses of worship also has to end.

   Cities like Bridgeport and New Haven are losing huge amounts of money due to tax exemptions. Yale University in New Haven, which is very well endowed, is a prime example of a tax exempt institution that is getting nearly a free ride in terms of paying for both local and state services.

   Yale has an endowment of $25.6 billion. The college also has.$2.5 billion worth of properties throughout New Haven, according to city officials. But the university doesn’t pay a dime in local property tax.

  While Yale does make voluntary payments to the city for police and fire services, that amount is far less than what they would pay in property taxes if the college was not tax exempt. (Educational institutions are tax exempt under state law).

  All in all, Connecticut has the potential to garner a lot more revenue to fund needed government operations. The political will has to be summoned to make the needed legal changes to do this.

  The mantra you hear from leaders like Gov. Malloy that somehow a well-off state like Connecticut "can't afford" to pay for higher ed and needed social services is completely wrong.

  People should not stand for it.

  

 

  

 

 

 

 

Himes Faulted for Stance on Fast Track

By Reginald Johnson

            As a vote in Congress on “Fast Track” legislation draws near,  Rep. Jim Himes’ decision to back the controversial trade bill is being criticized by union officials and progressive activists.

           After months of sitting on the fence about which way he would vote,  Himes, a Democrat representing much of Fairfield County, came out last week and said he will vote yes on a bill granting Trade Promotion Authority to President Obama. The bill, nicknamed Fast Track because it speeds up the process for approving trade treaties, empowers the president to force Congress to vote on a trade treaty within 60-90 days, limit debate and prohibit any amendments.

    If Fast Track passes --- and a vote could come as soon as Friday --- it will set the stage for approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement between the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim countries. The agreement is supported strongly by big corporations, most Republicans, and Obama.

   After meeting with supporters of TPP and critics, including labor and environmental groups, the Fourth District congressman said he came down on the side of supporting Fast Track in good part because of Connecticut’s export-driven economy.

   “TPP offers the potential for rich export opportunities, and many high-paying export-oriented jobs,” Himes said.

   “Make no mistake, Connecticut is an export economy, and growing global trade and markets will help strengthen our middle class,” he said. “In 2013, there were $16.4 billion in Connecticut exports. $11.9 billion, or 67.5% of that, came from the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk metro area. To say that trade is important to our district is an understatement.”

  Himes, who said he had read the whole TPP agreement, said that so far, it appears Obama is making sure that the trade agreement is addressing environmental, labor and consumer concerns.

   But opponents of the trade bills took the congressman to task on a number of counts.

  Lori Pelletier, executive secretary treasurer of the Connecticut State AFL-CIO said Himes has come down on the side of corporations and not workers.

  “Rep. Himes decision …to support Wall Street profits over Main Street jobs will live long in the memory of 4^th District working men and women,” she said.

   “If Rep. Himes is sincere about creating jobs and revitalizing manufacturing, he needs to use his leverage as a member of Congress to reshape the Trans-Pacific Partnership to help rather than hurt workers in his district. Unfortunately, by supporting Fast Track, Himes is surrendering his ability to offer any amendments to improve this trade agreement or any other future agreements up for six years,” Pelletier said.

   One of the leaders of a grassroots group fighting against Fast Track and TPP said she was skeptical about Himes’ claim that he had read and understood the full text of the TPP.

  Margaret Flowers, from the group Popular Resistance, said that “the text is filled with legalese that could not possibly be fully understood by going into a room and reading it without the ability to analyze its impacts. If Himes is so supportive after reading it, I would urge him to write out the specific areas that he agrees with and the areas of concern that he has. I doubt that he could.”

  Flowers emphasized what other critics have charged, that the whole process for negotiating the TPP has been secretive and behind closed doors, with members of Congress only being given limited access to reading the text. The public has been given no access, despite the huge impact the treaty will have on the U.S. economy and all levels of government here. But corporate lawyers --- hundreds of them --- have been involved in negotiations on the wording of the treaty.

   “If Himes thinks TPP is so great, why does he support a secret and undemocratic process of passing it? Why doesn’t he allow the public to have full review of what is in the text and a debate about how it will impact our economy and our communities,” she asked.

Opponents of Fast Track rally recently in Bridgeport.

   Himes said in a letter to constituents explaining his decision on Fast Track that he did not think the closed-door negotiations were a problem and pointed out that when the TPP agreement is finalized, the text will be accessible to the public.

   “Most sensitive negotiations --- collective bargaining by unions or the purchase of a home for example --- happen behind closed doors.  In the case of TPP, after negotiators reach agreement, the deal will be made fully public online for 60 days before the President can sign it, followed by several months of review and consideration before Congress votes on it,” he said.

  In general, critics claim that the TPP is a corporate giveaway, giving corporations both in the U.S. and overseas the legal ability to thwart national and state laws set up to protect consumers, workers and the environment.

  That raises the issue of sovereignty, and whether the TPP and other trade treaties that are planned, don’t undermine the role of nations in making their own laws, and in the process, transfer power to multi-national corporations.

  Instead of sovereign nations making their own laws, people will be under a form of “corporate governance.”

   A majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives are opposed to Fast Track. Most Republicans favor the bill as well as the TPP, but some GOP members are opposed, due to concerns over the threat to sovereignty.

  Most analysts see the House vote on Fast Track as too close to call. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. --- who publicly has not taken stand on which way she will vote --- is reportedly behind the scenes trying to line up “yes” votes for President Obama and Fast Track.

  

  

Pressuring Himes on Trade Deal

By Reginald Johnson

                      BRIDGEPORT --- As the vote draws near on legislation establishing a Transpacific Trade Partnership, activists are increasing the pressure on Fairfield County Congressman Jim Himes to take a stand against the controversial trade treaty and a companion bill called “Fast Track.”.

                   Members of a coalition of groups working to defeat the trade measures gathered on McLevy Green last weekend to denounce the legislation as a corporate giveaway and urge Himes to join the rest of his colleagues in the Connecticut congressional delegation in opposing both Fast Track and TPP, as now written.

      The fast track bill would give President Obama the authority to demand that Congress vote on the trade treaty within 60-90 days, and with only limited debate and with no allowance for amendments.

          Doug Sutherland, chairman of the Fairfield County chapter of Democracy for America, a liberal advocacy group, said the granting of trade promotion authority would speed the passage of TPP, an agreement which he said “could be very bad for American workers, workers around the world, bad for the environment and bad for the sovereignty of our democracy.”

   Sutherland added that “Our mission today is a very simple one. We’re asking our elected representative in Congress, Jim Himes, to vote ‘no’ on fast track.”

   Himes, a centrist Democrat who lives in Stamford and has served six years in Congress after working on Wall Street,  has been under pressure from both sides in the trade treaty battle. Obama, whose election victory in Connecticut in 2008 certainly helped Himes win the congressional seat in the 4^th District --- which has often sent Republicans to Congress --- has been pressing Himes to vote yes. But people from labor, environmental and consumer groups have been urging him to oppose the bills.

  The U.S. Senate recently approved fast track. Now it comes down to the House, where the vote is expected to be close.

  Some of the same people who gathered in Bridgeport last Saturday had rallied against TPP and fast track last February. That rally drew about 50 people. Last weekend’s press conference, however, only drew a handful of people, and no one showed up from the local paper, the Connnecticut Post, to cover it. Sutherland said the sunny weather might have been the reason for the low turnout.

  Nonetheless, members of the coalition got up and made their case against the trade bills.

  Several of the speakers said the TPP, as now written, will broadly expand the power of corporations to get around regulations designed to protect workers rights, the environment, consumer rights and food safety. The trade treaty is being negotiated in secret with 11 other nations bordering the Pacific Ocean.

Activists opposing the Transpacific Trade Partnership and the fast track bills make their case in Bridgeport.

 

  Provisions dealing with investor rights are being written into the trade bill which will give the power to corporations to challenge a nation’s regulations, if the companies believe that the laws are hurting their profits. Those legal challenges would be heard by special tribunals --- separate from a national court system. Decisions by the tribunals would not be reviewable.

  This means regulations set forth in the U.S. on the federal and state level covering environmental safeguards, workplace safety guidelines, food safety, could all be challenged by foreign investors as damaging to their profits. If the tribunal rules in their favor, there would be no room for appeal. Case closed.

  Pam Lupfer, a representative of the Presbyterian Church in New York, which has been working on trade issues, said laws aimed at controlling climate change would be threatened. “Multi-national fossil fuel companies could sue member countries who take action on climate change,” she said, mentioning rules restricting natural gas or coal extraction.

   Jennifer Siskind, Connecticut Coordinator of the organization Food and Water Watch, said food safety rules could be undermined if TPP is passed.

  “If the TPP is fast tracked, even GMO food labels are illegal trade barriers….There is a national grassroots effort pushing for GMO labeling laws, and Connecticut’s law grew out of efforts started by Congressman Himes’ constituents. But this trade deal just throws the movement for GMO labels under the TPP bus,” she said.

  A number of speakers blasted the secret manner in which the TPP is being worked out. The text of the draft agreements is not being released, and even members of Congress have limited access to see the text. Lobbyists for corporations, meanwhile, are directly participating in the trade talks with different nations.

Diane McKenna of Stratford states her oppostion to TPP

  Jim Dean, the national chairman of Democracy for America --- an organization begun by his brother, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean --- implored Himes to vote no on fast track and TPP.

   “Support the will of the people of the United States of America, not the United States of Morgan Stanley, not the United States of Goldman Sachs, Exxon, or any sovereign wealth fund of the eleven countries we’re negotiating with,” he said. 

  Other speakers said past trade treaties, such as NAFTA, have really hurt workers, and they don’t want a repeat.  Some 96,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in Connecticut since 1994, when NAFTA (standing for the North American Free Trade Agreement) and the World Trade Organization agreements were passed, according to a graph passed out at the press conference.

   “So many of us, Democrats in the labor movement, have been burned so many times in the past by these agreements, we’ve finally said, enough is enough. O.K.,” said Tom Moore of the Carpenters Union.