Obama and GOP Speak Same Language: Corporate Tax Cuts = Jobs | Black Agenda Report

Obama and GOP Speak Same Language: Corporate Tax Cuts = Jobs

31 Jul 2013

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

President Obama, like his Republican colleagues, says the word “jobs” when he really means “corporate tax cuts.” He lectured in the same Corp-Speak in Chattanooga, where he told low-wage workers how wonderful their bosses are, and what economic miracles could be accomplished by lavishing corporations with “incentives” to do the right thing.

Obama and GOP Speak Same Language: Corp Tax Cuts = Jobs

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“There is no jobs creation plan, only a series of corporate tax giveaway programs.”

President Obama went to a low wage warehouse in Chattanooga in the right-to-work state of Tennessee to renew his offer to massively lower corporate tax rates – from 35 to 28 percent – and had the nerve to call it a Grand Bargain for the middle class. Surrounding the president were employees who do backbreaking work for $11 or $12 an hour – and can by no stretch of imagination be considered middle class. Obama praised their cutthroat Amazon corporation bosses as the sort of benign masters that he’s depending on to bring the country back to economic health – once they’ve been properly incentivized with lower tax rates, on the one hand, and outright public subsidies, on the other. Amazon is only invested in Tennessee because the state has given the corporation huge tax breaks that will allow it to undercut other book sellers, forcing them out of business and their workers into unemployment. Amazon’s 7,000 new, low wage jobs come at the cost of lay-offs and bankruptcies among its competitors. It’s the Wal-Mart business model, which is quite popular at the White House.

The Obamas have a special place in their hearts for corporations of all kinds, as long as they’re big. The president told the Amazon warehouse workers, whose jobs are not very good, that he wants to create good jobs in other industries through renewable energy and electric cars and cheap natural gas – that is, “fracking.” Of course, by that he means providing additional government subsidies and tax breaks to corporations. Good jobs, presumably, will trickle down. Obama urged Congress to pass his Fix-It-First program to rebuild bridges and other public infrastructure, while blaming the Republicans for gutting government through “sequester” of spending. But it was Obama who proposed the sequestration disaster in the first place, as part of his earlier Grand Bargain with the GOP, in 2011.

“Good jobs, presumably, will trickle down.”

Obama used the Chattanooga visit to re-pitch much of his last State of the Union Address, in which he pledged to work for a public private partnership to upgrade the privately-owned U.S. infrastructure, such as energy grids and ports. That’s a euphemism for spending billions in public monies to subsidize private, profit making corporations. Obama calls that a jobs program.

He also thinks workers should be appreciative of the Free Trade deals whose proliferation has coincided with the destruction of the U.S. manufacturing base and the loss of millions of jobs that really were “good.” Obama promised to call a meeting of the CEOs of the same corporations that sent the jobs overseas, to ask them to do more for the country – as if they haven’t done enough, already. He’s got another program, called Select USA, that offers tax breaks and other incentives to foreign corporations that locate facilities in the U.S. Since so many U.S. headquartered high-tech corporations, like Apple, are actually Chinese companies for purposes of employment, Obama might as well combine his various tax break programs and hand out the goodies to CEOs regardless of nationality. In fact, that’s close to the actual practice. There is no jobs creation plan, only a series of corporate tax giveaway programs.

For workers, there’s the minimum wage, now set at $7.25 an hour. Obama promised, once again, in Chattanooga, to try to raise that to $9.00. But, back in 2008, candidate Obama vowed to fight for $9.50. I guess, somewhere along the way, he lost his incentive. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130731_gf_ObamaTaxCuts.mp3

More Stories

Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Eritrean Martyrs' Day
22 Jun 2022
Eritrea emerged as an independent nation after decades of struggle. It celebrates Martyrs' Day in honor of those who paid the ultimate price.
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Shanté Paradigm Smalls’s “Hip Hop Heresies”
22 Jun 2022
This week’s featured author is Shanté Paradigm Smalls. Smalls is Associate Professor of Black Studies in the Department of English and Faculty in Critical Race & Ethnic Studies at St. John’s…
Julie Varughese
Celebrations in Colombia’s Streets: Gustavo Petro to Be First Left-Wing President and Francia Márquez the First Afro-Descendant Woman VP
22 Jun 2022
The Historical Pact candidates Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez were elected President and Vice President of Colombia. Their victory is the first for leftists in that country but part of a trend in…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Poor Peoples’ March
22 Jun 2022
Roger D. Harris
Summit of the Americas Flops While Workers Summit Exposes Cracks in the Imperial Façade
22 Jun 2022
The U.S. effort to exert control at Summit of the Americas failed spectacularly. The Workers Summit of the Americas in Tijuana, Mexico showed the strength of people's movements around the world.