Why Reward Bad Corporate Behavior With More Tax Breaks?
By Jim Hightower

Here's a question for our Trumpestuous President and his Trumpeteers in Congress: "Why are you even considering giving more tax breaks to corporate giants?"

First, the self-serving corporate class is wallowing in wealth, greedily hoarding it in offshore tax shelters and stock-buyback schemes, refusing to invest it to benefit the vast majority of people they've been knocking down and holding down.

Second, you shouldn't give away our public treasury when our nation has a budget deficit and faces huge needs for public investment - from our deteriorating infrastructure to our disappearing middle class.

Third, our people's sense of equality and social unity has been severely fractured by 30 years of gross wealth inequality, so intentionally widening the wealth gap is criminally stupid... and dangerous.

Fourth, why would you think over-paid, over-pampered CEOs deserve more pampering? They've become imperious potentates who feel entitled to gouge, cheat, defraud, lie, and otherwise run over us commoners.

Consider Jeff Immelt, the recently retired imperious CEO of General Electric. Not only was he a frequent flyer on GE's corporate jets, but we now learn that he often took two jets at once! One carried him, while a second jet, called a "chase plane," followed right behind him. Number Two Jet carried no passengers or equipment, it was just a spare in case his royal highness needed it for... well for what? GE offers no reasonable answer, for there isn't one. Immelt says he never used the spare, but there it was tagging along behind him, costing GE shareholders thousands of dollars for every hour it flew.

This wasteful extravagance cost you and me, too, for GE got a tax deduction for every flight Jeff's chase plane made. Why would Trump & Company reward such outrageous corporate ripoffs with more tax breaks?
(c) 2017 Jim Hightower's latest book, "If The Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates," is available in a fully revised and updated paperback edition. Jim writes The Hightower Lowdown, a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by America's ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at HightowerLowdown.org.

The Best Way For Democrats To Show Their Disgust With Roy Moore Is By Going All-In For Doug Jones
Moore's past just caught up with him-and it could beat him.
By John Nichols

Democrats have in recent decades developed a spotty record of waging serious Senate races in what was once the party's "solid South." Since Strom Thurmond, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan lured the region to the Republican ballot line with coded messages that were intended to exploit the racial divisions that President Lyndon Johnson sought to address when he signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, it is no secret that Democrats have had a harder and harder time gaining traction in the states of the Deep South.

The party has not won a contest for an open Senate seat in the region for years. In many states, it has struggled to recruit credible candidates. Indeed, things were so bad in 2014 that it barely made an effort to defend its last incumbent in the region, then–Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, in the runoff election that ultimately turned her out of office. "They just walked away from this race," said Landrieu as she strove to retain a historically Democratic seat.

After Landrieu was defeated, a New York Times headline read: "Demise of the Southern Democrat Is Now Nearly Complete."

So when Alabama Democrats and supporters of the national party's old "50-state strategy" started arguing over the summer that Democrats needed to get serious about the race to fill the Alabama US Senate seat that had been vacated by the region's most lamentable contribution to the Trump cabinet-Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III-the notion was not universally embraced. Yes, the Democratic nominee for the seat was an impressive man: Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor with deep roots in the state and impeccable law-enforcement credentials. But was Alabama really ready to elect a candidate who proudly prosecuted the extremists who targeted abortion clinics and went after the racists who were responsible for the 1963 bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham?

Now, however, the Alabama seat is clearly in play; not because the state is veering left (even if the results of the recent mayoral race in Birmingham represent an encouraging embrace of progressivism) but because the Republicans nominated a horrible person as their candidate to fill the Sessions seat.

Judge Roy Moore was the worst of the worst-a lawless scoundrel who kept getting bumped off the state's high court-even before he was accused this week of molesting teenage girls. With the shocking news reports that Moore "made sexual or romantic overtures to [girls] when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s," national Republicans who retain a shred of conscience are calling for their party's nominee in Alabama's December 12 special election to quit the contest.

"If these allegations are true, he must step aside," Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said after The Washington Post published a story based on interviews with women who recalled the days when a 30-something Moore was on the prowl for young girls in the late 1970s and early '80s.

Moore is not about to quit this contest. This scandal-plagued candidate is used to being controversial, and he has trained Alabama Republicans to distrust not just the news media that report on him but also the Republican establishment that sometimes objects to him. Moore is going to keep on running, issuing carefully worded denials of his sordid past, echoing Donald Trump's talk about "fake news," and enjoying the support of prominent Republican officials like Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, who has offered a biblical defense of Moore: "Zechariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus."

"There's just nothing immoral or illegal here," drawls Zeigler. "Maybe just a little bit unusual."

On the chance that a silent majority of Alabama voters might think that what's going on with Moore is more than "just a little bit unusual," what was already a competitive race is going to become the most intense special election for a US Senate seat in years. It will matter even more because of the narrow divide within the Senate, where Republicans have the advantage but must wrestle with dissension within their caucus. The combination of factors could make the Alabama contest one of the most politically dynamic Senate special elections in decades-perhaps since the contest 60 years ago that flipped the late Senator Joe McCarthy's Wisconsin seat to insurgent Democrat Bill Proxmire, in a result that solidified Democratic control of the Senate and that moved the Senate Democratic Caucus to the left as the chamber was about to take final action on the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

At this point, national Democrats have to get serious about the Alabama contest. They can't play on the margins or hope to sneak up on Moore and the Republicans. This race is going to be a top news story from now until December 12. Moore will claim that Democrats in Washington are out to get him, no matter what Democrats in Washington do. So they might as well do something.

But what? Should they throw everything they've got into a campaign against Roy Moore? No, they should throw everything they've got into a campaign for Doug Jones.

The Democratic nominee for the Alabama Senate seat is a strikingly qualified and able contender. A former United States Attorney and onetime staff counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, he has decades of legal and political experience in Alabama. And Jones has a record of personal accomplishment and moral commitment that stands in stark contrast to Moore's dismal story.

The Democrat is best known for his efforts in the late 1990s and early 2000s to finally achieve a measure of justice in the case of the September 15, 1963, Birmingham bombing that left four little girls-Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Carol Denise McNair-dead in their church. Jones is credited with playing an essential role in winning murder convictions against two of the killers almost 40 years after the bombing-and after many other attempts to hold the racists to account had failed. Frequently honored for his work on not just civil-rights cases but also cases involving women's rights, workers' rights, and the environment, Jones is hailed by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author Diane McWhorter as "bold and aggressive, but also willing to take a risk to be on the right side of history."

Polls taken since the Republican runoff primary that nominated Moore have shown the race to be competitive. Moore's generally been ahead, but not generally by much. And the latest revelations, along with the prospect that there may be more trouble for the Republican, make this is going to be a real race in a deep-red state.

Jones said before the latest stories about Moore broke, "I think the people in this state are looking at themselves and are saying, 'we're tired of being embarrassed.'"

If Doug Jones is right about his native state's capacity for embarrassment, then Democrats in Alabama and across the country have every reason-and every responsibility-to make a major play for Alabama this fall. But that play should not be so focused on the embarrassment that is Roy Moore. It should be focused on telling Alabamans of all that Doug Jones has done to make them proud.
(c) 2017 John Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. His book on protests and politics, Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street, is published by Nation Books. Follow John Nichols on Twitter @NicholsUprising.

The College Trap
By James Donahue

There was a time not too many years ago when young people were encouraged to attend schools of higher learning so they could nab one of the many available opportunities in the American workplace. High schools were linked to specialized vocational schools so those lacking a desire for college could learn technical skills that filled the need for workers in their own communities. Colleges were cranking out engineers, physicians, mathematicians, teachers and a wide range of other skilled men and women to fill a tempting field of new opportunities.

When I attended college in the late 1950's both students and professors still clung to the old thinking that colleges and universities also taught higher levels of thought. We delved into philosophy, the arts and other aspects of higher learning. As a potential writer I studied proper grammar, the code of good journalism and read the works of the great authors of the past. What we were doing was considered an expansion of our personal perspective on the world.

What was grand in those days was that we could earn enough at summer jobs to cover our cost of tuition and books. Part-time work in and around campus helped us pay for room and board. Many of us graduated debt free.

That was then. So what has happened since? Non-stop war and a rising cost of new technology in building war machines appear to be a major factor. This has created a dramatic inflationary increase in the cost of everything. This is coupled with a world-wide competition for jobs, commerce and profit.

Needless to say the students have become the losers. Due to the extreme cost of tuition and the disappearance of middle-class families the quest by many of America's potentially gifted students to acquire a college degree has become a trap. Those who acquire even a four-year degree must find and maintain high-paying jobs for much of their lives to pay off the money they borrowed from the government's student loan program.

According to Wikipedia the total outstanding student loan balance now stands at nearly $1.4 trillion. And some 43 million Americans are now burdened with student loan debt with an average balance owned standing at $30,000 per student.

That might not be such a big issue except for three factors: There appears to be a shortage of good paying jobs so many college graduates find themselves struggling at minimum wage level positions and unable to pay off those monstrous debts. Also there is an accumulating interest rate that is constantly raising the balance owed. And federal law makes it impossible for student loan debt to be written off via bankruptcy.

College scholarships can be some assistance, but maintaining this financial assistance usually calls for demanding academic achievements that many students cannot meet. When this happens the scholarship is revoked.

Halah Touryalai, in a recent article for Forbes Magazine, noted that the student debt problem is the result of the rising cost of education and the relationship between the lenders and student borrowers. "Students without much of a credit score or credit history are being approved for thousands of dollars in loans by lenders who are betting they'll be able to pay it back after getting a college degree," Touryalai wrote.

But she added that "the wake-up call occurs after graduation when many students realize their loan debt exceeds any annual salary they're able to earn . . . if they can find a job, that is."

Touryalai wrote that about one-third of the millennials now say they would have been better off just taking whatever job they could find after high school instead of going to college.

Indeed, we have personally known physicians and lawyers who have privately admitted that they are forced to charge high prices for their services because they are burdened with both student loan debt and the high cost of liability insurance. Because they usually must remain in college for eight years or longer to acquire their degrees, their debt can more than double that of a graduate with a four-year degree. Consequently everyone who seeks professional services is caught up in the student indebtedness trap, either directly or indirectly.

The current interest rate on student loan debt ranges from 4.5 to 7 percent, depending on the level of learning that is being financed. Students seeking masters and doctoral level training are charged the higher interest. There also is a "loan fee" ranging from 1.06 to 4.27 percent withdrawn by the lender in each disbursement by the bank to the student. Thus the student never receives the full amount of the money loaned, but is responsible for paying the full amount back. These rates are set by an act of Congress. It will take an act of Congress to fix this problem.

Several attempts have been made to provide financial relief. President Barack Obama proposed tuition free junior college but that never got off the ground. Unsuccessful student loan reform bills in past years have flown through Congress but they never get on the floor for a vote. Now Senator Elizabeth Warren is carrying the torch for reform. With an extreme right-wing Republican-controlled House and Senate, however, Warren's efforts to get this issue fixed are also running into stone walls.

The economic consequences are being felt all across the board. Older Americans, still struggling to pay off those student loans, are staying in the workforce longer, making it harder for younger workers to fill those positions. Also workers burdened with delinquent student loan debt are showing low credit scores. Consequently they are unable to borrow to buy new cars and new homes. This is causing a chain reaction in an already sluggish economy.

Rich Rieder, Chief Investment Officer for BlackRock.Blog., noted in a recent report by the National Association of Realtors that over 70 percent of would-be first-time home buyers say student loan debt is stalling their decision to buy a home. The report noted that home ownership among college graduates by age 30 is much lower than ownership among workers who did not attend college.

While a college degree is still considered a must for ensuring good employment, many good students who cannot afford college without loans are discouraged from considering college. This is resulting in the possible loss of some of the best minds in the nation. It is looking more and more like college is available only for children of wealthy families rather than the finest students.

All of this is creating a worsening of the class divide that has resulted in the loss of the nation's Middle Class.

Rieder concluded in his report that "the growing student loan burden is a hardship for much more than just the borrowers. It's a major, long-term headwind to the broad U.S. economy that needs an elegant fiscal-policy solution, the sooner the better."
(c) 2017 James L. Donahue is a retired newspaper reporter, editor and columnist with more than 40 years of experience in professional writing. He is the published author of five books, all dealing with Michigan history, and several magazine articles.

We Need A Truly Grassroots Democratic Party: A Call for DNC Chair Tom Perez To Implement Findings Of #UnityReformCommission
Our job is to revitalize American democracy and bring millions of people into the political process who today do not vote and who do not believe that government is relevant to their lives.
By Bernie Sanders

In an email sent on Monday, November 6, 2017, Senator Bernie Sanders emphasized that we need to rebuild the Democratic Party. We need a Democratic Party that is as open, as inclusive, and as progressive as it can possibly be.

In the email, he also asked supporters to sign a petition calling on DNC Chairman Tom Perez to accept, support, and implement the findings of the Unity Reform Commission.

The text from the email in full follows:

Politics is not a baseball game, and it is not a soap opera.

People are hurting in this country, and our job is not to be distracted by political gossip and Donald Trump's tweets. Our job is to revitalize American democracy and bring millions of people into the political process who today do not vote and who do not believe that government is relevant to their lives. Our job is to create an economy and government that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent and wealthy campaign contributors.

Here's the problem: the strategy the Democratic Party has been pursuing in recent years has failed. Since 2009, Democrats have lost more than 1,000 seats in state legislatures across the country. Republicans now control the White House, 34 out of 50 governorships as well as the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. In dozens of states, the Democratic Party is virtually non-existent. Too much is at stake for our country and our people for us not to learn from our past failures and move forward in a way that makes the Democratic Party stronger so we can take on and beat Trump and the right-wing Republican agenda.

What the recently released book excerpt from former interim DNC Chair Donna Brazile made clear is that unless we get our act together, we are not going to be effective in either taking on Donald Trump or in stopping the extremist right-wing Republican agenda. We have to re-establish faith with the American people that in fact we can make positive changes in this country through a fair and transparent political process that reflects the will of voters across this country.

In order to do that, we need to rethink and rebuild the Democratic Party. We need a Democratic Party that opens its doors to new people, new energy and new ideas. We need a Democratic Party that is truly a grassroots party, where decisions are made from the bottom up, not from the top down. We need a Democratic Party which becomes the political home of the working people and young people of this country, black and white, Latino and Asian and Native American ... all Americans.

And we need to make it abundantly clear that the Democratic Party is prepared to take on the ideology of the Koch brothers and the billionaire class - a small group of people who are undermining American democracy and moving this country into an oligarchic form of society. YES. We will take on the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior of Wall Street, corporate America, the insurance industry, the drug companies, and the fossil fuel industry.

Now, what the Establishment (political, economic and media) wants us to believe is that real and fundamental changes in our society are impossible.

No. We cannot guarantee health care to all as a right. No. We cannot revitalize the trade union movement, raise the minimum wage to a living wage of $15 an hour and provide pay equity for women. No. We cannot effectively compete in the global economy by making public colleges and universities tuition-free. No. We cannot lead the world in combatting climate change and transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels. No. We cannot reform our broken criminal justice system or finally achieve comprehensive immigration reform.

They want us to think that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, a nation which has more income and wealth inequality than almost any nation on earth, the best that we can do is to accept tiny, incremental change.

I could not disagree more.

Right now, a Democratic National Committee Unity Reform Commission, comprised of people who supported our campaign, people who supported Secretary Clinton's campaign, and people appointed by DNC Chair Tom Perez are working on a set of policies that will determine the future direction of the Democratic Party. In many ways, this Unity Commission will determine whether the Party goes forward in a dynamic and inclusive way, or whether it retains the failed status quo approach of recent years. It will determine whether the Party will have the grassroots energy to effectively take on Donald Trump, the Republican Party and their reactionary agenda or whether we remain in the minority.

In my view, this Commission must:

* Make the Democratic Party more democratic and the presidential contests more fair by dramatically reducing the number of superdelegates who participate in the nominating process. It is absurd that in the last presidential primary over 700 superdelegates (almost one-third of the delegates a candidate needed to win the nomination) had the power to ignore the will of the people who voted in the state primaries and caucuses.

* Make primaries more open by ending the absurdity of closed primary systems with antiquated, arbitrary and discriminatory voter registration laws. Republicans are the ones who make it harder for people to vote, not Democrats. At a time when more and more people consider themselves to be Independents our job is to bring people into the Democratic Party process, not exclude them. It is incredibly undemocratic that in some states voters must declare their party affiliation up to six months before the primary election.

* Make it easier for working people and students to participate in state caucuses. While there is much to be said for bringing people together face-to-face in a caucus to discuss why they support the candidate of their choice, not everybody is able to attend those caucuses at the time they are held. A process must be developed that gives everyone the right to cast a vote even if they are not physically able to attend a state caucus.

* Make the DNC's budget and decision-making processes more open and transparent. If we are going to build a Party that relies on working people who are willing to give $5, $10 and $27 donations, they deserve to know where that money is going and how those decisions are made.

I look forward to following the progress of the Unity Reform Commission, and I urge Chairman Tom Perez and the entire Democratic National Committee to develop policies which move the Democratic Party forward in a very different direction - a direction that will lead us to national and statewide victories. It's important that you do the same:

Please sign the petition calling on the Democratic National Committee and Chairman Tom Perez to accept, support and implement policies which make the Democratic Party more inclusive, more democratic and more transparent.

Right now, our job is to come together, and not be distracted by the political gossip and drama of the moment. We must fight President Trump's destructive efforts to divide us up by the color of our skin, our gender, our religion, our sexual orientation or our country of origin. We must rally the American people to oppose Trump's proposal to provide massive tax giveaways to billionaires while taking away the health care that millions now have.

But we must also make it clear - if we are going to elect Democrats who will move us forward as a country - that we must institute long-needed reforms in the Democratic Party. When we do that, we will not only create a dynamic and progressive party, we will be able to transform our nation and create a government that represents all of us, not just the people on top.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders
(c) 2017 Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006 after serving 16 years in the House of Representatives. He is the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history. Elected Mayor of Burlington, Vt., by 10 votes in 1981, he served four terms. Before his 1990 election as Vermont's at-large member in Congress, Sanders lectured at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and at Hamilton College in upstate New York. Read more at his website. Follow him on Twitter: @SenSanders or @BernieSanders