Opinion: U.S. democracy is a victim as the middle class fades away
Financial insecurity directly leads to disengagement with politics
Pew Research Center While the billionaires and millionaires have more political clout than at any time in the past 100 years, those at the bottom who are scraping to survive are increasingly disconnected from political life.
Big money sets the agenda, affects how the campaign develops, and shapes how particular people and policy problems get defined.”Five years after the Supreme Court legalized unlimited spending on political campaigns, the takeover of the Republican Party by the Koch brothers and other billionaires is nearly complete. The Kochs have announced that they and their network of wealthy donors will spend nearly $900 million in the 2016 election, nearly as much as the two parties will spend.
The Kochs and other billionaires couldn’t buy the 2012 presidential election, in part because Mitt Romney couldn’t disguise the fact that he was a plutocrat himself. But they had much more success in the 2010 and 2014 off-year elections, where their money went a long way toward electing a very conservative, Republican-controlled Congress.
Big money can’t always buy the outcome it desires. But as the Brookings Institution’s Darrell West writes: “During a time of rising campaign costs and limited public engagement in the political process, big money sets the agenda, affects how the campaign develops, and shapes how particular people and policy problems get defined.”
“Billionaire activism very well could tilt a close election in favor of conservative interests,” West concludes.
The story of billionaires and politics is nothing new. What’s less appreciated is how little power is wielded by those at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Conservative thought is haunted by Tocqueville’s prediction that unfettered democracy will inevitably bankrupt a nation because the majority will vote for ever-larger welfare benefits for themselves that are paid for by a minority of wealthy taxpayers. As more people depend on government, they’ll vote themselves higher and higher benefits until most people are sponging off the few remaining taxpayers. Collapse ensues.
That nightmare is far from reality. In fact, those who are most dependent on government benefits are the least likely to vote, while the people most likely to participate in politics are those who feel financially secure without the helping hand of food stamps, Medicaid and TANF.
According to the Pew Research Center, voter turnout in 2014 for the one-fifth of the population who were most financial secure was about 63%, and turnout was 51% for the next most-secure fifth. But participation dropped off sharply for other groups. Turnout fell to just 20% for the 60 million people who are most financially insecure.
We can’t have citizens who are fully engaged politically unless we also have citizens who are fully engaged economically.
The people who could, theoretically, vote themselves bigger welfare checks don’t actually vote. Meanwhile, the people who want other things from government, such as low taxes on capital income, or easy regulations on the coal companies and banks that they own, are heavily engaged in the political process, from giving money to voting to meeting directly with officials.
Support for the Republican Party followed a familiar pattern: The most financially secure fifth were the most likely to vote Republican (49% of this group favored Republicans, while 42% favored Democrats). Support for the GOP fell as financial security faded; just 17% of the least financially secure supported the Republicans in 2014. That matches what most people think: The rich are more likely to be Republicans.
But contrary to conventional wisdom, poor people are not more likely to support Democrats than rich people are. Nearly equal numbers — about 40% to 43% — of every quintile supported Democrats in 2014.
Democrats lost the congressional election in 2014 not because they had less support, but because their supporters — many of them in the working class or in poverty — didn’t vote.
This isn’t just a complaint that Democrats didn’t get the vote out; it’s an observation that participation in politics and civic life declines sharply as people suffer from financial stress. If the middle class can’t find some greater security (such as higher incomes, better job prospects and greater opportunities for their children to get ahead), they’ll begin to behave more and more like the very poor, who are hardly engaged at all.
That would be bad for our democracy, because it would mean that the views of the wealthy and their allies in the management class would hold even greater sway in Washington, state capitols and city halls. Already, our politicians pay far more attention to the concerns of the wealthy. That’s why our political class obsesses about deficits while unemployment lingers, and why efforts to address climate change are blocked. It’s why we can’t reform a tax break that primarily benefits people who make over $200,000.
And that’s why we see these conservative groups working overtime to make it harder to vote, even as they celebrate their own freedom to buy elections. And that’s why they rejoice when gridlock in Washington discourages more people from believing in the power of collective action.
The disengagement of the middle class could pose an even greater threat. People who are disengaged from politics are more susceptible to being persuaded by demagogues who take advantage of their anger and ignorance.
Our democracy needs informed and engaged citizens of all stripes. But it seems that we can’t have citizens who are fully engaged politically unless we also have citizens who are fully engaged economically.
Support for the Republican Party followed a familiar pattern: The most financially secure fifth were the most likely to vote Republican (49% of this group favored Republicans, while 42% favored Democrats). Support for the GOP fell as financial security faded; just 17% of the least financially secure supported the Republicans in 2014. That matches what most people think: The rich are more likely to be Republicans.
But contrary to conventional wisdom, poor people are not more likely to support Democrats than rich people are. Nearly equal numbers — about 40% to 43% — of every quintile supported Democrats in 2014.
Democrats lost the congressional election in 2014 not because they had less support, but because their supporters — many of them in the working class or in poverty — didn’t vote.
This isn’t just a complaint that Democrats didn’t get the vote out; it’s an observation that participation in politics and civic life declines sharply as people suffer from financial stress. If the middle class can’t find some greater security (such as higher incomes, better job prospects and greater opportunities for their children to get ahead), they’ll begin to behave more and more like the very poor, who are hardly engaged at all.
That would be bad for our democracy, because it would mean that the views of the wealthy and their allies in the management class would hold even greater sway in Washington, state capitols and city halls. Already, our politicians pay far more attention to the concerns of the wealthy. That’s why our political class obsesses about deficits while unemployment lingers, and why efforts to address climate change are blocked. It’s why we can’t reform a tax break that primarily benefits people who make over $200,000.
And that’s why we see these conservative groups working overtime to make it harder to vote, even as they celebrate their own freedom to buy elections. And that’s why they rejoice when gridlock in Washington discourages more people from believing in the power of collective action.
The disengagement of the middle class could pose an even greater threat. People who are disengaged from politics are more susceptible to being persuaded by demagogues who take advantage of their anger and ignorance.
Our democracy needs informed and engaged citizens of all stripes. But it seems that we can’t have citizens who are fully engaged politically unless we also have citizens who are fully engaged economically.
Obama Quietly Adds 5.46 Million Foreigners To Economy
ReplyDelete12:22 PM 02/02/2015
Neil Munro
White House Correspondent
President Barack Obama has quietly handed out an extra 5.46 million work permits for non-immigrant foreigners who arrived as tourists, students, illegal immigrants or other types of migrants since 2009, according to federal documents released by a Freedom of Information Act request.
“The executive branch is operating a huge parallel work-authorization system outside the bounds of the [immigration] laws and limits written by Congress [and which] inevitably reduces job opportunities for Americans,” said Jessica Vaughan, the policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, while filed the FOIA request.
“The true magnitude of how often he has evaded the limits set by Congress on foreign workers has never been known until now,” she told The Daily Caller.
“If Congress wants to take back control of our immigration system, it needs to control the issuance of work permits, which have been the vehicle for Obama to get around the [legal] limits on immigration and work visas imposed by Congress,” she said.
On Tuesday, senators will vote for or against a budget measure that would sharply limit Obama’s ability to award another five million work permits to illegals via the Department of Homeland Security. Obama promised to hand out the next five million work permits as part of his unpopular November 2014 executive amnesty, which also largely ends efforts to repatriate the 12 million illegals living in the United States.
Fewer than 10 percent of Americans want a greater flow of immigrants, according to a new Gallup poll.
If Obama’s November amnesty survives court review and weak opposition from GOP leaders, he’ll have added more foreign workers than jobs to the economy since 2009.
Obama’s aides claim he has added 10 million jobs to the economy since 2009.
But Obama’s quiet award of five million work permits, plus his November amnesty, will have added roughly 10 million foreign workers to the economy by the end of 2015. The influx adds to the normal inflow of 1 million immigrants per year and the standing population of 2 million white-collar and blue-collar guest workers.
So 18 million foreign students and workers — including many university-trained workers — have jumped into the U.S. economy since Obama was inaugurated in 2009.
The 18 million is almost level with the roughly 24 million young Americans who have turned 18 and joined the work force in the six years since 2009. In effect, Obama has given employers the option to hire a government subsidized foreigner in place of roughly one-in-two Americans who have graduated since 2009.
That’s a great deal for employers, because the foreign workers are indirectly subsidized by the government. The subsidy is the government’s promise of citizenship to many workers if they gain and hold jobs sought by Americans, plus the many aid and welfare programs that are provided to all low-income workers.
In June 2013, the Congressional Budget Office said a large influx of migrants would stall wages and spur Wall Street profits.
DeleteThe influx of foreign workers coincides with a steady drop in the percentage of Americans who are working or seeking work.
In mid-2007, roughly 66.5 percent of Americans older than 16 were working. Since then, it has declined steadily, and is now just under 63 percent. The decline means that roughly 5 million Americans have dropped out of the workforce, and are not even trying to find work.
In November 2014, one in every five U.S. jobs was held by a foreign-born worker, up from one in six jobs in January 2010, according to federal data highlighted by the Center for Immigration Studies.
The data shows that Obama’s efforts have provided work permits to 54,495 tourists in 2009, and 126,998 work permits to tourists in 2014.
His deputies gave work permits to 68,220 students in 2009, and to 147,373 students in 2014. This increase likely includes work-permits for foreign college graduates, said Vaughan.
Officials provided work permits to 68,374 illegals in 2009, to 374,517 illegals in 2013 and 158,194 illegals in 2014.
That category includes more than 650,000 younger illegals who were given work permits after June 2014 under the so-called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It also includes work-permits for many of the 50,000-plus Central American adults and youths who crossed the border in the summer of 2014.
Overall, 690,459 work-permits were given to 50 categories of foreigners in 2009, Obama’s first year. That number rose to 1,034 million in 2014, yielding a cumulative total of 5.46 million during Obama’s tenure.
The new numbers are only for first-time awards, not work-permit extensions.
Most of the work-permits are temporary — but they can be extended until a court decides to repatriate a foreign worker. The court backlog is now so great that it takes five years or more for a court to decide whether an illegal should be repatriated, said Vaughan.
Officials “can call it a temporary status, but it is effectively indefinite,” she said.
“That’s why this is such a huge incentive to game the system… [because illegals] they know they can get a work permit [and] it takes a long time to resolve the case,” she said.
Yeah William it is all the fault of the immigrant, how could I not see that. The republican protection of the well to do through tax breaks etc couldn't have anything to do with it. Two brothers who are spending like a third political party and slowly buying up our government by supporting people only with their narrow views could not have any effect on our economy. You are so right William it's all the immigrants fault.
DeleteI would attempt to educate you about supply and demand in the labor market if I thought it would do any good. I would attempt to explain how the Federal Reserve has propped up the administration with the results being that people with equity benefited if I thought it would do any good. I would delve into the reasons that the average family income has fallen under this administration if I thought it would do any good.
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DeleteI would explain to you that incomes have fallen since the 70's, accelerating during the 80's but it would do no good. I would tell you how your assumption that people vote democrat just for free things is wrong but it would do no good. You see you can't get any new thoughts into that thick narrow mind of yours to go in any deeper then your eyebrows. You are so sure that you are right about everything and you are right about nothing. You only know what you have been told by the talking heads you listen too. Why not try an original thought for once William so we can have a sustainable conversation. Here's why because facts hurt and you can't respond to facts with proven facts. All you have here is a bunch of talking point opinions and allegations opined by someone who's shit you WANT to hear so you close your mind to everything else. Prove there are 5 million immigrants with brand new work permits. you don't because you can't you can't because it isn't true. If it is send some my way my American cooks can't hold a candle to them in work ethic.
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