THE ANSWER TO ALL YOUR QUESTIONS:
Tony Kornheiser, sports commentator and former columnist for the Washington Post, often quotes former NBC executive and producer of numerous sports programs Don Ohlmeyer: “The answer to all your questions is money.” Now Ohlmeyer might have meant “money” in the context of sports — If you’re talking about sports, the answer to all your questions is money. Why does the NFL, for example, dripping with sincerity about player safety and longevity, extend the season to 17 games, thereby prolonging the season and endangering players’ health and safety? M-O-N-E-Y. Why host the Olympics when Japan is suffering from a Covid surge and fans are banned from the stands? M-O-N-E-Y. NBC cannot be denied.
On the other hand, Ohlmeyer might have intended his comment universally. Regardless of the context, the answer is always money. Ohlmeyer was, I think, on to something.
Consider our culture: Why does a sizable segment of the US population resist receiving the Covid vaccine? Why do they mistrust science and doctors, but believe talking heads on Fox? They do so, because Fox recapitulates for their audience the viewpoints expressed on social media, especially on Facebook. What, in turn, drives Facebook to provide users with misinformation and lies; what leads them to trap those users with one click in spiraling rabbit holes of baseless conspiracies? M-O-N-E-Y, through increased clicks.
Or how about law and order: Why did no Wall Street executives go to prison for their actions that caused the economic meltdown in 2008? Why did no Wells Fargo top executives go to jail for committing fraud when Wells Fargo created millions of dummy checking and savings accounts for unsuspecting customers? M-O-N-E-Y. The bank settled with federal prosecutors.
Why did none of the top executives at Purdue Pharma, why did none of the Sackler family, go to prison when the company pled guilty for their role in the OxyContin opioid epidemic? That’s right: M-O-N-E-Y. They, too, settled with prosecutors. The Sacklers made $11 billion peddling drugs that killed over 100,000 people. Unlike street-corner peddlers, the Sacklers could afford to spend $50 million on lawyers.
Purdue Pharma wasn’t alone. The major opioid distributors, along with drug manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, paid a $26 billion settlement. That amount seems like quite a sting to the opioid operation. It isn’t. The companies make $26 billion every two weeks.
Of course, politics is no different. The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, paid no federal income taxes in 2007 and 2011. Elon Musk, the second wealthiest person in America, paid none in 2018. Fifty-five of the largest corporations in America paid no federal corporate income taxes in 2020. Instead, they received $3.5 billion in tax rebates and enjoyed almost $40.5 billion in pretax income. Dozens of companies, including Nike, FedEx, and Dish Network, have paid NO federal taxes for three straight years.
Three straight years is nothing. This scheme has been going on for decades, since the Reagan Administration’s tax-cutting joyride. Political cronies made it so through such laws as the 2017 Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).
Now under Democratic control, Congress has an opportunity to rectify some of this. But Republicans like Ron Portman and Joni Ernst are blocking increased funds to the IRS to crack down on tax cheats. Why? After all, it seems like a bargain to pay $80 billion to restore IRS enforcement to recover $700 billion in taxes that were never paid, to say nothing of preventing a recurrence of losing $10 billion in taxes over the past three years from 300 rich Americans who simply never filed a return. The IRS didn’t have the personnel to do anything about this.
Why would Portman or anyone oppose going after tax evaders, when some estimates put the “tax gap” — that is, taxes owed but never paid — as high as $500 billion per year? These aren’t people exercising legitimate tax loopholes. These are tax cheats.
Likewise, why would corporate Democrats like Rep. Scott Peters want to block Speaker Pelosi’s drug-pricing bill? Why do Peters and other centrist Democrats oppose having the government negotiate drug prices? Again, ladies and gentlemen, it’s about M-O-N-E-Y. Look to see in this example, in the IRS enforcement example, in all such examples, which lobbying groups back these senators and representatives.
Lobbying is a rock-solid political institution. For example, AT&T aggressively lobbied Congress on behalf of the Trump tax cuts. The company promised that the cuts would create 7,000 new jobs and that they would invest $1 billion in capital expenditures. The tax cut passed. AT&T saved an estimated $21 billion, plus $3 billion per year on lower corporate taxes. Unfortunately, AT&T couldn’t create 7,000 new jobs. But they could, and did, cut more than 42,000 jobs and then permanently closed hundreds of retail stores.
Must I go on? The short of it is: If you have enough money, you can buy favors in a system already skewed to favor the rich. Here’s a thumbnail of how our political system operates far too frequently: A company’s founder — let’s call the company, oh, I don’t know, Emergent BioSolutions — donates close to $800,000 to Republican candidates and organizations, and his company spends an average of $3 million per year on lobbying Congress.
During our Covid upheaval, BioSolutions is awarded a $628 million contract to manufacture Covid vaccines. Unfortunately, the company failed to produce a single usable dose; worse, the company ruined 15 million doses. Nevertheless, in 2020, BioSolutions’s stocks soared, permitting the founder to cash in options and stock worth over $42 million and earning the CEO a 51 percent bonus.
In addition, those with enough money can demand of those without much money their time and effort, but often at unreasonable rates. Consider, for instance, this bit of grotesquery: The NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks — a team, like most NBA teams, owned by billionaires, a team worth $1.63 billion, and a team that brings in $240 million annually — sought out volunteers to sell concessions during playoff games at a pay rate of $0 per hour.
I am sorry, deeply sorry, to conclude that, contra Abraham Lincoln, we are not a nation “of the people, for the people, and by the people.” We are a nation of the corporation, for the corporation, and buy the corporation. Even before Lincoln’s time, Alexis de Tocqueville, the great chronicler of our fledgling democracy, observed that America, lacking an aristocratic elite, looked for ways to generate a status hierarchy. The great differentiator of status, as you have surely already surmised, was then and is now M-O-N-E-Y, an oligarchy run by wealthy white men.
In all aspects of our society, personal and corporate gain, especially short-term gain, overrides the general welfare. Perhaps money cannot be removed or even mitigated in our private cultural and athletic domains. But until money is out of our politics, individual donors, corporations, their lobbyists, and those they influence will determine what, if anything, is accomplished to further our common good. I’m guessing it won’t be much, only what can trickle down the oligarchy, which for all but most Republicans and corporate Democrats is still too white and too male.
