The austerity mania that plagued our political system for four years is finally subsiding. The latest sign is President Barack Obama’s decision to nix the Social Security cuts he had previously included in his budget proposal.
This was a body blow to the most powerful pro-austerity force in Washington — the Fix the Debt campaign. Starting in 2012, this fake grassroots — or “astroturf” — organization had deployed more than 100 CEOs to try to persuade the nation that our economic survival depended on expanding tax breaks for big corporations and slashing earned benefit programs.
Fix the Debt once boasted a budget of $40 million. Today, it’s shedding staff and going into hibernation, having failed to win any of their top priorities.
For the past two years, my organization, the Institute for Policy Studies, has exposed the absurd hypocrisy of the CEOs at the helm of Fix the Debt. First we pointed out that many of them lead companies that have used tax havens to avoid paying their fair share to Uncle Sam. That’s a blatantly counterproductive maneuver for anyone on a mission to “fix the debt.”
Then we documented that Fix the Debt members stood to gain as much as $173 billion from corporate tax breaks they were advocating. All that money, of course, would be redirected away from public coffers — thereby causing the debt to grow. We even showed how taxpayers actually subsidize the pay of these pro-austerity CEOs.
And finally, we calculated that the corporate titans fighting to cut grandma’s Social Security had personal pensions 1,200 times larger than what typical U.S. workers can count on. Honeywell CEO David Cote, for example, had the gall to lecture Americans about tightening their belts while he was sitting on a $134 million retirement nest egg.
This research fed into creative actions by authentic grassroots groups, such as National People’s Action, the Center for Community Change, and Social Security Works. They took the battle against austerity to the streets and into the district offices of congressional representatives. The Center for Media and Democracy and other savvy bloggers blasted the phony deficit crisis in social media.
Our message overpowered Fix the Debt’s mega-million PR campaign. Particularly as the economy started a slight uptick, polls showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans opposed any Social Security cuts.
Fix the Debt and their allies won’t be laying low forever. But we now have a huge opportunity to shift the national focus from austerity to investment in jobs, infrastructure, and other programs that matter to all of us.
In the richest country in the world, we have the resources to make our economy work for everyone. We just need the political will to reallocate some of our abundant resources. Let’s get started by cutting wasteful Pentagon spending and subsidies for oil, gas, and coal.
And by making our tax system more fair.
It won’t be easy. But remember, big money doesn’t always win in Washington.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
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