National Nurses United

RAD_March 2011 3/17/11 9:35 PM Page 9 Rose Ann DeMoro Executive Director, National Nurses United National Uprising The Wisconsin protests have inspired Americans to fight back and demand corporations and the super rich pay their fair share N urses from California to Florida to Maine watching the dramatic images unfolding daily in Madison and other state capitals have been quick to understand that this is not only one of those seminal moments in the history of democratic change in our nation, but a critical fight that affects everyone. It seems like only a few weeks since the policy wonks and pundits insisted that last November's elections had transformed politics in the U.S. and created a climate right out of the policy playbook of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. The rapid result was a series of bills to slash public programs and step up the shift of resources from working people to those who need it the least. The worst schemes were proposed by Republicans. But many Democrats, led by President Obama, joined right in, wanting to appear "bipartisan" and unwilling to challenge fundamental assumptions peddled by those in the media, the think tanks, and the board rooms about who was to blame for the economic crisis and what was needed to fix it. Then came Wisconsin. Gov. Scott Walker's agenda, on behalf of his Koch brothers sponsors and conservative ideologues, sparked a tidal wave now washing over not just Madison, but across the nation, as evident in new poll after poll. In Wisconsin, tens of thousands of working people slept in the Capitol and marched day after day in the sleet and snow, opening a door that will not be closed. Becoming the first group who stood collectively and said "no, not in our state," the Wisconsin 150,000, and counting, ripped apart the talking points so beloved in the Fox News echo chamber that "America is broke" and that unions are to blame. They are joined by scores of NNU members from Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, California, and Wisconsin, at the heart of new MARCH 2011 coalitions who carry our signs with messages like "Blame Wall Street, No Concessions, "No More Worker Cuts, Tax Corporate Profits," and "Some Cuts Don't Heal." The lines in Wisconsin are not drawn, they are exposed. A new script is being read, and is ringing, across the land. The banks have been robbing the people. Instead of prison, they get huge CEO bonuses. It wasn't workers exploiting tax loopholes or offshoring their bank accounts that plundered public treasuries. Worker pensions did not spark a meltdown on Wall Street. And all the talk today of "shared sacrifice" was just a cover for those politicians who want to accelerate the transfer of wealth from working people and the poor to Wall Street and the billionaires. Need revenue, the nurses and the other Madison protesters are increasingly saying? Stop balancing your budget on our backs, close the corporate loopholes, and make Wall Street and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share. Those are the themes rocking the streets today, messages resonating with people who have seen their incomes fall, their homes foreclosed, their 401(k) plans gutted, their medical bills go unpaid, and their neighborhood schools close. All while Washington hands new tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas and slash estate taxes for the yacht owners. The images, the disparities so stark even the Beltway pundits can't hide: Corporate taxes as a percent of the gross domestic product are at historical lows, while corporate profits per employee are the highest on record. At $1.6 trillion, third-quarter corporate profits were the highest ever recorded. Individuals now account for nearly five times the federal tax receipts as do corporations, numbers that were roughly equal when Ronald Reagan took office. W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G In state capitals, taxes on individuals produce about four times the revenues for states that corporations do. In Wisconsin, the ratio is about five to one. That's before Walker gave corporations a new $117 million in tax cuts in January, and proposed a 100 percent exclusion from capital gains taxes for some businesses in his latest budget. The average CEO who was paid $27 for every dollar earned by an employer 25 years ago now gets a ratio of about $275 to $1, while wages have fallen or stagnated for three decades. The top 1 percent of the population had 17.1 percent of total after-tax income in 2009, the highest figure for at least 30 years. What kind of difference would a shift in priorities make? NNU's research arm, the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, calculates that a one-time 14 percent surcharge on the super-rich would more than pay for the $1.6 trillion budget deficit projection for 2011, or support about 33.8 million households at the 2008 national median income level, or create 34 million badly needed jobs. Or consider this report from Make Wall Street Pay: Six financial giants, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley paid income tax at the rate of just 11 percent the last two years. Had they paid at 35 percent, the supposed corporate tax rate many politicians say is too high, the government would have collected $13 billion more in revenue, more than enough to pay the salaries of all the 132,000 teacher who lost their jobs the past two years. More people every day know what is at stake for working people to have a collective voice, a decent standard of living, and a more just society, and they are learning how to change the story. We may not win every immediate budget battle, but the ground is on fire, and the landscape is going to change. Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of National Nurses United. N AT I O N A L N U R S E 9

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