If an earthquake had struck the United States, causing the loss of 7 million jobs, it would never occur to any politician that the emergency response to the disaster would be to empty the nation’s treasury and give somewhere between $9 trillion and $11 trillion to the richest bankers. A response like that would bring the wrath of the people and ignite a firestorm of opposition.
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According to President Barack Obama, in his “State of the Union” speech on Jan. 28, about 7 million workers have indeed lost their jobs in a very short amount of time—but not because of any earthquake, hurricane or other natural disaster. They lost their jobs because of the actions of those same richest bankers and an economic system that only functions by putting private profit ahead of social needs.
In his address, President Obama said that the economy would be his top focus. He criticized the bankers and explained that the people of this country “don’t understand why it seems like bad behavior on Wall Street is rewarded, but hard work on Main Street isn’t.”
The speech made it sound like someone else had been president for the last year. But it was his administration, following in the footsteps of the Bush administration, rewarding the banks for their “bad behavior.” His administration has not altered by one cent the $11.6 trillion pledged to the biggest banks and insurance companies in a combination of cash infusions and loan guarantees.
Millions believed Obama was elected to be the leader of “the people” as a whole. In fact, he was elected to lead the capitalist state and enact policy in the interests of the capitalist class. That is the nature of the job, regardless of who is elected.
The statistics are now in. Six million workers have no income other than food stamps. Forty million people live below the official poverty line, which is 5 million more than a year ago. There are currently 91 million people who make twice the official poverty line—$21,000 in combined income for a family of four. In reality, all of those 91 million are also in poverty.
While personal bankruptcy skyrocketed by 32 percent last year because workers lost jobs, homes and medical coverage, there was no bailout whatsoever for these individuals.
These working-class families apparently were not “too big to fail” in the eyes of either the Bush or the Obama administration. The Democrats, now in power, did not even push to pass the simplest and most meager of reforms—changing bankruptcy laws and mortgage regulations to allow more families to stay in their homes.
President Obama has it within his power to take “emergency action” for working-class families just as Congress had emergency authority to infuse the banks with cash and credit when they could not pay their bills. President Obama refused to make any such pledge in his address. Oratory, of even the most soaring type, does not put food on the table, nor does it turn the lights back on in the homes of millionswho have been plunged into unemployment as a result of the bankers’ greed and theft.
To the contrary, the president announced he was going in the opposite direction, calling for a complete budget freeze on all discretionary funding except for the military and Homeland Security. Comparing the country to a “cash-strapped family,” he said “we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don’t.”
Obama’s budget freeze would mean no increases in spending for housing and rent subsidies, job training programs and education, among hundreds of other programs that help working-class families survive. This terrible policy, coming from the very top, also serves as a signal for state and local governments to follow suit. At most, it will save $20 billion—an amount the government spends every 6 weeks on the criminal wars abroad.
This country is not cash-strapped—the bailouts and the wars prove that—and it certainly is no family! What kind of family would allow one person to hoard everything and live in luxury, while others worry about securing their next meal?
There is in fact a type of economy that runs like a family, where we prioritize first to meet each member’s basic needs and from there spend resources to make sure everyone rises together. That is called socialism.
