By Steve D'Amico
As the story goes, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked, “Well, doctor, what have we got – a republic or a monarchy?” His response was, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Our republic is today threatened by a concentration of wealth and power that is unprecedented in our history. More than nineteen perc****ent of all income in 2007 went to the top one half of one percent, three times what it was thirty years prior. For most families things have gotten worse. They have less disposable income with two breadwinners than in 1977, when one income was the norm.
The growing income divide is driven by the unrestrained role of money in politics. It produces tax laws that favor the rich so that people like Mitt Romney are taxed at half the rate that most of us are. It allows General Electric to receive a $3.2 billion tax refund while paying no taxes on $14.2 billion in profits. It produces trade agreements that reward companies like Apple (now American's richest corporation) for offshoring nearly all of its production (and jobs) to China where workers, who are little more than indentured servants, labor in dangerous factories subsidized by the Chinese government. It allows the tycoons of Wall Street to reap billions in bonuses while wrecking our economy. It produces rules that make it harder for workers to defend themselves by joining together in unions. And it delivers a corporate-friendly Supreme Court that renders rulings like Citizens United.
The Citizens United decision allows corporations and the wealthy to spend as much as they like to influence elections. It's not a fundamental change, really – the system's been rigged for a long time. But it does make it a lot easier for our economic elite to have their way.
There is a resolution now before the Massachusetts Senate that addresses this issue. Introduced by Senator Jamie Eldridge, Senate Res. 772 calls on Congress to send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to limit the role of corporations and money in our electoral system. There is a nationwide effort to make this happen, led by groups like Move to Amend, Free Speech For People and ReclaimDemocracy.org.
The resolution had a public hearing at the State House recently. You may want to call or write your State Senator and State Representative and ask them to convey your support to the Senate President and House Speaker.
As Chief Justice Louis Brandeis once said, “We can either have a democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.” Which will it be?
Mr. D'Amico is a Local 888 Regional Representative. He was a former state legislator for the 4th Bristol District.