First, a heads-up — I’m unable to access my blog from the office today. Technical glitch. I’m writing this on my iPad, which itself is awkward. The iPad is connecting to the blog using my phone as a hotspot. Anyway, don’t expect to see much from me today, beyond short responses typed on my phone…
Sen. Katrina Shealy, who was elected 1st vice chair of the state GOP Saturday, got fairly ticked off over her governor’s tirade against most Republicans in the Legislature, and expressed her irritation on Facebook.
I was unable to find the original post, so she may have taken it down. But someone saved the screenshot you see above.
later in the day, she expressed her concerns somewhat more calmly, as follows:
Today I was very upset when I felt like Governor Haley called out the Legislature during her Speech at the 2015 SCGOP Convention. Because it is the right thing to do I will apologize for getting as angry as I did – I don’t apologize for feeling that this is a time when the Republican Party needs to be pulling together and finding common ground instead of finding ways to alienate each other. There are many serious issues before this state. We have 124 House Members, 46 Senators and 1 Governor – we needless to say do not all agree but that does not make us all wrong. As I have said before and I will say again if you expect people to agree with you all the time or not ever have an idea different from you, you need to talk to yourself. You are also going to eventually be very lonely! We have really tried over the last months to pull together and work out issues that are difficult and because of my way or no way attitudes in the House, Senate and yes the Governors Office we can’t. The word compromise isn’t a terrible word – really! I think Governor Jim Edwards used it very effectively. Maybe we need to take a page from his playbook!
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As closely as I watch this stuff, I couldn’t figure out why some legislators were omitted from Haley’s list. I can understand the annoyance shown in Shealy’s original post, but it is the second one that is really commendable.
And speaking of the vote on the transportation bill special order, it brought to mind the comments that I’ve read about the horror of CEO’s lobbying for passage and being ignored by those who voted against special order. It reminded me of the new study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I Page of Princeton, titled “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” that is getting considerable press. The authors examined 1,779 policy issues and found a strong dominance by business interests, to the point that there are serious implications for our government. It is on-line and worth reading.
Whether it’s called “Economic-Elite Domination” or just plain ole-fashioned plutocracy, I ain’t the least bit surprised.
“Oligarchy” has been the term most often used in the press.
Robber barons….
Who are these robber barons, and what are they stealing?
What I see increasingly is business being ignored, and populist/libertarian/nihilists like the folks Nikki plays to (the NO to everything crowd, the people who believe they are islands, separate unto themselves) getting their way instead.
Lynn, don’t you think that if lawmakers were kowtowing to business, we’d have had a gas tax increase some time ago?
The platform of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce is quite wonderful, and the Democrats should jump on board now that the Republicans have jumped off, Haley-style. The Democrats got the nod from the SC Chamber for Sheheen in 2010, but then lost it for 2014. A not unimportant note is that Gov. Haley’s former chief of staff Ted Pitts is President and CEO of the SC Chamber.
Well, not to get too wonkish here, but “plutocracy” is a subset of “oligarchy” and while the latter means simply rule by a small (but undefined) elite (which may explain why the press prefers it — for its lack of definition), the former defines that elite as the wealthy. So I’ll stick with “plutocracy,” since that term appears pretty much synonymous with the “economic-elite domination” referenced in the report. But since I expect some will still quibble with the extent of wealth’s power, let’s just call it “plutocracy light.”
Was Obamacare an initiative driven by the plutocracy? If so, why were Democrats so willing to embrace it? A bill that impacts 1/6 of the U.S. economy would surely be of interest to the plutocracy, wouldn’t it? And noble Democrats fighting every day for the little guy would be sure to not allow
How about our foreign policy? Which members of the phantom plutocracy are driving that policy?
There is no plutocracy. What we have is a government run bureaucracy that allows lobbyists to influence politicians to enact laws that line the pockets of both sides. Those lobbyists represent all sorts of groups on both sides of the imaginary line- defense contractors, unions, Wall Street bankers, farmers, “green” energy producers, frackers. Each group gets their own slice of pork…
Even righteous and pure Bernie Sanders continues to make sure to slice off a slab of bacon for Vermont off the manufacture of the F-35 bomber – despite stating the bomber is a prime example of wasteful spending.
Meanwhile, evil billionaire plutocrats like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are spending their own money to address problems like disease, hunger, and education…
“But since I expect some will still quibble with the extent of wealth’s power, let’s just call it ‘plutocracy light.’”
We love Plutocracy Light! It’s less filling, but still tastes great!
Brad, First, I’d suggest reading the Princeton study — news reports say “oligarchy” but the study itself is much more nuanced, for example noting that not everything is a zero sum game in which only one player wins. That aside, I don’t think I’m likely to fear that big business is being shortchanged. A lot of the money that goes to government social programs goes to workers who make so little that they can’t live on their incomes, while corporate profits boom. We are subsidizing their corporate owners, not them. Congress can’t bring itself to make even obvious changes like taxing hedge fund managers’ income as income rather than as deferred interest. Locally, the city gives huge tax breaks to student housing developments that would be built anyway. The state hands massive subsidies to Boeing and other companies. I’d agree that the populist/libertarians are gumming up the works and slowing things down, but they aren’t actually getting much of their agenda enacted. I’d still say that the Princeton study rings true overall.
Well, in truth, no one is getting much of anyone’s agenda enacted. Which is good for anyone who likes the status quo. In that sense, I suppose a sort of pure conservatism — read as resistance to change — reigns.
We’ve had this discussion before, but I’d rather see government influenced by hard-minded, pragmatic business types (the Thomas Cromwells, if you will, since I’m watching “Wolf Hall”) than the ideologues who are grounded in nothing but their absolute certainty in theory. (I don’t suppose “Wolf Hall” actually had the equivalent of today’s ideologues, unless you count Tyndale, Luther, et al. — all those people fighting over doctrine. Today, the doctrines are more about money than about God — from the anti tax folk on the right to the soak-the-rich types on the left. I find both factions to be terrible bores.)
Also, there’s an important distinction that progressives often fail to make. Years ago, someone with the state Chamber said dismissively of the Policy Council that it was set up by people who had made their pile and wanted to protect it from taxes and didn’t give a damn whether anyone ELSE ever made money. As opposed to Chamber types who are still engaged in business and want to be successful, and therefore care about infrastructure and a trained workforce, care about an economically vibrant society in which people can afford their goods.
Progressives tend to lump the two categories together…
You are quite right that there are distinct groups. I don’t lump them. Yes, active businesspeople support infrastructure development and development of an educated workforce. I find the “educated workforce” notion disturbingly short of “educated citizen,” but it is still a good thing. Their “infrastructure development” too often includes things that are wildly expensive, damaging to the environment, and not legitimate statewide priorities like pushing 526 onto Johns Island to open up that area and Wadmalaw to become overdeveloped suburbs, but again, we need their pressure to repair and improve our existing roads.
There are other ways in which their contributions are not entirely positive. The Chamber of Commerce has taken little interest in ethics reform in state government, and the public comments that they have made are quietly discouraging. This is not surprising from a group that includes those corporations once named by Governor Haley’s attorney as among those that pay “consulting fees” to legislators. The current system often works for them.
In short, yes, people who are actively involved in business support many things that contribute to the public good. They also support others that serve their own interests, but not necessarily those of the whole community and state.
The libertarians also make some useful points. The system of massive bribes to bring in companies (which, after all, must locate somewhere if they are to make money for their owners) deserves questioning. I don’t doubt that we sometimes do receive substantial public benefit, but reports suggest that often we do not. Where is the cost-benefit analysis that says that taxpayers are getting their money’s worth? The process is so secretive that we never know. I have a lot of differences with the libertarians, certainly with their frequent claim that nothing about government has any redeeming value. However, they too have a legitimate public role.
In any case, returning to the Princeton study, they make the point that not everything is zero sum, and that there are areas in which the interests of business and society as a whole coincide closely. There are areas in which they do not. The study is a careful and considered exploration of the nature of influence on our government and well worth reading.
On a related note, as someone involved in the area of elections, what’s your reaction to recent disturbing comments by the chair of the FEC, who’s apparently thrown up her hands, declaring it practically impossible now to combat election abuses.
My reaction is dismay. It is extremely disturbing, although not altogether surprising. There are simply a lot of people who have an interest in maintaining a system that permits abuse, and they appear to be winning.
Young people are not voting in droves. When asked, they say that they don’t see it as a way to have any real influence. When democracy loses the confidence of the citizens that they have a voice, it is crippling. When citizens are right that their voices are being drowned out (even drowned out by those who may have good motives, Brad) it is deadly.
I comment here as an individual and not on behalf of the League of Women Voters, but it is worth mentioning that the League is beginning a national study to attempt to better define these issues and better address this on a national and state level. However, the problems are formidable. Some see Citizens United as the beginning of serious problems in our democracy, but the Princeton study makes it clear that this is not true. In a way, the Citizens United decision is instead the product of decades of change already underway, simply amplifying existing trends.
Policy analysts and economists like Joseph Stiglitz have been writing about this for a while now. Stiglitz’s book, The Price of Inequality, though not exactly an easy or stimulating read, is useful in pointing out the policies and policy failures you’re describing, Ms. Teague, in particular how they have promoted the phenomenon of “rent-seeking”. I can only recommend that Mr. Warthen take a look at something like this, rather than insist on viewing things from the righteous distance of the Olympian heights.
Were I still at the newspaper, I would immediately assign Cindi Scoppe to go read that for me. She would refuse on the grounds that it had no direct bearing on her beat, and I would immediately go tell Mike Fitts (assuming he, too, was still at the newspaper) to read it, if Mike had recently given me cause to want to be cruel to him.
Since I’m currently having terrible trouble staying ahead on “Wolf Hall” in my reading — it was really a dirty trick to include “Bring Up the Bodies” in the series, which I didn’t learn until the first book’s material was suddenly exhausted, causing me to hastily dust off the second book, which I had not read — I’m probably not going to get to an economics book that is “not exactly an easy or stimulating read” any time in this century.
In the meantime, I will trust you to describe it faithfully to the group…
No need for me to summarize Stiglitz’s argument, when he does quite a good job of it himself in this piece for Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/05/joseph-stiglitz-the-price-on-inequality
You can follow that up with a slightly more recent article from the NYT:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/inequality-is-a-choice/
So there ya go, all laid out. And not only easier to read, it’s not nearly as long, either – so you’ll have plenty of time left for even more fictionalized history.
Michael, the Democrats have already jumped on the Chamber agenda. The TEA partiers are the only ones with low scores on the 2014 SC Chamber Score Card (http://southcarolinasccoc.weblinkconnect.com/CWT/EXTERNAL/LEGISLATIVE%20REVIEW%20AND%20SCORECARD_2014_PRINT.PDF)
Voila.
It’s still somewhat disheartening to find us trying our best to put folks into boxes and “types.” Chamber members and other business owners range greatly in personal philosophies, income, and wealth levels. Large business owners who pay excessive property taxes share interests with the middle-income owner of a couple of rental properties. The previously broadly shared cost of school operations have been skewed heavily toward business property thanks to Act 388. Beneficiaries of this tax shift are heavily dominated by folks with very high-value homes, but the tax rates (millage, especially) in counties with less business and industrial property have skyrocketed while school funding has suffered.
As far as the “soak the rich crowd,” I know a number of folks advocating taxing the rich – many of them rich, themselves. Almost all advocate simply eliminating favorable treatment of income , not soaking anybody. Why should investment income (like my own dividend, royalty, and rent proceeds) be exempt for even a 1% FICA tax when your $16K salary is assessed 6.21 percent with no shelters. Why should a CEO paid in arcane tax-favored means have both favorable treatment of his options proceeds and all but the first $106K of his super-high salary exempt from that 6.21 paid by his $35k secretary.
Many business owners advocate not-only building-up infrastructure, but sensible tax policy and environmental policy that protects the future. Others are notorious for pushing only those things that they think likely to benefit their own economic interests. That’s why wise politicians seek common ground and focus on common goals rather than Haley-like doctrinaire and often dishonest appeals to follow her ill-considered proposals.