BUDGET SURPLUS
$70 billion extra?
Spend it on workers, not rich investors
By Monica Moorehead
For the first time since 1969 there is a federal budget
surplus. It is $70 billion. That is 70 thousand millions!
This surplus $70 billion, like all wealth, was created by
the working class. It's up to labor and other working-class,
progressive and revolutionary organizations to make sure
workers and poor people benefit from it-especially now that
their livelihood is threatened by a worldwide economic
crisis.
Both the Democratic and Republican parties are taking credit
for the surplus, saying it resulted from their tax-increase
initiatives.
And who paid these taxes? The greatest percentage of tax
dollars were not paid by the Fortune 500 corporations, the
biggest Wall Street investors or the higher echelons of the
super-rich. The U.S. ruling class only paid 1.1 percent of the
total income tax returns in 1995, according to the Internal
Revenue Service.
This means that close to 99 percent of the taxes that year
were paid by the workers and other wage and salary earners with
middle incomes.
There is another source of this gargantuan windfall-the
cutbacks in social services and programs that began under
Reagan/Bush in the 1980s and that Clinton extended. Add in wage
cuts that have forced some workers to take two and sometimes
three jobs to make ends meet and you can see that working
people are responsible for the surplus.
The economic crisis that began in Asia, then spread to
Russia, and is currently sinking its claws in Latin America,
threatens to wreak havoc upon the U.S. economy.
Already capitalist production is declining, profits are
falling and investors are hesitant to commit money to new
foreign ventures. Thousands are being laid off. Unemployment is
rising, especially in the oppressed communities.
Neither the White House nor Capitol Hill has expressed one
peep of concern on how this growing crisis will affect the
masses. This contrasts to how quickly the capitalist government
acts when huge investment firms that wheel and deal billions of
dollars in speculation-like Long-Term Capital Management-face a
collapse. The government gave big banks and brokerage houses
the green light to bail out LTCM with $3.5 billion.
What about a workers' bailout?
An emergency bailout plan for the workers, the poor and the
middle class is well overdue and even more urgent in light of
the deepening economic crisis. This $70 billion surplus can
only begin to deal with the economic and social problems facing
tens of millions of people, but it could be the first
installment for those who really need it.
The other installments could come from the bloated Pentagon
budget and a tax on the profits of the super-rich.
This workers' bail-out program should include an increase in
unemployment benefits; a real jobs program for the unemployed,
under-employed, prisoners and the youth; a raise in the minimum
wage to $10 an hour; health care insurance for the poor and
elderly, as well as putting a moratorium on debt payments,
prison construction and layoffs.
Independent action needed
If Clinton really represented the people, he could call town
meetings all over the country with the power to work out an
emergency program that could really address the needs and
concerns of the people. These town meetings could serve as
organizing vehicles to mobilize people from all over the U.S.
to come to Washington to demand a people's bailout program.
But Clinton and the Democratic Party have already shown that
even on issues they promoted they have caved in to the pressure
from the ruling class and the Republican Party. Their turnabout
on universal health care and gays in the military proved that.
Of course, Clinton himself took the initiative in dismantling
welfare
Can the Democratic or the Republican parties can be counted
on to bail out the masses when an economic recession and even
depression is clearly in sight? Absolutely not.
The social character of Democrats and Republicans may
differ-with a greater proportion of wealthy people making up
the Republicans-but both these parties first and foremost serve
the interests of the ruling class.
During an election year these parties might throw a few
measly crumbs to working and oppressed people, but they can't
be allowed to determine what to do with the surplus.
It is time for the labor movement, women's movement,
political and community organizations to cut all ties to the
Democratic Party. What's needed is independent, militant
leadership for all sectors of the workers.
This fight can start with emergency, transitional demands.
But these can't protect the working class from economic
catastrophe in an all-out capitalist economic crisis. What Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto 150
years ago still stands: the workers will only be liberated when
they send this system of exploitation to its grave.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page