Thursday, April 07, 2011

Deadly spin on taxes - a modified Coffee Party petition

The Coffee Party has a form letter at http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/congress-taxpayer to send to Congress to ask them to work for the taxpayers and not the large corporations.  I sent the following modified version of the suggested form letter.

As too many members of Congress work for a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations, please consider that it is people who cast the votes and that you were elected by a minority of the eligible voters.  Please also consider: you are fighting over how to spend our money.  We the People pay 33.7% of the Federal Fund while corporations pay 7.2%. Many corporations pay no taxes at all.  Yet your entire focus during this budget battle has been on how much to hurt the people.

If you haven't read it yet, I hope you can read "Deadly Spin" by Wendell Potter. The author just gives example after example of how big corporations are giving anti-factual spin to anything that hurts their overly generous self-determined compensation.  And they often do it under the smokescreen that they will create jobs. About the only jobs they are creating are jobs for their lobbyists and tax accountants

We did not cause the recession, the deficit, or the national debt.  We know this, and we need you to know that we are aware of a corrupt system in which corporations spend their vast wealth to lobby and manipulate you.

We know that's why the tax code so unjustly burdens us while favoring them. We know this is why Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are under attack from the US Chamber of Commerce and other powerful lobbyists. We know that is why your policies reward multinational corporations, including those that DID cause the recession, with bailouts, bonuses, and tax benefits.

Congress should work together on how to help us, not fight over how to hurt us.

P.S. to Congressional staff.  Please do not respond with boilerplate to this semi-boilerplate.