In 2021, childhood poverty in the United States dropped to 5.2%, the lowest recorded level since measuring began in 2009. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, this historic low was chiefly driven by the federal government’s one-year expansion of the child tax credit (CTC).
Playing both sides of the field is paramount to US Corporations. They that got one of the biggest handouts in history in the Congressional big Republican blowout called "tax reform in 2017."
Their corporate halls are lined with smoke and mirrors.
Thank you for this report on the way children have been treated by the GOP.
Personally, this is one of the things that I dislike most about the human species: the endless lying. About everything, to our face, continuing even though they know that we know that they are lying. Shamelessly. Endlessly. George Carlin astutely noted that "it's ALL bullshit, and it's bad for ya".
And, here we are, repeating the same societal/cultural mistakes over and over. And the masses continue to suffer. What knuckleheads.
First thing that pops into my mind is ....How does this behavior benefit the corporations? It would seem that using tax dollars to allow for a healthier youth sector would mean healthier future consumers who would be better of health and wealth wise to bolster the future profits of these corporations and the country as a whole? Or is the goal to maintain a close to impoverished, uneducated, beleaguered, under-educated consumers to always be looking to the lying corporations for their mediocre survival?
The cruelty would appear to be the point. These are folks who would rather pay legal representatives MORE to try to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, than they would have otherwise spent had they merely PAID them!
I think you are correct. I have been for many years dealing with millionaire clients who literally will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid spending thousands in taxes and litigating $1000. and lower fines by spending multiple thousands of dollars on attorneys and multiple hours of their time trying use the system to game the system. It doesn't make any sense, financially, ethically, morally, etc. They simple do it... because they can.
And that is why. Wasn't it some rich d*** who when asked why he couldn't live any longer without making some extreme climb up the side of a mountain known in particular for killing the unwary and unwise who replied, "because it's there?"
Your answer is right here in this sentence “transfer payments without requiring that recipients work will dampen participation.” It’s always the same, they want to make sure you’re working yourself to death and still can’t afford food for your child before you can get help or catch a break.
Why is it that millionaires need to be given more money via tax cuts and subsidies to "incentivize" them, while poor people need to be starved to incentivize them? Rhetorical question.
But, that IS what is happening in many cases--many of these recipients work, some part-time, or whenever they can (if and when they have to move, they would let leave some minimum wage job, and then look for another). A minimum wage doesn't cover much.
That was my thought as well. Those billions the govt would spend on the CTC would end up in the corporate offers, especially those of Walmart and Kellogg.
Well, since Congress , for reasons that are obvious, has no appetite for amending the Constitution to define personhood as being DNA-based, perhaps we should demand a change to the tax code, putting corporations in the "Single, no dependents" tax category, and along with it increase the maximum marginal rate to 95%. (And watch Congress and the corporations squirm).
There should be nothing stopping any Democrat running on Biden's agenda from being elected in 2024! Pro Women's rights (to choose what to do with their own bodies), Pro Democracy, and Pro Children's health and survival. If Republicans are doing the bidding of the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and lobbyists hell bent on sabotaging Joe Biden, these issues should take the majority of our population beyond partisanship to learning what we are really voting for. Then, with sweeping Democrat majorities, we should be able to revamp the tax codes [and honor Bernie Sanders' and Elizabeth Warren's pleas for the top 1% to pay for all of these programs that will make America as great as it should be]. And, then, finally, we'll seriously address our pollution and ecological unbalance (the causes of "climate change"). And, finally establish the John Lewis Voting Rights Bill. And, realize that Joe Biden deserves enormous credit for his wisdom!
And it's important to point out that wisdom is usually associated with experience and age. Even dear Joe was not always so wise. But he is now, and we are fortunate he is still around to share it.
A silly question. Why would US corporations have spent so much effort and money through ALEC to systematically remove references to anything but profit from corporate charters? Ads such as the one depicted are meant solely to build a positive image leading to more profits.
One branch of the corporate entity does the warm and fuzzy stuff really well. Another branch is good at shaking the cash tree and grabbing every bit. Poor folk are an exceptionally juicy target as they lack the resources to protect their resources (with lawyers and such) like the well-heeled folken do!
It is up to us to engage in activities that inform these corps their actions won't be tolerated and their profits will suffer. Got em by the short hairs them.
All these big corporations talk a good game but when it gets down to brass tacks, their contributions can never be significant enough to do the job.
Making sure that no one goes hungry, in what is supposed to be the greatest food producer in the world, is a job that the private sector can not handle and they will never accomplish their claimed goal of making sure that no one goes hungry in America.
The job of public welfare is too large and too complicated to be run by any organization that has a profit motive. It's hypocritical. It's just like prisons for profit or private health insurance and the whole healthcare picture, as long as profits come first there can never be an endgame to it, and that must be the way they want it. If they didn't like it, they would be urging Congress to address this problem with laws to remedy childhood and all hunger in the USA.
As for the Chamber of Commerce, as far as I know, has been run by greedy people for some time now. How long? I don't know but there needs to be a public reckoning of the way they operate.
Somewhere, somehow, we need to take the greed motive out of the equation or nothing will be done. Then these corporations will continue to make more TV ads, gaslight the public, and continue as their fake solution to a problem they have no interest in a solving. Keep the status-quo. That ad money HAS to be used somewhere (snark) and gaslighting the public is the best answer they will ever have for this major issue.
Corporate greed is about control, high pay for executives and high dividends and payouts for shareholders. Okay. So, I read through some of the other comments so far and here's my take on it. Most readers have a familiarity with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. From the bottom up, the needs Maslow advances in this theory are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. The lowest one, physiological, encompasses the human need for water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, and reproduction. Until we have the shelter and food taken care of, human beings have trouble focusing on much else. Citi, Walmart, Kellogg and others know that. It serves them in oh-so-many ways to cater to it while thwarting it. My view is that corporations lobby against federal initiatives because their "do-gooder" end food hunger and poverty initiatives are tax deductible, makes them look good and generous, keeps them in control of the narrative (misleading and incorrect though it is) and predictably enables them to pay their CEO and upper management obscenely high bonuses and buy-outs, and attract and enrich shareholders. Okay, it keeps working because so few Americans read or understand economic reports. And until they have the luxury of reaching the higher levels in Maslow's pyramid, they don't have the time or energy! Plus, all the moves toward dumbing down what is taught in school leaves many capable learners from making too much of a fuss, either. It's all tied together to benefit the corporations and keep the "others" scrounging for a decent living with many people not even knowing their predicament is not their fault. As Judd said last week, poverty is all by design. It keeps people willing to work for any pay they can get. What do other readers think about this idea?
I was bamboozled for most of my life, Adam. And I trusted the people who were either lying to me or also bamboozled. Since I started taking a deep dive into my longitudinal study book, I asked the now-grown gifted children about their background and current beliefs around both religion and politics. I wanted to know where their original views came from and where they stand at this point in their lives. I used to think everyone was essentially good, so I thought if we could only "reach" those who didn't understand how some people were really suffering, they'd help make the necessary changes. Ah. That is how and why the greedy not-so-good people are able to gaslight so many of us. It's the same with our public school directions and dismantling. It's not the fault of the teachers and even the local leaders. It all essentially comes from the top, and it is for the same greedy, controlling, entitled reasons as food and shelter scarcity. Desperate people will work for pennies and those at the top can feel superior, pretend they earned what they have amassed, and lead others to think that way, too. My crusade is to simply add some more context and actionable behaviors to the lists of us who truly care, value democratic values, and value the sanctity of the vote, our fellow human beings, and the planet we all share. So, there we are.
Hope this gets picked up nationally but is anyone really surprised? How is it legal for these CEO's to sit on the board of the business roundtable? How is this not a conflict of interest? They lobby against the CTC in private but champion it publicly? The never-ending greed of these CEO's and corporations will never end.
This is classical corporate behavior. Starting when Regan was president, they lobbied hard for repeal of Depression era banking restrictions. They achieved their goals during Clinton's presidency. To reward the trust bestowed on them, they promptly produced the 2008 financial crisis. I will never forget how those motherfuckers then testified before Congress (Kabuki des, ne?) that if Congress had wanted for them to act differently, then they should have imposed regulations.
Now US banks fund climate change to the tune of hundreds of $Billions per annum (a continuation of practices begun decades ago all the while running ads about how they are demonstrating their commitment to the climate by lending out a few $Millions for some token sustainable energy project here or there. And we being suckers lap it up.
Their endless greed is abetted by the fact that when many of us were younger, the idea of a $5 million gift sounded phenomenally large. Thank you for showing the scale of the anti-poverty measure they killed in comparison to their ‘charity’.
The former Republican Party has become a Fascist Cult. It supports corporations and went so far as to give corporations the status of a citizen regarding free speech. (Citizens United) They do not care about any human who will not become a mouthpiece to support their greed. Greed is embedded in Capitalism. Rather than cycling through rights for people, we need to consider the system itself. It would be most beneficial to move towards Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Socialism. But at the very least we need the strongest regulations to make Capitalism tolerable.
We are at a very dangerous point with Fascist crazies and Corporations using power over the will of the people.
Thank you Teznim and Judd. One of the challenges of trying to live by your values is keeping track of what corporations do as opposed to what they say they do. I have several credit cards including one from Citi. I will use one of the others. I don't have to shop at Walmart or eat Kelloggs breakfast cereals either. I am also sure that somehow the CEO's of Citi, Walmart and Kelloggs are not donating significant part of their salaries to child hunger and that the ratio of of worker pay to CEO pay continues to shrink. I recall not long ago that Walmart included information on its website for its low paid workers about how to apply for welfare to supplement their wildly inadequate salaries. So my question to America's corporate executives is when is enough for each of you finally enough? Ever?
I have an idea about how Mitt Romney can spend his time left in the Senate: how about passionately supporting preventing child hunger be it by proposing another CTC or another mechanism. This was one of Romney’s interests at one time about which I thought that he was passionate. Instead of going out with a whimper of being the “turd in the punchbowl”, he can go out with a bang.
Here's an idea: pay your effing fair share of taxes. Then there will be money for social safety net programs that benefit everyone without having to rely on the hypocritical, inadequate largesse of corporations.
Playing both sides of the field is paramount to US Corporations. They that got one of the biggest handouts in history in the Congressional big Republican blowout called "tax reform in 2017."
Their corporate halls are lined with smoke and mirrors.
Thank you for this report on the way children have been treated by the GOP.
Personally, this is one of the things that I dislike most about the human species: the endless lying. About everything, to our face, continuing even though they know that we know that they are lying. Shamelessly. Endlessly. George Carlin astutely noted that "it's ALL bullshit, and it's bad for ya".
And, here we are, repeating the same societal/cultural mistakes over and over. And the masses continue to suffer. What knuckleheads.
First thing that pops into my mind is ....How does this behavior benefit the corporations? It would seem that using tax dollars to allow for a healthier youth sector would mean healthier future consumers who would be better of health and wealth wise to bolster the future profits of these corporations and the country as a whole? Or is the goal to maintain a close to impoverished, uneducated, beleaguered, under-educated consumers to always be looking to the lying corporations for their mediocre survival?
The cruelty would appear to be the point. These are folks who would rather pay legal representatives MORE to try to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, than they would have otherwise spent had they merely PAID them!
I think you are correct. I have been for many years dealing with millionaire clients who literally will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid spending thousands in taxes and litigating $1000. and lower fines by spending multiple thousands of dollars on attorneys and multiple hours of their time trying use the system to game the system. It doesn't make any sense, financially, ethically, morally, etc. They simple do it... because they can.
It’s all about “winning”—no matter the cost. And the system has been designed to let anyone that can afford the best lawyer win.
And all their profit comes from our suffering! Enough of this madness!
And that is why. Wasn't it some rich d*** who when asked why he couldn't live any longer without making some extreme climb up the side of a mountain known in particular for killing the unwary and unwise who replied, "because it's there?"
Because they can. Yep.
Your answer is right here in this sentence “transfer payments without requiring that recipients work will dampen participation.” It’s always the same, they want to make sure you’re working yourself to death and still can’t afford food for your child before you can get help or catch a break.
Why is it that millionaires need to be given more money via tax cuts and subsidies to "incentivize" them, while poor people need to be starved to incentivize them? Rhetorical question.
But, that IS what is happening in many cases--many of these recipients work, some part-time, or whenever they can (if and when they have to move, they would let leave some minimum wage job, and then look for another). A minimum wage doesn't cover much.
Keep you desperate and coming back for more.
Bingo. Matthew Desmond covers this territory in his book, Poverty by America.
That was my thought as well. Those billions the govt would spend on the CTC would end up in the corporate offers, especially those of Walmart and Kellogg.
Although Citizens United says corporations are people, corporations are incapable of caring. Their only obligation is to investors and executives.
Well, since Congress , for reasons that are obvious, has no appetite for amending the Constitution to define personhood as being DNA-based, perhaps we should demand a change to the tax code, putting corporations in the "Single, no dependents" tax category, and along with it increase the maximum marginal rate to 95%. (And watch Congress and the corporations squirm).
There should be nothing stopping any Democrat running on Biden's agenda from being elected in 2024! Pro Women's rights (to choose what to do with their own bodies), Pro Democracy, and Pro Children's health and survival. If Republicans are doing the bidding of the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and lobbyists hell bent on sabotaging Joe Biden, these issues should take the majority of our population beyond partisanship to learning what we are really voting for. Then, with sweeping Democrat majorities, we should be able to revamp the tax codes [and honor Bernie Sanders' and Elizabeth Warren's pleas for the top 1% to pay for all of these programs that will make America as great as it should be]. And, then, finally, we'll seriously address our pollution and ecological unbalance (the causes of "climate change"). And, finally establish the John Lewis Voting Rights Bill. And, realize that Joe Biden deserves enormous credit for his wisdom!
And it's important to point out that wisdom is usually associated with experience and age. Even dear Joe was not always so wise. But he is now, and we are fortunate he is still around to share it.
A silly question. Why would US corporations have spent so much effort and money through ALEC to systematically remove references to anything but profit from corporate charters? Ads such as the one depicted are meant solely to build a positive image leading to more profits.
Exactly!
The Great Game is on!
One branch of the corporate entity does the warm and fuzzy stuff really well. Another branch is good at shaking the cash tree and grabbing every bit. Poor folk are an exceptionally juicy target as they lack the resources to protect their resources (with lawyers and such) like the well-heeled folken do!
It is up to us to engage in activities that inform these corps their actions won't be tolerated and their profits will suffer. Got em by the short hairs them.
All these big corporations talk a good game but when it gets down to brass tacks, their contributions can never be significant enough to do the job.
Making sure that no one goes hungry, in what is supposed to be the greatest food producer in the world, is a job that the private sector can not handle and they will never accomplish their claimed goal of making sure that no one goes hungry in America.
The job of public welfare is too large and too complicated to be run by any organization that has a profit motive. It's hypocritical. It's just like prisons for profit or private health insurance and the whole healthcare picture, as long as profits come first there can never be an endgame to it, and that must be the way they want it. If they didn't like it, they would be urging Congress to address this problem with laws to remedy childhood and all hunger in the USA.
As for the Chamber of Commerce, as far as I know, has been run by greedy people for some time now. How long? I don't know but there needs to be a public reckoning of the way they operate.
Somewhere, somehow, we need to take the greed motive out of the equation or nothing will be done. Then these corporations will continue to make more TV ads, gaslight the public, and continue as their fake solution to a problem they have no interest in a solving. Keep the status-quo. That ad money HAS to be used somewhere (snark) and gaslighting the public is the best answer they will ever have for this major issue.
Corporate greed is about control, high pay for executives and high dividends and payouts for shareholders. Okay. So, I read through some of the other comments so far and here's my take on it. Most readers have a familiarity with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. From the bottom up, the needs Maslow advances in this theory are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. The lowest one, physiological, encompasses the human need for water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, and reproduction. Until we have the shelter and food taken care of, human beings have trouble focusing on much else. Citi, Walmart, Kellogg and others know that. It serves them in oh-so-many ways to cater to it while thwarting it. My view is that corporations lobby against federal initiatives because their "do-gooder" end food hunger and poverty initiatives are tax deductible, makes them look good and generous, keeps them in control of the narrative (misleading and incorrect though it is) and predictably enables them to pay their CEO and upper management obscenely high bonuses and buy-outs, and attract and enrich shareholders. Okay, it keeps working because so few Americans read or understand economic reports. And until they have the luxury of reaching the higher levels in Maslow's pyramid, they don't have the time or energy! Plus, all the moves toward dumbing down what is taught in school leaves many capable learners from making too much of a fuss, either. It's all tied together to benefit the corporations and keep the "others" scrounging for a decent living with many people not even knowing their predicament is not their fault. As Judd said last week, poverty is all by design. It keeps people willing to work for any pay they can get. What do other readers think about this idea?
I think you have your finger on the pulse Deborah.
I was bamboozled for most of my life, Adam. And I trusted the people who were either lying to me or also bamboozled. Since I started taking a deep dive into my longitudinal study book, I asked the now-grown gifted children about their background and current beliefs around both religion and politics. I wanted to know where their original views came from and where they stand at this point in their lives. I used to think everyone was essentially good, so I thought if we could only "reach" those who didn't understand how some people were really suffering, they'd help make the necessary changes. Ah. That is how and why the greedy not-so-good people are able to gaslight so many of us. It's the same with our public school directions and dismantling. It's not the fault of the teachers and even the local leaders. It all essentially comes from the top, and it is for the same greedy, controlling, entitled reasons as food and shelter scarcity. Desperate people will work for pennies and those at the top can feel superior, pretend they earned what they have amassed, and lead others to think that way, too. My crusade is to simply add some more context and actionable behaviors to the lists of us who truly care, value democratic values, and value the sanctity of the vote, our fellow human beings, and the planet we all share. So, there we are.
Agreed. Indeed!
Hope this gets picked up nationally but is anyone really surprised? How is it legal for these CEO's to sit on the board of the business roundtable? How is this not a conflict of interest? They lobby against the CTC in private but champion it publicly? The never-ending greed of these CEO's and corporations will never end.
This is classical corporate behavior. Starting when Regan was president, they lobbied hard for repeal of Depression era banking restrictions. They achieved their goals during Clinton's presidency. To reward the trust bestowed on them, they promptly produced the 2008 financial crisis. I will never forget how those motherfuckers then testified before Congress (Kabuki des, ne?) that if Congress had wanted for them to act differently, then they should have imposed regulations.
Now US banks fund climate change to the tune of hundreds of $Billions per annum (a continuation of practices begun decades ago all the while running ads about how they are demonstrating their commitment to the climate by lending out a few $Millions for some token sustainable energy project here or there. And we being suckers lap it up.
Their endless greed is abetted by the fact that when many of us were younger, the idea of a $5 million gift sounded phenomenally large. Thank you for showing the scale of the anti-poverty measure they killed in comparison to their ‘charity’.
The former Republican Party has become a Fascist Cult. It supports corporations and went so far as to give corporations the status of a citizen regarding free speech. (Citizens United) They do not care about any human who will not become a mouthpiece to support their greed. Greed is embedded in Capitalism. Rather than cycling through rights for people, we need to consider the system itself. It would be most beneficial to move towards Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Socialism. But at the very least we need the strongest regulations to make Capitalism tolerable.
We are at a very dangerous point with Fascist crazies and Corporations using power over the will of the people.
Republicans have changed their motto over the years:
"I got mine and you're welcome to get yours."
"I got mine and I'm coming for yours."
"I got mine, I'm coming for yours, and if you're not suffering, I'm not happy."
Thank you Teznim and Judd. One of the challenges of trying to live by your values is keeping track of what corporations do as opposed to what they say they do. I have several credit cards including one from Citi. I will use one of the others. I don't have to shop at Walmart or eat Kelloggs breakfast cereals either. I am also sure that somehow the CEO's of Citi, Walmart and Kelloggs are not donating significant part of their salaries to child hunger and that the ratio of of worker pay to CEO pay continues to shrink. I recall not long ago that Walmart included information on its website for its low paid workers about how to apply for welfare to supplement their wildly inadequate salaries. So my question to America's corporate executives is when is enough for each of you finally enough? Ever?
There is no such thing as "enough" in their ravenous eyes.
I have an idea about how Mitt Romney can spend his time left in the Senate: how about passionately supporting preventing child hunger be it by proposing another CTC or another mechanism. This was one of Romney’s interests at one time about which I thought that he was passionate. Instead of going out with a whimper of being the “turd in the punchbowl”, he can go out with a bang.
How about finding a way to email or write to him so that you can give that inspiring suggestion directly to him?
Vulture Capitalist Romney has had PLENTY of turns at the trough, but NOW he's a self-proclaimed do-gooder?
Yeah, right. Self advertisement is no guarantee of quality (parity or veracity for that matter).
Here's an idea: pay your effing fair share of taxes. Then there will be money for social safety net programs that benefit everyone without having to rely on the hypocritical, inadequate largesse of corporations.