From today's Democracy
Now! --
This weekend, House Speaker Paul Ryan touted a story of a
woman whose paycheck increased by $1.50 cents a week as a major benefit to
middle-class workers. On Saturday, Ryan tweeted a link to an Associated Press
report, writing, “A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week … she said
[that] will more than cover her Costco membership for the year.” After a deluge
of ridicule and outrage, Ryan deleted the tweet hours later. For more, we speak
with Richard Wolff, emeritus professor of economics at University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, and visiting professor at The New School. He’s the
author of several books, including, most recently, “Capitalism’s Crisis
Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown.”
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: $1.50
a week. Is that a pay hike worth celebrating? Well, at least it is according to
House Speaker Paul Ryan. On Saturday, Ryan tweeted a link to an Associated
Press report, writing, quote, “A secretary at a public high school in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up
$1.50 a week … she said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for
the year,” unquote. After a deluge of ridicule and outrage, Ryan deleted the
tweet hours later.
AMY GOODMAN: In
contrast to the reported $1.50 pay increase, which comes to $78 a year, House
Speaker Ryan received a staggering half a million dollars in campaign
contributions from Charles Koch only days after Ryan pushed through the tax
overhaul. The legislation has been massively benefiting corporations and the
richest Americans, including President Trump and his own family, and the Koch
brothers, who may save as much as $1.4 billion on income taxes every year.
Well, to talk more about the Trump administration’s economic agenda,
we’re joined by Richard Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, visiting professor at New School
University. He’s the founder of Democracy at Work, hosts a weekly national
television and radio program called Economic Update, author of
a number of books, including Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens: Essays on
the Global Economic Meltdown.
So, you have the House speaker tweeting about this incredible victory,
as he considered it, this woman raising—getting $1.50 raise a week, $78 a year.
But he is mocked and ridiculed so much, he has to delete the tweet. Your
response to this, Richard Wolff?
RICHARD WOLFF: I
take great comfort from the fact that there was this kind of response. The
classic move, both of the Republican Party in general and of Mr. Trump, is to
give tiny tax benefits to the mass of people in order to distract them from the
grotesque inequality of the benefits going to the corporations and the richest
people. Exxon Corporation gloated over the weekend that they’re going to save
$6 billion from this tax cut. So, we can see that what this is doing is
worsening—not improving, worsening—the inequality of the United States in a
dramatic way. And for me, as an economic historian, after 30 years, which is the
truth of the last 30 years, of a growing gap between rich and poor, that
everybody recognizes, to pass a tax cut that worsens it rather than softens it,
is kind of staggering. It’s really not about economics anymore. It’s about an
out-of-control economy in which the few are simply grabbing it all before it
disappears.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Richard,
I’m wondering: What do you think the impact might be even of a small increase,
because for people who have been used to not having increases in their
take-home pay, even a small increase, to what degree that may lull many
Americans into thinking, “Well, look, maybe Trump and the Republicans aren’t so
bad”?
RICHARD WOLFF: That’s
what they hope. They hope that if you get a little bit, you’ll be so grateful
and so happy that you won’t pay attention. But here’s where it’ll come back and
bite you, because with this kind of a tax cut, massive reduction in the money
that the federal government gets from all these corporations and rich, we know
already, because Mr. Ryan, among others, has told us, they’re going to be
cutting government programs, using the excuse that they don’t have the money.
So, the $1.50 that young lady will save, she will then lose more than that in
the cutback in government programs upon which she and her family and her
community will depend. This is a bad scene for the mass of the American people.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s
very interesting. We just had the segment on nuclear weapons and President
Trump’s $1.2 trillion plan to increase the nuclear weapons of the United
States. That, we can afford.
RICHARD WOLFF: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk
about where the money goes and what you see as the alternatives.
RICHARD WOLFF: Well,
I think, fundamentally, the money is going where Mr. Trump and the Republican
Party want it to go. He is building his political support. He’s not a popular
president. We all know that, despite his tweets. So he has to build. So he
gives the military. That’s one way to build his support. He gives the big banks
and the big corporations a cut. That’s another way to build support. He makes
symbolic gestures for the rest of the population, in hopes of drawing them in.
This is a program that is mindless about the economic realities of our society,
about the suffering, about the promises he also made in his campaign. It is
built on the notion he is going to build his support and the Republican Party,
and the rest of the society will just live with where the chips may fall.
For me, this is a problem of a system. This is beyond this problem,
that problem, this reform, that law. You have a system that is out of control.
We have so much wealth in the hands of so few, that they’re in a position to
make everything else serve them. That’s a classic sign of a decay in a society.
And for me, the fundamental shifts that have to happen are the only way you’re
going to get out of this long series of horrible kinds of decisions, such as
saying, “We can’t take care of the secretary’s economic needs beyond $1.50 a
week,” and then, you know, doubling our defense expenditures.
Please continue this transcript, or to
watch the full video interview, please go here: https://www.democracynow.org/2018/2/5/as_paul_ryan_touts_a_secretarys
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