CAN CONGRESS FIGHT FOR FAIRNESS?
Evans, Lane
Can Congress Fight for Fairness? BY LANE EVANS In the American economy of the 1980s, the rich get richer, the big get bigger, and the average citizen suffers the consequences. The pattern may...
...Populism is potentially so great a force today that the New Right has moved to appropriate the mantle...
...Meanwhile, thousands of former Rock Island workers remain unemployed...
...Members of the Populist Caucus would also like to eliminate the tax deduction on interest for credit used in mergers or acquisitions among large companies...
...tween special interests and the common interest was rarely struck, at least the principle survived...
...Most important, the United States should adopt an aggressive policy to control economic concentration in the energy field...
...tax code is thoroughly reformed...
...The Reagan Administration has transformed the idea of government as counterweight into one of government as added weight on the side of corporate power...
...But can a significant number of candidates get elected espousing such ideas...
...The Administration refuses to allocate $550 million in emergency credit that Congress approved in 1983...
...We've had enough of the transportation business," says a major stockholder...
...The Administration's policies have been a boon to those who make more than $50,000 a year, while working people and the poor have seen their share of taxes actually grow, due to increased payroll taxes and inflation...
...Perhaps no actor in the American economy has been as adversely affected by centralization as the family farmer...
...Harvester lost $485 milion in 1983 and has laid off thousands of workers...
...Tax leasing," by which firms in the red sell their tax deductions to profitable companies, should be repealed...
...The pattern may not be new, but Washington's role certainly is...
...Farmers are not the only victims of this trend: Increased concentration means less competition, less choice for consumers, and, ultimately, higher prices...
...High interest rates, caused by the Reagan Administration's big deficit and tight-money policies, are driving smaller producers out of business...
...11 The Rock Island Railroad, once the nation's twelfth largest, emerged from its 1979 liquidation rich in cash and tax benefits...
...in 1960, 3.96 million, and in 1980, only 2.43 million...
...In 1940, there were 6.35 million farms...
...We hope to redress the growing imbalance between economic classes and restore government to its role as guarantor of economic equity...
...Contrary to President Reagan's claims, the private sector cannot be relied on to overcome America's dependence on foreign oil...
...Though a balance beRepresentative Lane Evans is a member of the House Agriculture Committee and the Congressional Populist Caucus...
...at the same time, incentives for low-cost plant construction should be offered...
...In addition, regulatory agencies should prohibit utilities from charging customers for "construction work in progress...
...the People: Is a New Populist Revolt on the Way...
...The Populist Caucus is committed to preventing the scheduled decontrol of natural gas, which will increase prices by about 30 per cent over the next three years...
...In 1982, he replaced a Republican to become the second Democrat in this century to represent the 17th District in western Illinois...
...A recent Congressional study indicates that corporations paid 1982 taxes on only 16 per cent of their earnings...
...The small and family farmers have seen their share of total farm production drop dramatically...
...Loopholes and deductions that are used by the rich to skirt taxes need to be eliminated...
...They can mobilize a potent coalition, made up of minorities, poor people, and the growing numbers dispossessed by the Reagan Administration: farmers who lose money even as they increase production, small business people who can't expand their operations because government and big business siphon oif most available credit, working people who are no longer working...
...If the present rate of concentration continues, 12.5 per cent of the nation's farms will control 85 per cent of all farm output by 1988...
...But Federal policies encourage fewer and bigger farms...
...The jury is still out, but there are many indications that it may be possible...
...In districts throughout downstate Illinois, Iowa, and other economically ravaged areas of the rural and industrial Middie West, candidates advocating populist principles are mounting vigorous campaigns for the November elections...
...Three specific areas—agriculture, taxation and antitrust, and energy—are of great concern to the members of the Caucus...
...The new company will acquire businesses in real estate, energy, and construction, while disposing of its remaining rail assets...
...11 Texaco, Inc., bought Getty Oil Co...
...We need legislation that directs emergency loan assistance to smaller farms, puts a ceiling on the amount of credit any one farm may receive, and shifts price supports and subsidies away from the largest farms toward smaller ones...
...Additional acquisitions and mergers must be prevented...
...For several decades, beginning in the 1930s, the Federal Government served as a counterweight to the influence of wealth and large corporations...
...The Government should stop abetting the corporate takeover of America's farms...
...Deregulating the energy industry will result only in higher prices for consumers and higher profits for utility companies and gas producers...
...The Reagan tax cuts have, for all intents and purposes, eliminated the corporate income tax...
...The gap between rich and poor in this country is increasing at an alarming rate, a trend that can be seen in today's front-page news: H The International Harvester Company paid its chairman $503,333 in 1983, up from $296,611 the previous year...
...No longer...
...Viguerie's "new populism" is simply a regurgitation of his far-right philosophy under another name...
...Right-wing direct-mail czar Richard Viguerie recently wrote a book entitled The Establishment vs...
...Most members of the Populist Caucus favor implementation of a 14 per cent flat tax on earnings of less than $25,000 a year ($40,000 for couples), and a progressive tax with rates of 26 to 30 per cent on higher incomes...
...The Government foreclosed on 800 farmers in 1982, more than double the number of foreclosures the previous year...
...To resist these disturbing and destructive trends (or at least to draw attention to them), fourteen members of Congress, including myself, have formed a Populist Caucus...
...In the countryside and the city, economic fairness will be impossible until the U.S...
...The horizontal holdings by oil and gas companies—of such energy resources as coal, oil shale, and solar technology—threaten to restrict resource development...
...But his attempt to promote it through ostensibly populist rhetoric is a clue to the potential of the movement...
...These are some of the policies and goals of the "new populism...
...for $ 10.1 billion after the Federal Trade Commission ruled that the purchase did not violate antitrust laws...
...Our social scale is wildly out of kilter, with all kinds of negative repercussions...
...And the Standard Oil Company of California is in the process of purchasing the Gulf Corporation for $13.2 billion—the largest takeover in corporate history...
Vol. 48 • June 1984 • No. 6
