What’s the matter with Congress? And most of our state legislatures, too? Why do these so-called representative bodies keep stiffing middle-class and poor families, refusing to respond to the most urgent needs and goals of this vast majority of Americans?
Take lawmakers’ indifference to the child care crisis crushing the finances, health, and spirit of millions of working families. Plus, intentionally denying basic health care for low-income children in this spectacularly rich nation.
These common incidents of child neglect are products of the creeping plutocratic ideology now dominating capitals across America. Most legislatures today push corporate profiteering, including re-legalizing robber baron exploitation of children. Bills to reinstate child labor are being advanced in 28 states, and 12 have already passed!
Why is the workaday majority being ignored and corporate supremacy being imposed over the common good? In a word: class.
Think about it: Who holds nearly all of the seats in Congress and in state legislatures? Not plumbers, mechanics, taxi drivers, trash haulers, hotel housekeepers, computer programmers, farm workers, or child care providers. Instead, it’s bankers, lawyers, corporate executives, lobbyists, millionaires, and ideological goofballs.
Even though half of America’s jobs are working class, barely 1 percent of our nation’s 7,300 state legislative seats are held by the working class people who actually make America work.
As the old saying goes: If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. And our political system has been rigged by corporate lobbyists, lawmakers, and judges to hold public office hostage to big money — intentionally excluding the working-class majority from its rightful place at America’s policy table.
To start freeing democracy from corrupt corporate money, go to Public Citizen at citizen.org.
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Previously Published on otherwords.org with Creative Commons License
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