Saving Capitalism Page #3

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No, call me Bob.

Can we go around the table?

-Maybe...

-...introduce yourselves.

Yes, introduce yourselves.

My name is Woody Cozad.

I used to be a lawyer.

Now, I'm a lobbyist.

And,

as one of my...

fellow right-wing friends said to me, I...

I'm like a doctor who specializes

in the diseases of the very rich.

And so...

I try to represent people

who can pay my bills.

So I'm one of those evil guys

manipulating the rules and changing them.

What are you? Don't be defensive.

I'm not defensive!

I'm very proud of my job.

You're doing a job

and a job has to be done.

I'm Crosby Kemper, the Director

of the Kansas City Public Library.

And I was a Republican candidate

for the state legislature in 1980.

And I referred to myself then as I refer

to myself now, as a Libertarian.

I have been a very moderate Republican

and, actually,

have helped a few Democrats.

So...

I was happy that Crosby invited me.

Thank you.

You know what I would like to do?

If you don't mind...

Please.

I would like to put party labels aside

and not talk Democrats and Republicans,

just for a little while.

Because I really want to talk about

how you view...

politics, the economy, your values.

You try... You...

You want to dismiss the argument

about government versus the market.

I'm just talking about government.

And people who operate that government

will do so in their own self-interests.

And that's what the constitution

was designed to limit.

And so the government should be limited.

I was a regulator.

I was at the Federal Trade Commission.

We would come up with simple rules.

And then the lobbyists...

- Right.

-...would attack.

They would say,

"You have got to give this little...

Make this exception

and this exception and this exception."

And then...

Congress would start calling

and they'd say,

"Our business constituents

want this exception."

It's not either market or government.

It is power that is misused.

Let's talk about power.

Let's talk about my two clients

who started a company 20 years ago

and are now billionaires.

They employ 9,000 people,

they pay hundreds of millions

of dollars in taxes,

they pay high wages -

it's a high-tech company,

with value added, generous benefits.

And yet they're held up

to scorn, hatred, ridicule and contempt

because they've added

to income inequality,

added to the concentration of wealth,

added to disparity...

- I...

-Why are they scapegoats? They're doing...

They are enacting the American dream.

One of them is an immigrant.

Let's agree that

there should not be any scapegoats,

and there's nobody evil here.

Let's also agree that there's a problem.

I mean, I actually really like you.

And I didn't expect to.

But you have vilified everything

I've worked for all my life.

I've had four very successful

small businesses.

I grew up poor in Springfield, Missouri.

Student loans, worked my ass off,

employed...

I probably created 200 jobs.

OK, it's not a lot.

I'm not the Koch brothers.

But I worked my ass off.

But you made me feel badly

about what I've done for America.

My theory is work. Take care of yourself.

Accept responsibility for yourself,

regardless of what life throws at you.

Yes, we've made it.

There's no question we've made it.

My husband and I

pinch each other every day

that we get to live

in this lovely community.

We're able to put his kids

through college.

But I think the opportunity

for employment

has become very complicated.

Today, it's hard for people

to really make ends meet.

I don't feel like being 20 today

is gonna be as easy as it was

when I was 20.

It's just a different time.

It's a very, very different time.

I've been working

at McDonald's for four years.

I work at the drive-through window.

I get paid $12.50...

$12.55 per hour.

I make about $1,200 a month.

$900 goes straight to rent.

And I have to pay for gas

and then my phone bill.

I end up with nothing.

We barely, barely make it.

Those big corporations can pay us more.

They have the money.

Me, as a cashier at my job,

I know how much money goes in there, OK?

And that is only in a few hours.

They're open 24/7.

I sometimes have to go for the payday loan

and get a loan on my paycheck,

in order to make it on time

and not get any late fees,

and try to make ends meet.

Nobody

Nobody should be working full-time

and not making it.

Nobody in our society, the richest...

country, the richest nation

in the history of the world...

should feel as...

frightened and anxious and as insecure

as so many people do today.

The reality is that our system

can reflect our values.

Capitalism is what we make of it.

Either the rules

are going to expand opportunity

and widen the circle of prosperity,

or they're going to narrow opportunity.

The Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich.

The Secretary of the Treasury,

Robert Rubin.

And the President of the United States.

I don't know whether Bill Clinton

organized his economic team

so that people like me would

have a good chance to make our case,

but we'd lose a lot of our...

a lot of the fights.

What I do know is that

it was a tough slog.

...to make economic policy...

I was fighting very hard for maintaining

the original goals of that campaign.

We wanted to do away

with some of the tax subsidies

the federal government

was giving corporations,

that left average people

picking up the tab.

The president had pledged

to end the tax break for CEO pay.

The average CEO

at a major American corporation,

according to a recent Senate hearing,

is paid about 100 times as much

as the average worker.

And our government today

rewards that excess

with a tax break for executive pay,

no matter how high it is.

That's wrong.

If companies want to overpay executives

and underinvest in their future,

that's their business.

But they shouldn't get special treatment

from Uncle Sam.

There were voices,

particularly in the Treasury,

who wanted a very different rule.

Bob Rubin had been the CEO

of a big Wall Street bank,

and then became

the Secretary of the Treasury.

He viewed the economy

and viewed America

through the eyes of Wall Street.

And I remember the meeting with Rubin.

He said, "Well, why don't we make it that

you can't deduct CEO pay

in excess of $1 million,

unless it's related

to corporate performance?"

I said, "Wait a minute. Wait. Wait.

This has nothing to do

with corporate performance.

It's to do with excessive CEO pay

relative to the pay of average people.

We're not talking corporate performance.

We're talking about widening inequality."

Well, I lost that one.

And because of this tax loophole,

CEO pay skyrocketed

in the form of stock bonuses.

And this subsidy for executive pay

was just one example

of thousands of subsidies and tax breaks

that go to corporations.

The top five oil companies

receive a combined $4 billion

in tax breaks each year.

Google receives $632 million

in government subsidies

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