When it comes to finding money: People vs Corporations, $535 billion over 10 years
As we continue this fight regarding the national budget, funding for the people, (food, unemployment, medical), entitlements and the overall moral position this nation has and will take with its money, let’s recall the truth about a program that was sold and is still sold as a benefit for the people. It’s cost is intentionally excluded from the overall budget discussions and thus remains hidden as to the extent of the benefit and beneficiaries.
The Medicare Prescription Drug law. Billy Tauzin (former congressman and former president/CEO of PHRMA, Dem from ’72 to ’95, republican there after):
it’s been good for the patients whom the drug industry represents
Dan Burton and Walter Jones, republicans were against it, for to them it was a “sellout” to the drug companies.
No offsets were needed. The 15 minute vote was held open for 3 hours and was in the middle of the night because it was going to be defeated. The longest roll call in the history of the house. Threats to those who did not want to vote for such a huge wet kiss to the industry were of the Tea Party type. They would run a person against you. The Medicare boss, Tom Scully Bush’s “lead” negotiator went to lobbying for the drug industry “10 days after the president signed the legislation”. He was negotiating for his lobby job during the bill negotiations.
A few years ago I read a book about the American pharmaceutical industry whose title I cannot remember (big help) by the author who used to edit the New England Journal of Medicine (best I can do) who spouted the amazing statistic (I could hardly believe it) that the top ten drug companies make more money than the other 390 Fortune 400 companies together. Could that be possible? Sorry I cannot do better on the links.
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The late David Broder, dean of the Washington press corps, said that, when he came to D.C. 50 years ago, all the lobbyists were union … As usual, my answer to every problem (and I cut-and-paste :-]):
Up the road from Oakland City Hall – up College Avenue – on the UC of Berkeley campus labors as progressive a progressive economics faculty as anyone should wish. They could you tell you, Madam Mayor, and tell everyone else at the same time [this essay may hopefully edge them in the latter direction] about a species of labor legislation that can potentially re-write the American social contract front to back, economic to political.
Legislation that has been tried and tested over half a century in the first world (Germany, France) moving to the second and third worlds (Argentina, Indonesia) as well as right next door (French Canada). Legislation bringing to Americans a labor market setup devised – not by Karl Marx – but by post WW II German and other continental industrialists – not to empower labor — but to stifle union wage races-to-the-top that would divert money from industrial bases rebuilding. (England did not take this path which is why it fell behind – which I’m pretty sure I read in Berkeley’s, Barry Eichengreen’s 2008 The European Economy Since 1945.)
Europe’s fabled welfare state was offered as a compensation for labor price moderation. Magic bullet: legally mandated, sector-wide collective bargaining – wherein everyone working the same category of job (e.g., retail clerk) in the same geographic locale (where applicable) works under one common contract with all employers – thwarts the race-to-the-bottom just as surely – just the right barraging balance.
The late David Broder, dean of the Washington press corps, said that, when he came to D.C. 50 years ago, all the lobbyists were union – which meant: naturally balanced campaign financing, someone minding the store on the average person’s interests, all backed by the majority of voters — perfect democracy.
Your friendly economics faculty up the avenue can tell you all about all of this – but you’ll have to ask.
Denis Drew
Chicago (sometimes Berkeley)