When he proposed to recover a "financialresponsibility fee"in plain English, a bank taxfrom the largest and mostheavily leveraged Wall Street firms, the Republicans sat on their hands andscowled, while Democrats cheered and whistled. And when he warned that theSupreme Court's latest decision would open the political process tomega-corporations and their foreign owners, the Republicans were so enragedthat they have since accused him of lying.
On both counts, the politics and policy are subjectto reasonable disagreementbut the facts support the president. Moreimportantly, however, is what both issues say about the continuing character ofthe Republican Party at a time when its leaders are counting on the"conservative populism" of the "tea party" movement torevive the party's fortunes.
Consider the possibility of unchecked foreigninfluence in American political campaigns, a change that would seem certain toirritate the self-styled super-patriots of the Republican right. AlthoughSupreme Court Justice Samuel Alito appeared to mutter that the president'swords were "not true" during the speechand was then echoed by everyright-wing commentator, from TheWashington Times to The Wall StreetJournalnonpartisan observers believe that Obama is indeed correct.
"With the corporate campaign expenditure bannow being declared unconstitutional, domestic corporations controlled byforeign governments or other foreign entities are free to spend money to elector defeat federal candidates," said J. Gerald Hebert, executive directorand director of litigation at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C.
Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21, a longtime reformadvocate, explained why that is true, despite existing legal prohibitions againstany contribution or expenditure by a "foreign national" to influencea federal, state or local election.
The current statute defines a foreign corporation asany firm that is "organized under the laws of or having its principalplace of business in a foreign nation." So a company organized in Germany or headquartered in China wouldstill be subject to the existing ban on donations.
"But there are domestic corporationsthoseorganized under state law in the United Stateswhich are and can be controlledby foreign interests," Wertheimer noted. Until the Supreme Courtoverturned the ban on corporate spending in the Citizens United decision, those foreign-controlled companies weresubject to the same restrictions as American-owned firms. By striking down thatprohibition, the court's Republican majority freed any foreign-controlleddomestic company to spend its funds directly to influence our elections.
Protecting Big Banks Saved by TARP
At least some of the founders of the "teaparty" movement found this development disturbingand that may be why theRepublicans reacted so angrily when the president mentioned it. The same may besaid of the new tax on big banks, which Republicans have vowed to reject eventhough it is designed to recoup the costs of the bailout that was so unpopularamong their "populist" constituents.
Again, the facts are simple enough. The legislationthat established the Troubled Asset Relief Programwith many Republicanvotesrequired the president to claw back the program's hundreds of billions ofdollars through a dedicated tax. As designed by the Obama economic team, thattax falls solely on the largest financial firms and penalizes them according tothe degree of leveraged risk those firms have taken on. Its designation as a "responsibilityfee" is not merely a way to avoid uttering the word "tax," butrecognizes that the economic and social costs of the recession must be chargedto those companies and their irresponsible (and sometimes illegal) practices.
Again, the Republican response is anything butpopulist, unless that term has lost all meaning. Republican National CommitteeChairman Michael Steele and an array of the party's elected officials marchedto the microphones to parrot the same arguments articulated by the bankers:They've already paid back the money! They're going to pass the tax on to theirconsumers! And a recession is no time to raise taxes anyway!
The new GOP idols, Scott Brown of Massachusettsand Marco Rubio of Florida,were the most eager critics of any attempt to tax the bankers.
The more Republicans claim to change, the more theyremain the same. The more they wrap themselves in dubious populism, the morethey will defend the wealthy and powerful, without respect to nationalsovereignty and the national interest.
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