CORPORATE AMERICA IS WRECKING CAPITALISM

SUMMARY: The Trump regime has cut a corrupt deal with corporate America, which most of the corporate elites have readily gone along with despite its corruption and undermining of democracy. This is what oligarchy and fascism are all about. Everyday citizens pay financially and with their freedom as these corrupt government and business people get richer and richer, as well as more and more powerful. Recently, Gerard Baker, editor-at-large (and former editor-in-chief) of The Wall Street Journal wrote two columns that make a powerful statement about the damage America’s corporate elites and their style of capitalism have done.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and see my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

The Trump regime has cut a corrupt deal with corporate America, which the corporate elites have all too readily been happy to accept. It is based on greed and corruption by both these parties: the government will let the corporations and their executives do whatever they want to grow their profits and wealth as long as they pay homage to Trump and his regime verbally and financially. That everyday Americans will suffer from unaffordable costs of daily living and from poor pay and working conditions does not concern either of these parties.

What’s surprising is that so few members of the corporate elite have been willing to call out the corruption and the undermining of democracy. A group calling themselves Patriotic Millionaires has been highlighting the harm of the high and growing levels of economic inequality for some time. They have been promoting policy solutions through changes in tax and employee pay laws. Patriotic Millionaires has proposed “The Money Agenda,” a set of policies that would reduce economic inequality and “permanently stabilize the economic lives of working people, stimulate wide-spread economic growth, and ensure prosperity and stability.” (See this previous post for more details.)

Recently, Gerard Baker, editor-at-large (and former editor-in-chief) of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) wrote two columns that make a powerful statement about what America’s corporate elites and their current style of capitalism have done wrong. I don’t imagine that I have to tell you that the WSJ and Baker previously have been stanch proponents and, when necessary, defenders of American capitalism. Baker’s recent columns in the WSJ (paywall) are titled How to Cure What Ails American Capitalism (8/17/26) and Socialism Is the Wrong Answer, but the Questions Are Real (8/10/26). Robert Reich provides a nice summary of Baker’s points in this blog post.

Baker writes that, “The widespread popular dissatisfaction with the working of modern American capitalism may be the product of some real, objective problems in the way American capitalism is working.” The problems he notes include the high level of economic inequality, the unaffordability of daily life for many, and the corruption and lack of accountability of the political and corporate elites. He points out that this is harming social solidarity and leading to demands for a radical replacement of American capitalism.

Baker further writes that, “Most of the causes of America’s economic dysfunction are the result of a capitalism that has mutated into a system run by and for large corporate interests.” The dysfunction he highlights includes oligopoly-level concentration in almost every business sector; regulation, legislation, and policy that benefit big companies; and a privatized healthcare system that operates to generate profits for providers, insurers, and pharmaceutical companies while producing poor outcomes for patients and very high costs. He states that the overall result is a concentration of “market, economic and political power by a business-political class that promotes its own well-being at the expense of competition, the market and ultimately the people.”

The fact that this is coming from a career-long proponent and advocate for American capitalism is striking and underscores how poorly capitalism is working. It also highlights how shocking it is that other supposed leaders in corporate America aren’t standing up both to call this out and to support remedies – not to mention speaking out against the corruption and undermining of democracy.

The current Trump regime and its allies among the corporate elite are what oligarchy and fascism are all about. There’s a corrupt deal among government and business people that “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” Everyday citizens pay financially and with their freedom as these corrupt government and business people get richer and richer, as well as more and more powerful.

Some of the remedies are clear but obviously require a seismic change in our elected officials:

Strong enforcement of antitrust laws (as the Biden administration started to do for the first time in 40 years). American capitalism has gone so far down the road of eliminating actual market place competition by allowing monopolies and oligopolies that remediation will requiring breaking up some (if not many) of the huge corporations that have been created.
Strong worker protection laws and agencies, including support for unions and unionization.
Strong consumer protection laws and agencies for all consumer goods and services, especially financial services.
A total revamping of our health care system to remove the corrupting profit motive that puts profits before patients. A single payer Medicare for All system is the remedy, like what every other peer country has.
Dramatic reform of the American campaign finance system to prevent wealthy individuals and corporations from effectively buying elected officials and policies. Matching public funds for small campaign contributions from people within a candidate’s district, tied to strict limits on other campaign funding, are the most immediate solution in the context of the Citizens United and related Supreme Court decisions. New York City and State and numerous other jurisdictions have such systems in place and they’ve produced very positive results. (See previous posts here and here for more information.)

For lots of good news see Jess Craven’s Chop Wood Carry Water blog’s most recent good news Sunday post here.

PROGRESSIVES ARE WINNING ELECTIONS BY FOCUSING ON AFFORDABILITY, FAIRNESS, AND CORRUPTION

SUMMARY: Strong progressive election results are continuing. Voters are making it clear that their top issues are the unaffordability of daily life, corruption in our politics, fairness in our economy, and strong, effective opposition to the Trump regime.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and see my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

Strong progressive election results are continuing. My earlier post noted wins by progressives in June and early July elections, and my hope that national Democrats were hearing the voters’ clear message. Many still seem too entrenched with big-money backers to hear the grassroots voices. Voters are signaling that everyday unaffordability, as well as corruption in politics and the economy, are the issues that matter most to them.

In the past two weeks, elections were held in Alabama, Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, South Carolina, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Progressives won repeatedly, including in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race, and even democratic socialists won, although the democratic socialist in Wisconsin’s governor race lost narrowly.

Incumbent House Democrats’ losses to more progressive primary challengers suggest that Democratic voters want representatives who will more aggressively confront the affordability crisis, demand fairness, and take on the Trump regime’s corruption and bad policies on the economy, the war, ICE, the climate crisis, and protections for individual rights and the rule of law. [1]

While attention was focused on Democratic primaries, Republican primaries also produced notable results. Several Trump-endorsed candidates have lost, including Mike Lindell (the MyPillow guy) in Minnesota’s governor’s race, as well as Amir Hassan in Michigan and Andy Ogles in Tennessee in U.S. House races. In South Carolina’s U.S. Senate race, Darline Graham was pushed into a runoff despite Trump’s endorsement. [2]

In Missouri, voters strongly rejected two Republican ballot initiatives. One would have eliminated the state income tax and replaced it with a higher sales tax (defeated 83% – 17%), even though supporters outspent opponents by more than two to one (with many proponent groups keeping their donors’ identities secret). This and other election results may indicate that the era of tax cuts as the supposed path to economic growth and jobs may be ending. [3] Missouri voters also rejected (80% – 20%) a GOP-backed effort to make it harder to pass initiative petitions. Both ballot questions passed in all eight Missouri congressional districts. [4]

These candidates and issues are winning, even when being outspent, because voters are no longer being fooled by messaging from a corrupt campaign financing system, including candidates’ disingenuous economic promises (e.g., tax cuts whose benefits will trickle down) that have resulted in economic inequality and the unaffordability of everyday life.

What unites these candidates is a shared focus: improving everyday life and making society fairer. They call out the greed and power of the American oligarchy and their control of the economy and policymaking. They make the case that for our private enterprise system to survive government must put a stop to huge monopolistic companies and dramatic wealth and income inequality. They argue that regulation and fair taxes are needed to curb monopolies and stop price-gouging (including by major food and gas and oil companies). They call for an end to private for-profit control of essential public services, such as healthcare, education, mail delivery, utilities, and transportation. [5]

For lots of good news see Jess Craven’s Chop Wood Carry Water blog’s most recent good news Sunday post here.

[1] Hubbell, R. B., 8/6/26, “The polls were wrong in Michigan – by a mile! Why that matters,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/the-polls-were-wrong-in-michiganby)

[2] Hubbell, R. B., 8/13/26, “Don’t underestimate the ability of Democratic voters to get it right,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/dont-underestimate-the-ability-of)

[3] Cox Richardson, H., 8/5/26, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-5-2026)

[4] Hubbell, R. B., 8/5/26, “The misleading narrative of Democratic disunity,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/the-misleading-narrative-of-democratic)

[5] Cox Richardson, H., 6/26/26, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-26-2026)

ARE THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATS LISTENING?

SUMMARY: I hope the national Democrats are listening. The grassroots are yelling and voting based on the unaffordability of daily life and the corruption in our politics and economy. In recent elections across the country, progressive, grassroots candidates are beating incumbents and winning even in conservative, Republican districts. Many of these candidates are young, female, multicultural, and/or new to politics.

(Personal note: I didn’t post the last two weeks because of the combination of a scramble to get signatures to put a question on the November ballot and a ten-day visit by an out-of-town grandson.)

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

I hope the national Democrats are listening. The people and the voters are sending a loud, clear message. I worry that many of the Democrats in Washington are too entrenched with the oligarchs who spend big money to support their campaigns to hear the grassroots voices. The grassroots are yelling and voting based on the unaffordability of daily life and the corruption in our politics and economy.

In recent elections across the country, from Maine to Florida, from New York to Ohio to Colorado and Montana, from Arizona to California to Washington State, progressive, grassroots candidates are winning. They are beating incumbents and winning even in conservative, Republican districts. [1]

These candidates are winning by calling out monopolistic, corporate America, by attacking the political corruption of big money, and by addressing the everyday problems of ordinary Americans. [2] They are advocating for:

Guaranteeing health care for everyone
Making housing and child care more affordable
Increasing the minimum wage and easing the path to union membership
Reforming the corrupt campaign finance system
Requiring that wealthy individuals and corporations pay their fair share in taxes
Addressing climate change
Ensuring AI benefits all of us and not just the oligarchs
Ending wars and bloated military spending

The majority of the American people support these policies in poll after poll – and now in election after election. The public is sick and tired of status quo politics and corrupt campaign finance and economic systems that benefit only the rich and powerful.

Many of these winning candidates are young, female, multicultural, and/or new to politics. Some of them are Democrats and some are Democratic Socialists – not that many voters know what that means or care. What unites these candidates is that they are committed to making people’s everyday lives better and our society fairer. They are calling out the greed of the American oligarchy and their control of our economy and policy making. They make the case that our private enterprise system cannot survive unless the government ends huge monopolistic companies and dramatic wealth and income inequality through regulation and taxation. They call for an end to monopolistic price gouging like that of the food and gas and oil companies. They oppose private for-profit ownership of societal functions that people need to survive and that should serve the public good, such as health care, education, mail delivery, utilities, detention facilities, and roads, bridges, and public transportation. [3]

Ironically, Republicans supported many of these policies from the 1950s through the 1970s – ones they are now calling dangerous socialism or communism (without knowing or caring what those terms really mean). (More on the meaning of these terms in a future post.)

In 1969, Republican President Richard Nixon proposed the Family Assistance Plan, which would have provided a universal basic income to all families, effectively ending poverty. But it didn’t get enacted. In 1971, Congress passed legislation creating a universal, federally subsidized child care system that President Nixon was about to sign until pressured by right-wing political forces to veto it. In 1974, Nixon proposed universal health care with cost controls and financial assistance for those who couldn’t afford insurance. This also didn’t get enacted.

Back in the 1950s, Republicans and President Eisenhower supported workers, unions, and increasing the minimum wage; the expansion of social security and unemployment insurance; as well as improved housing and health care. The Republican Party platform called for equal pay for equal work and the elimination of discrimination in employment. [4]

It’s amazing to review how American politics and policies have changed over the last 75 years. What were centrist policies, supported by Republicans, in the 1950s through 1970s, are now called far left, socialist (or even communist) policies.

For lots of good news see Jess Craven’s Chop Wood Carry Water blog’s most recent good news Sunday posts here, here, and here.

[1] Sanders, B., 7/1/26. “Last night in Colorado,” (https://www.facebook.com/reel/1517611133169096)

[2] Reich, R., 7/6/26, “Why is he using the communist trump card,” Blog post (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-communist-trump-card)

[3] Cox Richardson, H., 6/26/26, “Letters from an American blog (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-26-2026)

[4] Cox Richardson, H., 6/26/26, see above

FAIR TAXATION IS ESSENTIAL FOR DEMOCRACY Part 3

Democracy requires fair taxation. The current U.S. tax system is unfair. Given the huge inequalities in wealth, wealth and transfers of it need to be taxed directly. Wealth taxes are essential to re-establishing a fair tax system and reducing economic inequality.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and get notices of my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

Democracy requires fair taxation. The current U.S. tax system is unfair. My previous post focused on increasing the progressivity of individual and business income tax rates as one essential piece of re-establishing a fair tax system and reducing economic inequality. This post focuses on taxing wealth.

Wealth inequality has grown even more dramatically than income inequality. U.S. billionaires’ wealth has doubled since 2019. [1] Wealth inequality is so great that the only way to reduce it is to tax wealth and transfers of it directly. To re-establish a fair tax system and reduce economic inequality, we must: [2]

Tax existing wealth to slow and ultimately reverse the huge growth in wealth inequality and because the wealthy can (and do) maintain their extravagant lifestyles without having income. They borrow money and use their wealth as collateral for the loans. Therefore, they pay little or no income tax.
Tax increases in wealth even if assets aren’t sold. These increases in wealth are effectively income even when not sold.
Tax the intergenerational transfer of wealth because otherwise America will have a perpetual class of reigning, oligarchic families.
Give the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the resources to enforce U.S. tax laws and dramatically reduce the hundreds of billions of dollars a year of tax dodging by wealthy individuals and businesses, i.e., not paying the taxes they legally owe.

A wealth tax makes sense and is fair because, among other reasons, the main source of wealth for the middle class – their home – has a wealth tax on it, i.e., the property tax. Therefore, taxing other forms of wealth that the wealthy own is fair and reasonable. There are many proposals on the table to tax wealth at the state and local levels, [3] as well as at the federal level. At the federal level, the Billionaires Income Tax Act would tax the increase in value of assets (e.g., stocks) even if they aren’t sold. There are also two different wealth tax proposals, one from Senator Warren (D-MA) and Representative Jayapal (D-WA), the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, and another from Senator Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Khanna (D-CA), the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act. There is also the Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act that would shift some of the income tax burden from low- and moderate-income households to those with incomes of over $1 million.

In California, a one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires is being proposed. Bob Reich explains why this makes sense in this 3-minute video. California’s 200 billionaires would pay $100 million a year for the next 5 years. This would allow the state government to provide health and food assistance benefits to millions of residents who would otherwise lose them due to federal funding cuts.

Current federal laws allow wealthy parents to pass their wealth on to their children with little or no tax being paid, including on assets that have increased in value while the parents owned them. At least 90 billionaires died over the last ten years and left their beneficiaries a total of $455 billion. Roughly $250 billion of that was increases in the value of assets during the time the deceased person held them (e.g., stock in a corporation). There was no capital gains tax paid on that $250 billion because current laws allow it to be transferred at its current value; this is the so-called “stepped up basis” tax loophole. This loophole should be repealed.

The estate tax has been cut in recent years and should be increased to decrease economic inequality, increase fairness, and curb the perpetuation of an oligarchic class in American society. The For the 99.5% Act proposed by Senator Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Gomez (D-CA) would reduce the size of an estate that is exempt from taxation from $30 million per couple to $7 million. It would also apply progressive tax rates based on the size of an estate (as opposed to the current flat rate of 40%). [4]

The IRS has been attacked and vilified by Republicans and the oligarchs for decades, presumably because they and their supporters don’t want to pay taxes, including by dodging taxes they owe. They’ve cut its funding and therefore its staffing, particularly for enforcement, leaving hundreds of billions of dollars owed by wealthy individuals and companies uncollected each year. President Biden and Democrats in Congress provided $80 billion in additional funding to the IRS to address understaffing and weak enforcement. For every dollar spent auditing the wealthy, the government recovered $26.

As soon as the Republicans and Trump returned to power, they began cutting tens of billions from the IRS’s funding and reducing its staffing. In 2025, about 22,000 employees left the IRS, about one-quarter of its workforce. Seven former IRS Commissioners, going back to President Reagan, co-wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times in February criticizing the cuts to funding and staffing at the IRS. [5] The IRS workers’ union, the National Treasury Employees Union, pushed back against some of the Trump administration’s cuts. So, in February 2026, the Trump administration terminated the union’s collective bargaining agreement.

To better serve taxpayers, the IRS introduced Direct File in 2024, which enabled many taxpayers to file simplified income tax returns for free – saving taxpayers an estimated $23 billion a year in tax preparation costs. Nearly 300,000 taxpayers used it in 2025. However, tax preparation and software companies have long opposed it because it reduces the demand for their services. So, the Trump administration has terminated it. In addition to its lobbying, the tax preparation industry’s opposition included, for example, Intuit, the parent company of Turbo Tax, donating $1 million to Trump.

I encourage you to contact your state and local elected officials, as well as your U.S. Representative and Senators, to ask them to support a fairer tax system that taxes wealth and transfers of it. Also ask your members of Congress to support funding for the IRS so it can enforce our tax laws. You can find contact information for your US Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

For lots of good news, see Jess Craven’s Chop Wood Carry Water blog’s most recent good news Sunday post here.

[1] Collins, C., 4/5/26, “Tax the rich across the land!” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/how-to-tax-the-rich)

[2] See this previous post on reducing economic inequality, which includes information on tax reforms proposed by the Economic Policy Institute and in the Money Agenda proposed by a group called Patriotic Millionaires.

[3] Meyerson, H., 3/12/26, “Democrats get serious about taxing the rich,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/2026/03/12/democrats-get-serious-taxing-rich/)

[4] Conley, J., 12/13/24, “Why can’t we fund universal public goods? Blame the tax-dodging billionaire nepo babies,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/what-billionaires-avoid-taxes)

[5] Sorapuru, J. E. J., 4/8/26, “Smaller IRS still pressured by Trump,” The Boston Globe