How the American people are conned, used and abused

This is a guest post by Bob Poris.

The New York Times has a very important article on how the oil companies are reaping billions of dollars in subsidies. Talk about corporate welfare! Read it here.

In addition to this article you may wish to read the current Time magazine story on the cost of lobbying; how it works to change legislation before it is voted on in ways that are not read before being voted upon! The lobbying industry saves many industries and companies BILLIONS in taxes each year, forever.

The starting date of the new laws are often delayed a year or two, before becoming effective, which saves BILLIONS TOO. The turnover of young people working for a few years as bureaucrats and then being hired as lobbyists at very high salaries is usually only a few years! We now have thousands of registered lobbyists, where we used to have a few hundred.

Lobbyists also dole out campaign funds to both sides of the aisle which essentially allows them to write the laws; guarantees they will be voted into law and and further gives them the inside track on avoiding or redefining laws they dislike once said laws have been enacted.

Lobbyists for big business number in the thousands; lobbyists for consumers number about three people!

No wonder we have such inequities and the consumer or average tax payer is picking up the bill! We pay whatever the tax code demands while corporations pay from zero to a fraction of actual profits!!!!!

The Tea Party folks and anti tax public is being taken to the cleaners every day. Our large industries paid billions to prevent health care reform and banking reform. We the people end up subsidizing the entire oil industry, the transportation industry, the clean air industry; anti
pollution efforts, even car dealers among others. It is mind boggling and it works!!!

We, the tax payers have very few resources or people with which to even try to compete with the special interests that use the media, campaign financing, corruption, and huge law
firms, etc., to perpetuate their goals. We are manipulated by them in many ways and they are skilled at appealing to our ignorance and our emotions. They form organizations with great sounding names, set up rallies with preprinted placards, organize the transportation, write the scripts that people shout out at public meetings, etc., all designed to whip up anger and hatred of just about everything.

Most people could care less about inheritance taxes on estates of over a million dollars. But when the discussion was changed by the words, "death tax," a lot of folks became terribly agitated. The same kind of thing happened when it was suggested we increase taxes for those earning over $250,000 a year. The great majority in this country earn less than $100,000.

These corporate funders of anti-government sentiment use wonderful bumper stickers that
have little to do with the average person. And the latest attack is now focused on Medicare and Social Security in another attempt to privatize, which means we may well lose everything if the stock market tanks again! Bush tried the privatization route and it almost worked. Think where most of us would be if he had been successful!