American flags of Insurrectionists vs. Young Demonstrators Fighting for their Women’s Rights

by Prosy Dela Cruz | Sep 28, 2011 | People

Cheap vs. Deep Patriotism

By Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D.

“ Patriotic, responsible businesses in America are getting punished while these global corporations that call themselves American companies get away with murder.  A lot of global corporations call themselves American corporations, but they treat America the way that a foreign corporation often treats countries we used to call Third World countries.  They take, take, take, and give nothing back.  When these global corporations want to use our court system or when they need the support of our military or they want to use our roads, then they’re American corporations.  But when it’s time to create profits all that’s done overseas with the tax havens and their off-shore operations.  Those are the corporations, plus the worst of Wall Street, that are making the American Dream impossible. “ Van Jones, 2011.

Van Jones shared his analysis, an excerpt above, and his views about the Green Collar Economy with Sarah Van Gelder of Yes Magazine.  I am currently reading his book on the Green Collar Economy, where he shares three pillars of greening an ecomony: reverence for all creation, equal opportunity to those in pursuit of equity, and minimizing the pain for the impacted group.

Van Jones describes the economy of the United States as so big, its economy dwarfs that of the two Chinas.  He argues that the largesse of the economy is being maldistributed and its benefits are not going to fund the social contract benefits of living in the US: the roads, the bridges, the schools, the hospitals and instead, $2.3 trillion in cash reserves sit in the coffers of big corporations.  Nancy Pelosi recently shared a slide on facebook, showing 189% of the debt created under Pres. Reagan, 55% under Pres. GHW Bush, 37% under Pres. Clinton, 86% under Pres. G.W. Bush and 35% under Pres. Obama.

How did this happen?  When you have the capital gains tax formerly at 28% under Pres. Ronald Reagan, you can accept it to go down to 20% under Pres. Bill Clinton, as the economy had billions in surplus.  When Pres. G.W. Bush took office, he took the capital gains tax down to 15% while at the same time, tax credits to the rich that cost the economy a $1 trillion and then, launched the country into a war in Iraq, costing $122 billion a year, now at $2 trillion, including Afghanistan.  You have a decade long with the economy going towards the superrich and the mega corporations that the middle class has been taxed to the maximum.  

Do you feel that you have to draw down from your savings just to pay the federal taxes?  Or that you have no disposable income to speak of?

Some would argue that $1 trillion went to health care reform, which benefits the middle class, but it went first to the elderly, the retired folks who paid to the nose in Social Security while they were working, the disabled, and the veterans.  We used up the prior treasury reserves to go overseas to fully support the wars, and even build roads in Iraq, while our own roads here, where we live, the pockmarked surfaces we find in Third World countries we visit, now are our daily realities. 

So much so that when we drove South and North on Highway 74, Freeway 805 and Freeway 405, they had been repaved in San Diego and Orange Counties, that we can see the fruits of our federal taxes benefiting us.   But what about our court systems?  What about our food processing systems?  Or our schools?  Our drinking water?  Our hospitals?

How do we now re-imagine a new green economy that gives back to all of us?  Cheap patriotism simply would have us go back to the old ways, keep taxing the middle class, and keep giving the tax benefits to the superrich, as the theory goes, so that they can invest them in jobs and these  benefits would trickle down.

Have you seen the trickle of benefits down for a decade?  NPR radio reported the creation of 150,000 new jobs each month, the growth of the economy at 3% but with the swell in unemployment ranks and the increase in young graduates, it seems that the new job creation cannot keep up to sustain the swell in labor force.

Instead, what you see are the sacrifices of the small businesses who, for love and concern for their labor force, extend their own personal reserves to cover their payrolls, take a second mortgage from their homes, even sacrifice going on vacations so their employees are retained and not laid off.   These small businesses are the engine of the Los Angeles economy during the last recession of the early 1990s, some are the immigrant entrepreneurs who created jobs that kept the economy going, most of which were in ethnic food products processing industry.

Some of these owners even went to specialized skills training with their workers to see how they can improve their techniques in processing and create high value in their products and in the process created solid teamwork.  When they had teamwork with their employees, they grew their small businesses to reap 600% increase in profits and some even moved to larger facilities. 

What they learned is when they shared the benefits with their employees, they gained; what the employees learned is when they shared the sacrifices of their employers, they too benefited and got to grow with the companies as the economy improved.  Now, they are part and parcel of our American staples: Mexican, Italian, Ethiopian, Filipino, Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian, Nepalese, Tibetan, Singaporean, Malaysian foods and many more.   You can even have some of these brand names going places and beyond Los Angeles to New York or even Las Vegas. 

These are some of the lessons I learned from working with small businesses, monitoring their good manufacturing practices and helping out in training them to be more proactive in building a house of quality for their workplaces.   When the employers benefited all employees, their shared sacrifice was but for a shorter period of time, and when the economy grew, all employees shared in the later gains and benefits with increase in their salaries and titles to go with their new responsibilities and new business growth.  For us, the state regulators who were impacted by the recession, we did not use our state cars, for we did not want to incur additional costs to the state. Instead, we took the bus and in some instances, we carpooled and planned our visits to the factories.  Our shared sacrifices got the attention of our deputy directors that when the economy improved, they gave our agency an increase in travel budget.

This is the unwritten social contract in America, when you take care of others, or your own employees and ride out the recession with them, you somehow get to see your own prosperity is just around the corner, as there seems to be reverence for all, and the impact to those affected are minimized and equity builders are given a chance to share later on.   Let us ride out this recession by not the short-term gains of cheap patriotism, but a deeper faith in our employees and make our patriotism deeper to reach those within our spheres of influence.   Somehow, in Wall Street, they rode out into the sunset, using the cheap thrills of our pension funds, and now, one of theirs sits in jail, named Bernie Maddoff, and for whom, some recent Hollywood films illustrate their systemic greed and cheap patriotism, loving simply their own without regard for others!

Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. started her column, Rhizomes, to impart new buds of mentoring lessons, from folks who are planted firmly on the ground, who have a keen sense of who they are, and their blessings.  She also writes about politics, arts, spirituality, music, community service, and ethical leadership in this space.  She was a former Commissioner for LA City’s Civil Service and LA Convention Center and worked for 27 years at California Dept. of Public Health’s Food and Drug Branch, a post she retired from.  She has been a community volunteer for three and a half decades.