Back in January Trump was promising increased spending on America's infrastructure so it came as no surprise that the officials of construction and building unions were full of praise for him. Sean McGarvey of North America's Building Trades Union went as far as to declare “We have a common bond the president.” The notion that Trump is somehow going to promote policies and fiscal actions that are going to benefit workers is delusional.
Fluent in politicians' doublespeak, Trump posed as a friend of workers while in fact he is ruthlessly determined on the weakening of the working class, the same as any other representative of the capitalists. Rather than improving the lives of workers, his administration is planning a full-scale offensive on workers' employment conditions and their standards of living. Trump is notoriously anti-union, full-hearted in support for right-to-work laws designed to effectively kill labor unions and drive down wages.
Trump’s plan will actually be a massive giveaway to Wall Street and to the barons of the construction industry. Trump intends to cut back government spending and taxation. So when he says, ‘I’m going to build infrastructure’ it means that he’s going to create a huge trillion-dollar market for Wall Street’s high finance through public-private partnerships with the federal government doling out tax credits to wealthy construction corporations and developers in order to build roads, bridges, and other public infrastructure. Since the plan depends on private investors, it can only fund projects that spin off user fees and are profitable. Rural roads, water systems, and public schools don’t fall into that category. Neither does public transit, which fails on the profitable criterion as it depends on public subsidies. Trump’s plan to fix America’s broken infrastructure will only extend as far as the profits for the mega-rich will allow.
Take a look at Trump's economic team.
Steve Mnuchin, a hedge fund manager whose credits include being a senior figure at Goldman Sachs, and the person responsible for more than 36,000 home foreclosures when he ran OneWest Bank.
Andrew Puzder, the CEO of the CKE Restaurants fast-food chain infamous for fierce opposition to any increase in the minimum wage. From 1978-1991 Puzder was the top trial lawyer in the firm owned by Morris A. Shenker, the man described as “a front man for the St. Louis Mob” and who Life magazine referred to as the “foremost lawyer for the mob in the U.S.”
Wilbur Ross is a billionaire who made his fortune as the “king of bankruptcy” while leading Rothschild & Co.’s bankruptcy practice before forming his own private equity firm which was recently accused by the SEC of charging improper (read: illegal) fees to its investors, including pension funds. Ross is one of the architects of Trump’s infrastructure plan to “Make America Great Again” with all the mention of empty, vacant factories, and devastated communities. The man whose company bought up troubled factories in the Midwest and made them profitable by gouging workers through salary cuts, attacking their benefits and pensions, and generally turning a profit on the backs of desperate workers and communities, is now the point person charged with saving the working class.
Then there’s Steve Bannon, ex- Goldman Sachs while the sitting president of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn, has been named director of the powerful policy-making body, the National Economic Council. Add Goldman Sachs lawyer Jay Clayton as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, essentially making him the top enforcement and regulatory officer for finance in the U.S. Government.
Wielding all this influence Goldman Sachs essentially runs the Trump administration. Goldman Sachs now effectively controls the U.S. government's economic policies. The Trump administration has vowed to cut regulations by 75 percent or more, music to the ears of CEOs, it most likely be disaster for working people as things like environmental protections, workplace safety laws, and other vital legal protections will undoubtedly be gutted. Our American fellow-workers must be prepared for worse to come. Trump's rhetoric is simply yet another in a long series of con-jobs by presidents of the USA.
No comments:
Post a Comment