God Emperor of Mastodon (new account)
@michal@sapka.pl
342 following, 902 followers
@michal I'm not sure what's covered by Reaganism. There was "Reagonomics", which held that if the corporations are making money, that will "trickle down" as they invest that money.
IMO that only worked when we had a tax code that gave lower tax rates for specific investments. In my time, those investments were arranged by Congress to be things which benefited society as a whole. That, too, is gone now. Partly, I think, because schemes using multiple countries' tax codes to pay nothing in taxes.
@michal These tendencies are quite old. Even Adam Smith wrote about this, and warned about keeping corporations (or whatever the equivalent was back then) tightly controlled.
In my time, we always knew Congressmen were paid agents. But they had to at least appear to be clean, and any hint of scandal tended to ruin their careers. "Accountability" is the word. That's gone.
(Story Continues...)
@michal Some years ago, 3 Congressmen were found by the FBI to be asking for bribes in exchange for Gov't contracts, via price lists on their official letterhead. The FBI was getting ready to charge them, Congress stopped it; "You don't have jurisdiction over Congress." They held secret hearings with "Congressmen A, B, and C".
A was named and retired. B and C were never named. I know one of them is still in Congress.
So _some_ accountability, but not much. And it's just gotten worse.