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Letting Big Corporations Get Away with Whatever They Want

By Z ArticleNo Comments6 Mins Read
Source: Nader.org

Photo by Willrow Hood/Shutterstock.com

Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has allowed large corporations to run rampant, exploit people, and get away with it. Trump considers himself above the law, boldly claiming, “I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” For more information about Trump’s misdeeds, please see the Articles of Impeachment proposed by me and constitutional law experts Bruce Fein and Louis Fisher in the December 18, 2019 Congressional Record, page H 12197.

In 2017, Trump betrayed his own voters by giving the corporate rich a nearly two trillion dollar tax cut instead of fulfilling his promise to invest in repairing infrastructure and expanding well-paid job opportunities.

These tax cuts for the rich and big corporations, which benefited the Trump family, ran up the deficit for our children and were largely used to give executives bonuses and let CEOs waste money on stock buybacks. In short, the corporate bosses lied to the Congress, saying they wanted these tax cuts to invest and create jobs, but actually used them to enrich themselves.

After his Trumpian giveaway, Trump crushed health and safety law enforcement, unleashing more disease-producing corporate polluters and corporate thieves. The result: harm to workers, consumers, and defenseless communities.

The New York Times reported 98 lifesaving regulations were revoked, suspended, or simply replaced with weaker versions. What remains on the books is not enforced.

Similar wreckage of corporate law-and-order has exacerbated the crisis of working people. Trump has worked to further punish student borrowers; diminish workplace and auto safety; and remove safeguards against banking, credit, and payday loan rackets.

Trump, during his failed business career and bankruptcies, saw the law as a nuisance and breaking and escaping justice as a competitive advantage.

While raising huge sums for his reelection campaign from business lobbyists, Trump keeps giving them no-law government, more loopholes for tax escapes ($170 billion more buried in the $2.2 trillion relief/bailout legislation), more corporatist judges to shut you down in the courtroom, and more of your taxes for their endless corporate welfare greed.

Big companies such as banks, insurance companies, real estate behemoths, and Silicon Valley giants have so many tax escapes and cuts that they’re moving toward tax-exempt status.

Howard Stern, a longtime friend of Trump who promoted Trump’s notoriety early on, has recently called on Trump to resign. Stern said that, in reality, Donald Trump was “disgusted” by his own voters. Why won’t more Trump voters realize that Trump has nothing but contempt for them? Trump will betray his followers at every turn.

During the COVID-19 virus pandemic – which Trump dismissed and scoffed for eight critical weeks, leaving the country defenseless – Trump has allowed a corporate crime epidemic. He has no qualms about aiding and abetting a corporate crime wave epidemic.

Trump, with Congressional Republicans, wants more legislation giving big companies immunity from lawsuits by victims for their negligently harmful products and services. Another rigging of the system.

Trump’s agencies actually announced that they’re putting their law enforcers on the shelf. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) astonishingly told foreign importers of food and medicine that inspections overseas are suspended. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signaled similar retreats, as have other enforcement agencies. Why would the Trumpsters signal green lights for corporate crooks? Especially since corporate scams and other corporate crimes – some crude, others sophisticated – are exploding as trillions pour out of Washington.

A year ago, Public Citizen reported a steep decline in corporate prosecutions and fines under Trump. Now, compared to the size of the previous corporate crime wave, they’ve fallen off a cliff. You can ignore the stern warnings by Attorney General William Barr. He is a phony. He has neither allocated nor asked Congress for a budget that will provide the Department of Justice the capacity to crackdown.

In fact, Trump has fired inspectors general and not filled vacant inspectors general positions. Trump’s boasts bear repeating: Congress can’t watchdog him because “[he has] an Article 2, where [he has] the right to do whatever [he wants] as president.”

With vicious madness, Trump pushes for federal deregulation of nursing homes where residents are dying from COVID-19. He pursues court cases in attempts to end Obamacare, the result of which would be throwing 20 million Americans off of their insurance during a lethal pandemic. He is cravenly freeing corporate emitters of life-destroying mercury and coal ash in our air, condemned pesticides and toxins in drinking water, and whatever else is on the deadly wish list given to him by his corporate paymasters.

Trumps actions that dismantled protections for all Americans families have been expertly documented. Yet, few critics are calling for his resignation or removal from office, despite the clear and present danger he poses to the American people and the Republic.

Trump is doing whatever he wants. He is getting away with abandoning the rule of law and the dismantling of crucial government institutions as he embraces American-style fascism and nepotism.

Perhaps people will learn how to effectively fight back against Trump, a delusional, flailing, ego-obsessed, foul-mouthed, self-enriching bully. The people must stand up to this corrupt politician who lies every hour and turns our government over to Wall Street.  He sacrifices the people on Main Street to enrich fat cats and oligarchs.

One person, Eugene Jarecki, offers a rebuttal to Trump. In a Washington Post op-ed, Jarecki’s sources found that “had the guidelines been implemented earlier, a crucial period in the exponential spread of the virus would have been mitigated and American lives saved.” According to conservative estimates from epidemiologists, “had the Trump administration simply implemented mitigation guidelines by March 9, approximately 60 percent of American COVID-19 deaths could have been avoided.” On his website, TrumpDeathClock.com, Jarecki “displays both the number of people who have died in the country from COVID-19 and an estimate of that portion whose lives would have been saved had the president and his administration acted just one week earlier.” Jarecki has also erected a 54-foot high Trump death clock in New York City’s historic Times Square.

See the numbers yourself on TrumpDeathClock.com. Email david@theeisenhowerproject.org to see how Eugene Jarecki’s team can help you set up such an accountability clock in your community.

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Nader is opposed to big insurance companies, "corporate welfare," and the "dangerous convergence of corporate and government power." While consumer advocate/environmentalist Ralph Nader has virtually no chance of winning the White House, he has been taken quite seriously on the campaign trail.

Indeed, he poses the greatest threat to Sen. John Kerry. Democrats fear that Nader will be a spoiler, as he was in the 2000 election, when he took more than 97,000 votes in Florida. Bush won Florida by just 537 votes. The win gave Bush the election. Nader, an independent candidate, who also ran in 1992 and 1996, is on the ballot in 33 states, including Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, and New Mexico—tough battleground states. Kerry stands a chance of losing those vital states if Nader siphons away the votes of Democrats. President Bush and Kerry have been in a statistical dead heat in nationwide polls, and votes for Nader could well tip the balance in favor of Bush.

Many Kerry supporters contend that a vote for Nader is in reality a vote for Bush and have made concerted efforts to persuade Nader to throw his support behind the Democratic candidate. Nader, however, has held fast to his convictions that the two candidates are nearly indistinguishable and are pawns of big business.

Designing Cars for Everything but Safety

Nader was born in Winsted, Connecticut, on Feb. 27, 1934 to Lebanese immigrants Nathra and Rose Nader. Nathra ran a bakery and restaurant. As a child, Ralph played with David Halberstam, who\'s now a highly regarded journalist.

Nader with Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter outside of Jimmy Carter\'s home on August 7, 1976, discussing Consumer Protection. (Source/AP)
Nader graduated magna cum laude from Princeton in 1955 and from Harvard Law School in 1958. As a student at Harvard, Nader first researched the design of automobiles. In an article titled "The Safe Car You Can\'t Buy," which appeared in the Nation in 1959, he concluded, "It is clear Detroit today is designing automobiles for style, cost, performance, and calculated obsolescence, but not—despite the 5,000,000 reported accidents, nearly 40,000 fatalities, 110,000 permanent disabilities, and 1,500,000 injuries yearly—for safety."

Early Years as a Consumer Advocate

After a stint working as a lawyer in Hartford, Connecticut, Nader headed for Washington, where he began his career as a consumer advocate. He worked for Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Department of Labor and volunteered as an adviser to a Senate subcommittee that was studying automobile safety.

In 1965, he published Unsafe at Any Speed, a best-selling indictment of the auto industry and its poor safety standards. He specifically targeted General Motors\' Corvair. Largely because of his influence, Congress passed the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Nader was also influential in the passage of 1967\'s Wholesome Meat Act, which called for federal inspections of beef and poultry and imposed standards on slaughterhouses, as well as the Clean Air Act and the Freedom of Information Act.

"Nader\'s Raiders" and Modern Consumer Movement

Nader\'s crusade caught on, and swarms of activists, called "Nader\'s Raiders," joined his modern consumer movement. They pressed for protections for workers, taxpayers, and the environment and fought to stem the power of large corporations.

In 1969 Nader established the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, which exposed corporate irresponsibility and the federal government\'s failure to enforce regulation of business. He founded Public Citizen and U.S. Public Interest Research Group in 1971, an umbrella for many other such groups.

A prolific writer, Nader\'s books include Corporate Power in America (1973), Who\'s Poisoning America (1981), and Winning the Insurance Game (1990).

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