[Peace-discuss] Kucinich: Obama Admin Transferring Wealth to the Few

[C. G. Estabrook]

Dennis Kucinich: Obama administration presiding over transfer of wealth from the 
mass to the upper few

[Dennis Kucinich, elected mayor of Cleveland at the age of 31 in 1977, is the 
youngest person ever elected to head a major US city. Previously, Kucinich 
served on the Cleveland City Council. He won his Congress seat in 1996 and while 
there has authored or co-sponsored bills related to the health care system, 
Social Security, education and calling for the abolition of the death penalty. 
Kucinich has also called for the repeal of the USA PATRIOT Act and for the 
impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. He is a former presidential 
candidate, and was reelected into a seventh term in Congress, representing the 
10th District of Ohio.]

PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay. We're in Washington, 
in the Capitol building with Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Thanks for joining us 
again.

DENNIS KUCINICH: Thank you.

JAY: President Obama will be speaking soon about his deficit plan. Some people 
are saying the White House is more allied with the Republican Party than 
sections of the Democratic Party when it comes to the deficit discourse. What's 
your take on this?

KUCINICH: I think those people are probably right. I mean, how can you have a 
discussion about the deficit without looking at the fact that our defense budget 
has grown over $700 billion a year, that we will spend trillions of dollars in 
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan? Now we have a new war in Libya. No one's talking 
about reduction in those areas. Where the discussion is, we're going to reduce 
the basic benefits that people have to take care of their health. I don't buy it.

JAY: The whole kind of taking on of the deficit as the issue argument has been 
embraced by the White House. They kind of gave up on the debate, whether the 
issue was deficit fighting or the issue was moving the economy.

KUCINICH: Well, how did we get a deficit? I mean, the Bush tax cuts added a 
trillion dollars. His wars have added several trillion dollars. The Fed, through 
their program of quantitative easing, has pumped trillions of dollars into their 
own bailout program for banks. The deficit and the reason why we have it 
underscores the transfer of wealth that's occurring in this country from the 
great mass of people into the hands of a few. And the Obama administration's 
actually presiding over that. That's, like, their job, to continue to accelerate 
the wealth upwards. That's why Wall Street has such extraordinary influence on 
the economic policy of this administration. That's why we have such a high level 
of unemployment. That's why the Dodd-Frank bill doesn't reach to stop the kind 
of black box derivatives that are going to drive another cycle of boom-bust. 
That's why the oil companies have so much influence in our energy policies. 
That's why privatization is in the background of the attack on the post office. 
That's why we're still at war. That's why we're being dragged around the world 
on imperialist policies that have nothing to do with America's mission to its 
people. So yeah. I mean, so we end up with a deficit. Yeah, we have a financial 
deficit. But we also have a moral deficit.

JAY: The president apparently is going to say on Wednesday night that he's going 
to follow the lead of this presidential deficit commission, this bipartisan 
commission, which apparently takes as its underling assumption that the 
fundamental issue facing America is to reduce the debt. And there's going to 
be--and apparently he's already putting into play debt reduction [inaudible] 
somewhere near, not at the rate of, but near what the Republicans are calling 
for. What do you make of this kind of internalization and lack of combat on the 
argument itself?

KUCINICH: Well, let's think about this. The president is going to accept the 
lead of his deficit reduction commission. I have an idea. Why doesn't the 
president lead? Why doesn't the president challenge these corporations who have 
basically single-handedly driven the United States economy over a cliff? Why 
doesn't the president challenge the military-industrial complex, which is now 
putting us into a fourth war? Why doesn't the president challenge not just the 
tax cuts to the wealthy, but conditions where corporations are getting away 
without paying any taxes at all, including one corporation that is tied quite 
directly to one of the president's top economic advisors? I mean, you can't pawn 
this off on some commission. I mean, presidents have always done that. Like, oh, 
I'll appoint a commission, let them make the decision, and I'll implement it. 
No, that's not the way it works. We elected Barack Obama president of the United 
States, and we have a right to expect him to lead on these economic matters. And 
there is no discussion about creating more jobs. There is no discussion about 
getting America back to work. And, frankly, you know what? If you've got people 
working, that starts to lower your debt, because people are paying money in. But 
the geniuses on Wall Street decided that a certain amount of unemployment is 
necessary for the proper functioning of the economy.

JAY: So what do you say to ordinary people who voted for President Obama - they 
voted for one thing, and they seem to be getting another thing, and they say to 
you, well, what should we do?

KUCINICH: I think it's important to explore these inconsistencies, and to ask 
questions, and to demand that we move forward as a nation, where everyone 
achieves economic progress. We're seeing a jobless recovery. We're seeing an 
intensification of the differences between rich and poor. That's happening on 
the watch of a Democrat. I mean, frankly, we need to challenge the president not 
to simply live up to his promises, but to live up to the promise of his 
administration that the American people bought into when they rallied to his 
candidacy in November 2008. I was president during that inaugural. I saw two 
million people gather on the Mall in a ceremony of extraordinary hope. You could 
feel the energy on the Mall that day. You could summon it if the president 
wanted to and put it as lightening in a bottle. And yet we've not only seen this 
energy dissipate, but we've seen put in its place an agenda that is so 
corporatist, so inflexibly dedicated to Wall Street's description of where the 
economy has to go, that it's demolishing the hopes of millions to save their 
homes, demolishing the hopes of millions to be able to have jobs, demolishing 
the hopes of millions to be able to have a level of health care which they have 
a right to expect.