Who is in Whose Pocket?

I am pleased to see that Paul Krugman continues to bang the drum against making the Bush Tax-cuts for the merely rich, the top 1% of Americans and for the super rich-the top 1/10th of 1%of the American population-permanent.

Now Mr Krugman's figures suggest that some 120,000 Americans will each save an average $3million over the next decade if these tax cuts are maintained.

He goes on to say that if all of the tax cuts are made permanent that will be over $680 billion over the next decade.

It seems so simple to me that the last thing we need with a massive deficit is to enshrine these subsidies to the very rich in law, and yet it would appear that Congress is working hard to do just that.

It would be extremely interesting to draw a graph of the top 120,000 political donors/lobbyists to Washington and cross-reference them to the top 120,000 rich Americans who have been and will continue to be the beneficiaries of this tax cut.

I do not have such a graph and so my point is admittedly conjecture. Despite that, it is true that growth of the role of finance in the U.S. GDP has been nothing short of phenomenal in the last 25 years, and there is indeed documentation to demonstrate the increased role of "Wall Street" in providing political funding. There is also an almost perfect correlation between the the list of the new "super-rich" and the movers and shakers of finance.

Perhaps Mr Krugman's concerns about the ability of Congress to do "the right thing" for the populace at large and of course to help combat the budget deficit is a reflection of the depths to which our politicians have fallen...