When William J. Casey was a young attorney during the Great Depression, he learned an important lesson.
Jobs were hard to come by, so Casey thought himself lucky to land one at the Tax Research Institute of America in New York.
His task was to closely read New Deal legislation and write reports explaining it to corporate chieftains.
At first, he thought they wanted detailed legal commentary on the meaning of the new legislation.
But then he quickly learned a blunt truth: Businessmen neither understood nor welcomed Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts to reform American capitalism. And they didn’t want legal commentary.
Instead, they wanted to know: “What must we do to achieve minimum compliance with the law?”
In short: How do we get by FDR’s new programs?
Fifty years later, Casey would bring a similar mindset to his duties as director of the Central Intelligence Agency for President Ronald Reagan.
William J. Casey
He was presiding over the CIA when it deliberately violated Congress’ ban on funding the “Contras,” the Right-wing death squads of Nicaragua.
Casey gave lip service to the demands of Congress. But privately, with the help of Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, he set up an “off-the-shelf” operation to provide arms to overthrow the leftist government of Daniel Ortega.
It was what President Ronald Reagan wanted. So Casey felt he had a duty to get it done.
But the “Casey Doctrine” of minimum compliance didn’t die with Casey (who expired of a brain tumor in 1987).
It’s very much alive among the American business community as President Barack Obama seeks to give medical coverage to all Americans, and not simply the ultra-wealthy.
The single most important provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)–better known as Obamacare–requires large businesses to provide insurance to full-time employees who work more than 30 hours a week.
For part-time employees, who work fewer than 30 hours, a company isn’t penalized for failing to provide health insurance coverage.
Obama prides himself on being a tough-minded practitioner of “Chicago politics.” So it’s easy to assume that he took the “Casey Doctrine” into account when he shepherded the ACA through Congress.
But he didn’t.
The result was predictable. And its consequences are daily becoming more clear.
Employers feel motivated to move fulltime workers into part-time positions–and thus avoid
- providing their employees with medical insurance and
- a fine for non-compliance with the law.
Some employers have openly shown their contempt for President Obama–and the idea that employers actually have an obligation to those who make their profits a reality.
The White Castle hamburger chain is considering hiring only part-time workers in the future to escape its obligations under Obamacare.
No less than Jamie Richardson, its vice president, has admitted this in an interview.
“If we were to keep our health insurance program exactly like it is with no changes, every forecast we’ve looked at has indicated our costs will go up 24%.”
Richardson claimed the profit per employee in restaurants is only $750 per year. So, as he sees it, giving health insurance to all employees over 30 hours isn’t feasible.
Nor is Richardson the only corporate executive determined to shirk his responsibility to his employees.
John Schnatter, CEO of Papa John’s Pizza, has been quoted as saying:
- The prices of his pizzas will go up–by eleven to fourteen cents price increase per pizza, or fifteen to twenty cents per order; and
- He will pass along these costs to his customers.
“If Obamacare is in fact not repealed,” Schnatter told Politico, “we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders’ best interests.”
After all, why should a multi-million-dollar company show any concern for those who make its profits a reality?
Consider:
- Papa John’s is the third-largest pizza takeout and delivery chain in the United States.
- Its 2012 revenues were $318.6 million, an 8.5 percent increase from 2011 revenues of $293.5 million.
- Its 2012 net income was $14.8 million, compared to its 2012 net income of $12.1 million.
In May, 2012, Schnatter hosted a fundraising event for Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney at his own Louisville, Kentucky mansion.
“What a home this is,” gushed Romney. “What grounds these are, the pool, the golf course.
“You know, if a Democrat were here he’d look around and say no one should live like this. Republicans come here and say everyone should live like this.”
Of course, Romney conveniently ignored a brutally ugly fact:
For the vast majority of Papa John’s minimum-wage-earning employees-–many of them working only part-time-–the odds of their owning a comparable estate are non-existent.
Had Obama been the serious student of Realpolitick that he claims to be, he would have predicted that most businesses would seek to avoid compliance with his law.
To counter that, he need only have required all employers to provide insurance coverage for all of their employees—regardless of their fulltime or part-time status.
This, in turn, would have provided two substantial benefits:
- All employees would have been able to obtain medical coverage; and
- Employers would have been encouraged to provide fulltime positions rather than part-time ones, since they would feel: “Since I’m paying for fulltime insurance coverage, I should be getting fulltime work in return.”
The “Casey Doctrine” needs to be kept constantly in mind when reformers try to protect Americans from predatory employers.
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CORPORATIONS ARE GREEDY PEOPLE, TOO
In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Politics, Social commentary on August 29, 2013 at 12:01 am“How many men ever went to a barbecue and would let one man take off the table what’s intended for nine-tenths of the people to eat? The only way you’ll ever be able to feed the balance of the people is to make that man come back and bring back some of that grub that he ain’t got no business with!”
–Louisiana Senator Huey P. Long, 1934
It was August 11, 2011–one year before he would receive the official Republican nomination for President.
Hustling for votes, Mitt Romney was speaking to a crowd of hundreds at the Iowa State Fair. He was being pressed about raising taxes to help cover entitlement spending.
Suddenly, a heckler suggested raising corporate tax rates.
Romney responded: “Corporations are people, my friend. Of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People’s pockets. Human beings, my friend.”
The line earned him a sustained round of applause from the crowd.
If it’s true that corporations are people, then they are exceptionally greedy and selfish people.
A December, 2011 report by Public Campaign, highlighting corporate abuses of the tax laws, makes this all too clear.
Public Campaign is a national nonpartisan organization dedicated to reforming campaign finance laws and holding elected officials accountable.
Summarizing its conclusions, the report’s author writes:
“Amidst a growing federal deficit and widespread economic insecurity for most Americans, some of the largest corporations in the country have avoided paying their fair share in taxes while spending millions to lobby Congress and influence elections.”
Its key findings:
Among those corporations whose tax-dodging and influence-buying were analyzed:
The report bluntly cites the growing disparity between the relatively few rich and the vast majority of poor and middle-class citizens:
“Over the past few months, a growing protest movement has shifted the debate about economic inequality in this country.
“The American people wonder why members of Congress suggest cuts to Medicare and Social Security but won’t require millionaires to pay their fair share in taxes.
“They want to know why they are struggling to find jobs and put food on the the table while the country’s largest corporations get tax breaks and sweetheart deals, then use that extra cash to pay bloated bonuses to CEOs or ship jobs overseas.
“….At a time when millions of Americans are still unemployed and millions more make tough choices to get by, these companies are enriching their top executives and spending millions of dollars on Washington lobbyists to stave off higher taxes or regulations.”
Assessing the results of corporate tax-dodging, the report states:
The report bluntly notes the hypocrisy of corporate executives who call themselves “job creators” while enriching themselves by laying off thousands of employees:
“Another area where these corporations have decided to spend lavishly is compensation for their top executives ($706 million altogether in 2010).
“Executives doing particularly well work for General Electric ($76 million in total compensation in 2010), Honeywell International ($54 million), and Wells Fargo ($50 million).
“Executives who have seen the greatest increase work for DuPont (188% increase), Wells Fargo (180% increase) and Verizon (167% increase).
Despite being profitable, some of these corporations have actually laid off workers.
Since 2008, seven of the corporations have reported laying off American workers. The worst offenders are Verizon, which laid off at least 21,308 workers, and Boeing, which fired at least 14,862 employees.
Insisting that “corporations are people” wins applause from the wealthiest 1% and their Right-wing shills. But it does nothing to better the lives of the increasingly squeezed poor and middle-class.
If the nation is to avoid economic and moral bankruptcy, Americans must demand that powerful corporations be held accountable–and punished harshly when they behave irresponsibly.
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