Levers of Power. Kevin A. Young

Kevin Young and Michael Schwartz, “Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: How Corporate Power Shaped the Affordable Care Act,” NLF 23, no. 2 (2014): 30–40.

23 Lindsay A. Owens, “Confidence in Banks, Financial Institutions, and Wall Street, 1971–2011,” Public Opinion Quarterly 76, no. 1 (2012): 142–62.

24 For some of the critiques see Young et al., “Capital Strikes,” 21–22n3.

25 Christopher Howard and Richard Valelly, “Deficit-Attention Disorder: What Voters Really Think About Deficits, Debts, and Economic Recovery,” The American Prospect, November 2010: A8–10; Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely, “Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, no. 1 (2010): 9–12.

26 Of course, many analysts refuse to be bound by the evidence. In 2010 sociologist Neil Fligstein argued that “the Obama administration seems to want to attack the problem of income inequality,” but the “public has never been that concerned about inequality.” Obama himself gave the same excuse for not pursuing a meaningful jobs program: “It’s not where the electorate is.” Neil Fligstein, “Politics, the Reorganization of the Economy, and Income Inequality, 1980–2009,” PAS 38, no. 2 (2010): 239–40; Obama quoted in Michael Grunwald, “Why Change Won’t Sell,” Time, September 10, 2012: 47.

27 We use “free trade” as a shorthand, but the term is misleading on two counts: 1) such agreements actually restrict trade in ways that benefit corporations, for instance by tightening restrictions on intellectual property rights, and 2) the agreements are usually focused more on securing international investment privileges than on trade per se.

28 Matthew Philips and Peter Coy, “Choosing Profits over Productivity,” BW, May 19–25, 2014: 13.

29 Each requires around $4 trillion. Jeff Cox, “US Companies Are Hoarding $2.5 Trillion in Cash Overseas,” CNBC.com, September 20, 2016; Joseph D’Urso, “How Much Would It Cost to End Hunger?” World Economic Forum, July 16, 2015; Robert Pollin, Heidi Garrett-Peltier, James Heintz, and Bracken Hendricks, Green Growth: A U.S. Program for Controlling Climate Change and Expanding Job Opportunities (Center for American Progress/Political Economy Research Institute, 2014), 19.

30 Adam Davidson, “Why Are Corporations Hoarding Trillions?” NYT Magazine, January 24, 2016: MM22; David Cogman and Tim Koller, “The Real Story Behind US Companies’ Offshore Cash Reserves,” mckinsey.com, June 2017. These and other observers have offered economic explanations, arguing for example that shareholders look favorably on large cash reserves, or that new capital investments made no sense given hoarders’ abundance of existing technology and the shortage of investment outlets that would deliver the very high profit rates (often 30 percent or more) to which they were accustomed. These arguments are plausible, but they neglect the political usage of the hoarding. Even if businesses had some “economic” reasons for hoarding, their motives were also political. They used their disinvestment from the US economy to try to obtain corporate tax cuts and other pro-business policies, manifested for instance in their incessant reference to their hoarded cash when making demands on government.

31 Elizabeth Williamson, “Obama Says Tax Breaks Should Now Spur Hiring,” WSJ, February 8, 2011: A4 (emphasis added); Grover and Peschek, Unsustainable Presidency, 123–5.

32 Quoted in Ryan Lizza, “As the World Burns,” TNY, October 11, 2010: 83.

33 Laura Meckler and Carol E. Lee, “White House Regulation Shift Is a Political Bet,” WSJ, September 12, 2011: A6.

34 Coral Davenport, “Senate Approves Updating of Rules on Toxic Chemicals,” NYT, June 8, 2016: A14.

35 Larissa MacFarquhar, “The Conciliator: Where Is Barack Obama Coming From?,” TNY, May 7, 2007: 52.

36 See for instance Matt Taibbi, “Obama’s Big Sellout,” Rolling Stone, December 10, 2009: 43–5, 47–50.

37 “Obama’s Remarks Introducing His New Chief of Staff,” NYT online, January 6, 2011; Chamber president Thomas Donohue quoted in Eric Lipton, “In Daley, a Businessman’s Voice in Oval Office,” NYT, January 7, 2011: A1. On Daley and deregulation see Chapter 3.

38 Donald J. Trump, Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2011), 13; Ian Schwartz, “Trump: Chamber of Commerce Controlled by Special Interests That Don’t Care About You,” realclearpolitics.com, June 29, 2016.

39 Like capitalists, the most powerful state institutions can usually shift the costs of their crimes onto others. For example, murders by the police or military almost never result in criminal convictions or penalties for the perpetrating institution. The monetary settlement, if any, is made at the expense of taxpayers, with the institution increasing its future budgetary requests accordingly or in some cases even pushing politicians to raise taxes. For an example of the latter pattern in Cleveland, see Tim Jones, Mark Niquette, and James Nash, “Bad Cops Are Bad Business for Cities,” BW, March 7–13, 2016: 32.

40 Guantánamo Review Task Force, Final Report (Washington, DC: 2010), 3; AP, “Graham Doubts Civilian Trials for 911 Suspects,” November 28, 2010. Congress later prohibited the transfers.

41 Charles Levinson and David Rohde, “Special Report: Pentagon Thwarts Obama’s Effort to Close Guantánamo,” Reuters, December 29, 2015.

42 On the military’s significant degree of autonomy see Richard Lachmann and Michael Schwartz, “The Life and Times of ‘Who Rules America’ and the Future of Power Structure Research,” in G. William Domhoff et al., Studying the Power Elite: Fifty Years of Who Rules America (New York: Routledge, 2017), 75–8.

43 For example, generals can look forward to lucrative post-military employment in defense firms, which undoubtedly affects their behavior while in the military. See Bryan Bender, “From the Pentagon to the Private Sector,” Boston Globe, December 26, 2010: A1.

44 In the 2012 election, many business donors’ “best argument” for supporting Obama over Romney