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07/06/2004:

"Inequality Stalks the Polling Station"

by Abid Aslam Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON, Jul 6 (IPS) - Inequality will shape November's U.S. general elections, but few voters will voice concern about disparity in the industrialised world's most lopsided society.

By the time the polls open, wealthy citizens will have determined which candidates their poorer compatriots may choose between in the presidential face-off and in hundreds of contests in Congress and in local legislatures across the land. Then, high-income voters will disproportionately influence the outcome of those races.

''Money, not votes, is the primary currency in our democracy,'' says Mark Clack, deputy director of electoral reform advocacy group Public Campaign.

This year's polls come amid the most unbalanced distribution of wealth and income in the United States since the Great Depression of the late 1920s and 1930s, according to figures compiled by the official Congressional Budget Office.

And perhaps more than in any other prosperous society, inequality casts a long shadow over education, health care and other aspects of life, ''dividing us into two separate nations,'' says Miles Rapoport, president of research and advocacy group Demos.

Federal statistics show that in 2000, the wealthiest 2.8 million U.S. citizens -- representing one percent of the national population -- took home more after-tax income than did the 110 million people who comprised the poorest 40 percent.

The richest five percent controlled more than 59 percent of the country's wealth, defined as income plus assets, while the bottom 40 percent of the U.S. population had to make do with a collective 0.3 percent, says New York University economist Edward Wolff.

Nearly 31 percent of black households and some 13 percent of white households had zero or negative net worth, meaning that their liabilities exceeded their assets, adds Wolff.

Disparity has a profound effect on elections -- but not because voters revolt against it. On the contrary, voting is the pursuit of the well to do.

Nine-tenths of U.S. voters with annual family incomes of 75,000 dollars or more cast their ballots, says University of Minnesota political scientist Lawrence Jacobs.

But only about one-half of those whose household incomes fall below 15,000 dollars a year turn out to vote, adds Jacobs, who heads the American Political Science Association's inequality task force.

Invariably, the people on the ground who are most directly affected by the misguided policies of the government, are unrepresented. The irrational chaos of a life lived in poverty means voting is pretty much the last thing you're going to be thinking about. Add that to the fact that over 90 million Americans have limited literacy skills (40 million are functionally illiterate) which directly corrolate to poverty, and the sum is that anything we say in the US about having a representative democracy is untrue. And we have liberals so busy defending public education against privatizing attacks from the right that they will not acknowledge the brokenness of that system.

As the polls favour the affluent, so do the Republican Party of President George W Bush and the Democratic Party of presumptive challenger John Kerry.

''Both the political parties reinforce inequality by targeting the same class, namely those with money,'' says Jacobs.

In particular, the parties woo the 12 percent of U.S. households that earn more than 100,000 dollars per year. Ninety percent of these households contribute to party coffers.

By contrast, fewer than six percent of households at the bottom of the economic ladder -- those with annual earnings of less than 15,000 dollars -- spare cash for political parties.

It costs about five million dollars to run for a seat in the 100-member U.S. Senate and about one million dollars to contest for a place in the 435-seat House of Representatives, says Public Campaign's Clack.

Because running for office is such an expensive business, with millions spent on television advertising alone, wealthy individuals and corporations enjoy ''privileged access'', says Jacobs.

''Political contributions influence not only lawmaking but also who runs in the first place,'' Jacobs says, because parties tend to field only candidates who can raise enough money to outspend likely opponents.

Numerous polls have shown that the U.S. public remains more tolerant of economic inequality -- and more likely to blame poverty on individuals' supposed sloth or lack of talent -- than are people in other countries, says Jacobs.

That may be because many U.S. citizens believe they are richer than they actually are and do not fathom the distances between themselves and their economic betters. Surveys have shown, for example, that as many as 20 percent of U.S. citizens believe that they rank among the country's wealthiest one percent.

However, polls also have shown that many citizens reject the notion that wealth should determine access to the political system, says Jacobs.

Among them is billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who says privileged political access is anti-competitive and runs counter to his ideals of open markets and open societies. Soros and other critics of the current administration, which he has described as extremist, also are counting on poorer voters to unseat Bush.

Soros has ploughed millions of dollars into efforts to motivate disaffected citizens, and in particular to help those in low-income and inner-city areas to register as voters.

The aim of such efforts, conducted by groups including America Coming Together and the MoveOn.org Voter Fund, is to thwart the influence of Bush's so-called Pioneers and Rangers, wealthy donors who bundle 2,000-dollar contributions into 100,000-dollar or 200,000-dollar packages.

If the experience of recent presidential elections holds true, one-half of eligible voters -- or 100 million U.S. citizens -- will not cast their ballots on election day, Nov. 2.

It remains to be seen whether the groups succeed in driving up turnout, but they are said to have already persuaded hundreds of thousands of people to register to vote.

This is no mean feat, says Demos's Rapoport, commenting on the registration process. ''You can qualify for a credit card in 35 seconds but it takes 30 days to figure out whether you can vote.”

Soros is a hypocrite.