Inequality and the Common Good

Buerkle ranked among those on the “dishonor roll” for her votes, which the IPS said consistently favored the interests of the wealthy instead of looking out for the needs of everyone statewide.

Mitt Romney and I both grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a wealthy suburb of Detroit. For much of our childhoods, we were represented in Congress by a tireless defender of the rich and powerful, U.S. Representative William Broomfield... Not every member of Congress is as clear cut in their allegiances as my former Congressman. Which is why the new Institute for Policy Studies “Congressional Report Card for the 99 Percent” is so useful...

Want to know how your reps on Capitol Hill rate on inequality? Check out a new Congressional Report Card for the 99 Percent issued by my organization, the Institute for Policy Studies.

Washington-based progressive think tank Institute for Policy Studies has issued its 2012 Inequality Report Card, which scores members of Congress on their support for the 99% rather than the richest 1% of Americans.

“Members of Congress have the capacity to make sure all Americans, not just a privileged few, share in the wealth that we all together create,” study co-author Scott Klinger, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies said in a release. “With this new report card, voters can see for themselves how well their elected lawmakers are meeting that responsibility.”

The liberal think tank Institute for Policy Studies is out today with a "Congressional Report Card for the 99%" that dings Republicans as the "most 1% friendly" lawmakers.

"Advocacy groups have long rated members of Congress on their voting record as regards the environment, child welfare, conservative values, education, and a raft of other issues and philosophies. So it was only a matter of time before Americans would see a report card grading their leaders on how their votes widen or narrow the great divide between the wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of us," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board on its Opinion Shop blog. "Today, the Institute for Policy Studies issued its report card on how the members of Congress are wielding their considerable power to shape our economy. That is, how they vote on tax rules, trade policies, subsidies and contracts. The topics, in fact, at the heart of tonight’s presidential debate between President Obama and his challenger, Republican Mitt Romney."

When we started the grading process, we feared it could turn out to be a big bore. With Congress so polarized, we expected to find lock-step partisan voting that would give all Republicans F's and all Democrats A's. Instead, we found that the divisiveness between parties is also alive and well within parties.

In general, however, we found Republicans to be extremely loyal to the "1 percent." We gave 59 of them an F. 

The point of this report card is not just to name and shame. We also aim to draw attention to the many creative proposals for restoring fairness that deserve more support. Two of the pending bills on our list would raise revenue for human needs by putting a small tax on Wall Street transactions. Another would increase the minimum wage and then index it to inflation.

But the reason investors are given such favorable rates is because businesses use that money to hire workers and buy equipment — things that the economy needs to grow.

Psychologically, however, it might fill a different kind of void: According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the top 10 percent of all citizens here own 80 percent of all stock market wealth. The lower half of the country holds just .5 percent. Hiking taxes on investment income and growth would thus hit a relatively small number, albeit a lot of widows and orphans are dependent on dividend income and especially from those faithful utilities.