Level playing field?

Editor,

As a retired teacher who taught English, Civics and U.S. History for 32 years, I find the vocabulary the GOP uses quite illuminating.

Take entitlements as an example. They are bad. People enjoying entitlements compose 47 (percent) of the population according to Mitt Romney. He implies they are lazy and should get out, get to work and quit draining the treasury.

Then there is the word incentive. Businesses that get subsidies and tax breaks are good. They are putting people to work, and the amount spent on incentives can be considered seed money.

The truth of the matter, of course, is that money given to businesses as incentives and money given to the unemployed and underemployed to help them survive both come from the taxpayer’s pocket.

Those who receive “incentives” are often wealthy enough to offshore part of their money to avoid paying taxes on those funds. They see nothing wrong with that.

Those who receive taxpayer incentives have powerful lobbies working for them. Examples are the Chamber of Commerce, which incidentally also gets help from the taxpayer because they bring business to the community, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Medical Association and many others representing special interest groups.

While all of these groups represent vested groups, it is safe to say the great majority of their members and the groups themselves are strongly opposed to labor unions. According to these groups labor unions increase costs of doing business and therefore reduce profits and therefore are bad.

It is ironic that these groups see nothing wrong with organizing to improve their financial situation but strongly oppose workers organizing to improve their situation.

One final observation remains. Newspapers do not make money by selling their paper. They make money in advertising. The publishers know they cannot be too strongly for unions or support entitlements strongly. Their advertisers can kill them by printing and mailing their ads.

I ask a simple question: “Is this a level playing field?”

Rev. Robert V. Latour
Porterville