Lynn Stuart Parramore: The Obscenely Rich Men Bent on Shredding the Safety Net

New York magazine calls it a "Mass Movement for Millionaires." The New York Times' Paul Krugman sums up the idea: "Hey, sacrifice is for the little people." The Campaign to Fix the Debt is a huge, and growing coalition of powerful CEOs, politicians and policy makers on a mission to lower taxes for the rich, and to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid under the cover of concern about the national debt. The group was spawned in July 2012 by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, architects of a misguided deficit reduction scheme in Washington back in 2010. By now, the "fixers" have collected a war chest of $43 million. Private equity billionaire Peter G Peterson, longtime enemy of the social safety net, is a major supporter. This new Wall Street movement, which includes Republicans and plenty of Democrats, is hitting the airwaves, hosting roundtables, gathering at lavish fundraising fetes, hiring public relations experts, and traveling around the country to push its agenda. The group aims to seize the moment of the so called "fiscal cliff" debate to pressure President Obama to concede to House Republicans, and continue the Bush income tax cuts for the rich, while shredding the social safety net. The group includes Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein, JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, Honeywell's David Cote, Aetna's Mark Bertolini, Delta Airlines' Richard Anderson, Boeing's W James McNerney, and over 100 other influential business honchos and their supporters. Corporations represented by the fixers have collected massive bailouts from taxpayers, and gigantic subsidies from the government, and they enjoy tax loopholes, that in many cases bring their tax bills down to zero. Sometimes their creative accountants even manage to get money "back" from Uncle Sam. For instance, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, Boeing has paid a negative 6.5 percent tax rate for the last decade, even though it was profitable every year from 2002 through 2011.