Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden was elected to represent the people of Oregon, but he always represents Wall Street and the 1 percent on all matters pertaining to redistributing income from the 99 percent to the 1 percent and to Wall Street. He has a 100 percent voting record on these issues dating all the back to his days as a US congressman, supposedly from Oregon.
Take the case of the most massive income redistribution treaty of all time, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Wyden supports it, just like he supported NAFTA and all other income redistribution treaties falsely labeled free trade agreements. Wyden has for years told Oregonians in town hall meetings that Oregon is heavily reliant on trade, but he always lies.
According to the US Census Bureau, Oregon’s exports represent only 1.2 percent of the US total. This is down from 1.4 percent since Wyden voted for the South Korea, Panama and Colombia treaties. In other words, Oregon’s economy is not nearly as dependent on trade as the senator wants us to believe. And since he’s voted for the most recent treaties, Oregon has lost a net number of jobs because of them, just like it lost a net number of jobs to NAFTA.
Furthermore, Oregon imports 7/10 of one percent of all the goods and services that are imported into the US. So Oregon is not as heavily reliant on imports as the senator would have us believe, and by a wide margin. Five states import and export more than fifty percent of all goods and services; Texas, California, Florida, New York, and Ohio. Oregon is on the opposite end of this spectrum.
So if the statistics show the senator is lying to Oregonians on this issue, then why does he lie? Perhaps it is because he serves the 1 percent. He supports so-called free trade agreements because they redistribute income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent, and Wyden has a 100 percent voting record on this issue.
When a job is shipped overseas because the senator voted to make it happen, the difference between the old higher wages in the US and the new lower wages overseas goes into the pockets of the 1 percent via higher corporate profits, surging dividends, and rising share prices. The same is true of jobs that are created overseas, because this could not have occurred in the absence of these corporate trade treaties. Their primary purpose is to redistribute income. Wyden knows this. He is not the dumb dumb little boy he pretends to be at town hall meetings.
The result of Wyden’s policies for the people of Oregon is that the income of the people of Oregon has risen in real terms 13.5 percent from 1977 to 2007. The 1 percent have received over 80 percent of this income growth. That means the income of the 1 percent grew 127 percent over the same decades, while those in the bottom 99 percent received a two percent increase in wages over the same period. The difference is because Wyden supports redistributing income via trade treaties, privatization scams, tax cuts for the rich, and lots more. In other words, Wyden’s polices are enormously successful in redistributing income.
This income maldistribution is bad for Oregon. That means only one thing. Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden has been bad for Oregon.
Income Distribution for the USA and the States of the USA–Economic Policy Institute
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