Leonard C. Goodman is a Chicago criminal defense attorney and co-owner of the newly independent Reader.
Americans will surely recall that during the past year of a heated contest to determine the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, we were repeatedly told by the corporate-backed candidates and by the corporate press that our government has no money to pay for Medicare for All, a program favored by a majority of voters. Yet, in the blink of an eye, Congress and the Federal Reserve have startlingly come up with $4 trillion to bail out such essential industries as cruise ships and casinos.
President Trump’s promise that testing for COVID-19 would be free and treatment affordable rings hollow without a public health infrastructure to administer tests or treatment. Before this crisis hit, millions of Americans were either uninsured or underinsured and unable to pay their deductibles and copays. Those numbers will surely skyrocket with millions of Americans losing their jobs every week.
It makes no sense to send your hard-earned money to a politician who is in the pocket of corporations directing them to act for corporate benefit and not yours. Further, your money allows corporate-owned politicians to pretend that they represent ordinary people by highlighting their contributions from small donors. Exposing our leaders as the corporate shills that they are is an important first step toward reform. For the next step, we should demand that politicians appearing on TV wear the logos of their corporate sponsors, like the NASCAR drivers do. v
