[Marxism] re Kerry at the Detroit Economic Club

[Ilyenkova@xxxxxxx]

This post is from the Northite World Socialist Web Site (www.wsws.org) 
9/17/04. But it's straightforward and politically neutral in content. For 
progressives who can't see kerry as piching his campaign to the ruling class 
based on 
his more adroit managerial talents it should be read in conjunction Kerry's 
op-ed piece in the WSJ the same morning.

Kerry pledges fiscal austerity in speech to business leaders in Detroit

By Barry Grey
17 September 2004

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry gave a speech Wednesday to 
business executives at the Detroit Economic Club that exemplified his attempt 
to 
curry favor with the US corporate elite while presenting himself as a spokesman 
for working Americans. Not surprisingly, this attempt to square the circle 
involved a large dose of hypocrisy and double-talk.

Stripped of Kerryâs occasional forays into populist rhetoricâof a 
distinctly 
timid sortâthe substance of his speech was an appeal to the self-interest of 
the wealthy and very wealthy who made up the bulk of the audience. The 
Massachusetts senator was at pains to present himself as a friend of big 
business. At 
his side stood Robert Rubin, like Kerry a multi-millionaire, who served as 
treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and currently holds the top post at the 
banking giant Citigroup.

In business circles, Rubin is credited with playing a significant role in 
imposing fiscal austerity and facilitating the spectacular bull market of the 
1990s that enabled the wealthiest 5 percent to indulge in an orgy of 
self-enrichmentâa process that vastly increased the concentration of wealth 
at the top and 
dramatically heightened the level of social inequality in the US.

Kerry was introduced by Jennifer Granholm, the Democratic governor of 
Michigan, who has been given high marks by bankers and auto barons for imposing 
sweeping budget cuts and presiding over large-scale layoffs of teachers and 
educational staff, together with school closures, in Detroit and other cities.

Kerry told his well-heeled audience: âAnd let me be clear: our plan is 
pro-worker and pro-business. Iâm an entrepreneurial Democrat, and I donât 
believe 
you can love jobs but bash the people who create them... I know that the 
private sector will always be the engine of good jobs and new ideas.â

Just blocks from the downtown hall where Kerry was praising the glories of 
the âfree market,â the ravages of American capitalism were on displayâin 
the 
crumbling and abandoned houses and empty lots once occupied by auto factories 
and other manufacturing facilities. Nothing Kerry had to say even remotely 
addressed the pervasive poverty and unemployment that have become a permanent 
fixture of Detroit and scores of other American cities.

Kerry presented himself as the antidote to the record budget deficits run up 
by the Bush administration and a fiscal conservative who would impose an 
austere, âpay-as-you-goâ policy, including âcutting government agencies 
that have 
outlived their purposes.â To underscore the point, he boasted, âI broke 
with 
my own party to support a balanced budget plan, which President Reagan signed 
into law.â

At the same time, he reiterated his plan to extend health care to the 
uninsuredâhastening to assure the audience, âMy plan is not a government 
plan. Itâs 
based on incentives and the marketplace.â In fact, the plan would, according 
to analysts who have studied the proposal, cover at most 27 million of the 45 
million Americans who are currently uninsured.

This, of course, assumes that the plan is more than an empty campaign promise 
and would actually be enacted under a Kerry administrationâa dubious 
assumption in the extreme. Given the record of the last Democratic 
administration, 
which abandoned its health care plan, the implacable opposition of the 
Republicans and most of corporate America, and Kerryâs commitment to increase 
defense 
spending, pour billions more into the occupation of Iraq, and cut the federal 
deficit in halfâthe chances of a Kerry administration enacting any 
significant 
health care reform is nil.

Kerryâs campaign billed the Detroit speech as the candidateâs most 
important 
policy statement on the economy between now and the November 2 election. It 
was, however, a rehash of measures advanced by Kerry since he wrapped up the 
Democratic presidential nomination last March. Its centerpiece is a pledge to 
roll back Bush administration tax cuts for those making more than $200,000 a 
year. This is accompanied by a promise to cut corporate taxes by 5 percent, 
which, Kerry stresses, would give â99 percent of businesses a tax break.â

There is also talk of tax credits for child care, college tuition and health 
care premiums. Such token measures constitute the substance of Kerryâs 
supposed fight for the interests of the American âmiddle class.â They are 
combined 
with appeals to protectionist and chauvinist sentiments. More than once in his 
speech, Kerry invoked the rhetoric by which he seeks to manipulate the anger 
and frustration of workers over the destruction and outsourcing of jobs and 
direct it against foreigners.

For example: âWhen China and Japan were manipulating their currency and 
violating our trade agreements, and he saw America lost 2.7 million 
manufacturing 
jobs, George Bush chose to say and do nothing for workers in Michigan and Ohio 
and all over the country.â

There was not a hint in anything Kerry said of increased government aid to 
the millions of unemployed and working poor, or programs to create jobs and 
rebuild neighborhoods devastated by decades of tax handouts to the rich, wage 
cuts, union-busting and corporate downsizing.

Kerryâs Detroit Economic Club speech was calculated to appeal to the 
corporate interests in the hall and to the media, while simultaneously 
addressing a 
broader audience. Hence the combination of obeisance to big business and rather 
mild populist gestures. Later on Wednesday, before an audience of workers and 
students in Madison, Wisconsin, Kerry shifted gears and adopted a more 
pointedâ
and demagogicâpopulist pose. Borrowing a phrase from Al Goreâs 2000 
campaign, Kerry denounced Bush for choosing âthe powerful and the 
privileged.â

That same morning, Kerry published a column on the op-ed page of the Wall 
Street Journal, entitled âMy Economic Policy,â that not only eschewed any 
hint 
of populism, but went even further in courting big business than his speech in 
Detroit. Speaking directly to the corporate elite, Kerry began by writing: 
âAs 
I travel across this country, I meet store owners, stock traders, factory 
foremen and optimistic entrepreneurs. [Evidently, he has not met unemployed 
people or workers.] Their experiences may be different, but they all agree that 
America can do better under an administration that is better for business. 
Business leaders like Warren Buffet, Lee Iacocca and Robert Rubin are joining 
my 
campaign because they believe that American business will do better if we 
change 
our CEO.â

Toward the end of the column, Kerry called the November 2 election âa 
national shareholders meeting.â

Nothing could more clearly demonstrate the hypocrisy of Kerry and the 
Democrats, the right-wing character of their campaign, and their subservience 
to the 
American ruling class.


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