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Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Draining the swamp means ending corporate socialism, dismantling the apparatus that rewards big corporate contributions and empowers lobbyists arguing for big business over the interests of working people. Can either major party say they are doing that?
Socialism is alive and well, and it is growing, though maybe not in the way you expect.
The federal government provides more than $700 billion in contracts to private sector corporations. It also forgoes approximately $1.5 trillion in tax receipts to provide tax breaks for corporations to encourage job-creating investments, or so we are told. The net result is that corporations avoid paying their fair share while we, the taxpaying public, make up the difference.
As if that public support for private enterprise isn’t enough, now President Trump is taking it to the next level by acquiring 10 percent of Intel’s stock in exchange for the $8.9 billion the government is providing the company via the Chips and Science Act.
From one angle, this certainly is an improvement over the big bank bailouts, where the taxpayer took all the risk but received none of the upside once the banks became solvent again. But it also marks a new version of "too big to fail." After all, when Socialist Trump takes a stake in a corporation, he certainly can’t allow that corporation to fail and wipe out all that equity.
This transaction has sent alarm bells ringing in the executive suites of hundreds of corporations on the government dole. As one corporate lawyer put it, “Virtually every company I’ve talked to which is a regular recipient of subsidies or grants from the government is concerned right now.”
What are they so worried about? They are concerned that they will have to give something back to the taxpayer in exchange for our largess. But the frank admission of their fears also tells us quite a bit about how the corporate economy is actually structured. What Trump is laying bare are decades of corporate socialism—the use of taxpayer money to support and enrich private corporations and their stockholders (including the elected officials who continue to trade shares and profit while making laws and regulations that impact the companies in which they hold shares).
This is the real swamp that is siphoning wealth and stable jobs away from working people. This is the swamp that has caused so many voters to give up on government. This is the swamp full of quicksand, sucking politicians into the suffocating cycle of endless corporate donations. Draining the swamp means ending corporate socialism, dismantling the apparatus that rewards big corporate contributions and empowers lobbyists arguing for big business over the interests of working people, and neither of our two political parties is willing to do that.
By accident, Trump’s overt support for Intel creates an opportunity for the Democrats to help working people secure their jobs from corporate greed. If the Democrats had any guts—granted that’s a big “if”—they would offer legislation prohibiting any corporation receiving taxpayer funding or subsidies from implementing compulsory layoffs. Instead, all layoffs would be voluntary based on financial buyout packages, the kind that are often offered to upper-level white-collar employees. If you take taxpayer money, you can’t force taxpayers out of their jobs. That would certainly seem fair and just to working people, who are too often simply told to take a hike just to further enrich executives and Wall Street investors.
After all, what was the Chips and Science Act for? One big reason for this big investment, supposedly, was to bring thousands of new jobs to America. The Biden administration awarded Intel an $8.5 billion grant, plus $11 billion in favorable loans, based on Intel’s claim that it would create 20,000 temporary construction jobs and 10,000 more permanent manufacturing positions.
Meanwhile, since 1990, Intel has spent $152 billion on stock buybacks. It has chosen to use its revenues to buy up its own shares, rather than investing in the company’s future. Stock buybacks boost the prices of a company’s shares and enrich its top executives and major Wall Street investors. They do not increase the worth of the company. Hey, why not grab more taxpayer money, buy back more shares, and shove the gains in your pocket as fast as possible? Isn’t that what all those corporate donations are for?
And the jobs? Nothing is guaranteed. In fact, as the Chips Act was moving through Congress, Intel laid off 2,000 workers!
So, instead of giving 24-hour speeches that no one can remember, why don’t a few Democrats get up on the Senate floor and say something like this:
“Now that the United States taxpayers own 10 percent of Intel, let’s make our investment contingent on protecting the livelihoods of working people. Mr. President, tell Intel that during the life of our investment, the company will not be permitted to conduct compulsory layoffs. Only voluntary buyouts will be permitted. Join us in a bill that puts the protection of jobs of working people front and center.”
Shouldn’t all the Democrats and even the Josh Hawley Republicans get behind such job-protecting legislation?
But here’s what comes to mind after writing that sentence: Not a chance! Get real! What are you smoking? I can’t imagine the Democratic leadership embracing such a proposal. Their knees knock at any mention of policies that offend corporations and Wall Street.
That’s why we need a new party of working people. Not a third party, but a true alternative to the corporate-dominated Republicans and Democrats. That’s what 57 percent of the voters of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin really want. They want a party that is willing to put working people at the center of economic policy, rather than provide corporations with more taxpayer dollars.
Corporate sycophants will call that socialistic, as if enhancing the jobs and income of working people is a slur. Meanwhile, the super-rich have no problem building gold-plated castles of corporate socialism... to enrich themselves.
"Corporate money has been a disaster for progressive nominees," said Our Revolution board member Larry Cohen.
Following years of pressure from progressive advocates, the Democratic National Committee's resolutions panel on Tuesday unanimously approved a measure aimed at limiting dark money—undisclosed independent campaign contributions—in presidential primary elections.
The resolution, which was introduced by Chair Ken Martin, was approved during the DNC's summer meeting in Minneapolis. The measure calls for creating a panel tasked with pursuing "real, enforceable steps the DNC can take to eliminate unlimited corporate and dark money in its 2028 presidential primary process."
Tuesday's move stands in stark contrast with the DNC resolutions committee's past refusals to allow a vote on a dark money ban.
Larry Cohen, a leading campaigner against dark money and board member of Our Revolution, an offshoot of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign, told Common Dreams Tuesday that "corporate money has been a disaster for progressive nominees."
"Crypto money and AIPAC knocked out at least three or four people we were all supporting," Cohen noted, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which along with its United Democracy Project (UDP) super PAC spent more than $100 million during the 2024 election cycle. AIPAC's largesse played a key role in helping pro-Israel Democrats defeat former progressive Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.)—two of Congress' most vocal critics of Israel's genocide in Gaza—in Democratic primary contests.
DNC Resolution 4 opposing dark money in presidential primaries passes unanimously at DNC Resolutions Committee.This is a victory decades in the making after long years of opposition and struggle. Much appreciation to Chair Ken Martin.
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— David Atkins (@davidoatkins.bsky.social) August 26, 2025 at 7:11 AM
"If this party blocks corporate money in the nominating process and blocks dark money, those are two great steps," Cohen said, noting that the measure which passed Tuesday is "just a resolution of intent," not an actual change to the party's platform or a policy shift.
"The next step is [that] there will be a committee named that will talk about how we implement this for the 2028 presidential election, and that committee has to report back by the [DNC] meeting a year from now with specific implementation points," Cohen explained.
"That could mean that every potential Democratic candidate for president must sign the People's Pledge," he said, referring to the agreement between then-US Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren in 2012 requiring candidates to offset spending by outside groups on their behalf.
"So if a candidate says, 'well I had nothing to do with this, but the money got spent,' in the People's Pledge, the candidate who benefited, Scott Brown, had to make a charitable donation of the same amount of money," Cohen said. "That would be an example of an implementation point."
As for possible legislative solutions like the DISCLOSE Act—a campaign finance reform bill repeatedly torpedoed in Congress—Cohen said that he "wouldn't give that too much weight because you have to change Congress."
"We came close," he said, but then-Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Az.) "blocked a rules change that would have put that bill on the floor with 50 supporters instead of 60… and now you have to imagine getting back to a time when [Democrats] will have 50 again."
"So that's in the resolution, there should be legislative change," Cohen added, "but also in the resolution is that all elected Democratic officials should look at what they can do," including at the state, county, and municipal levels.
"They can adopt rules to limit or eliminate the effectiveness of corporate, dark, and other independent expenditures, like Elon Musk money," Cohen said in a nod of infamy to the world's richest person, who spent upward of $290 million supporting President Donald Trump and other Republicans in 2024.
The US Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which allowed unlimited independent financial contributions to support political campaigns, unleashed a tsunami of dark money that has been used by billionaires and corporate interests to sideline progressive candidates and buy elections.
Since Citizens United, nearly $20 billion has been spent on US presidential elections and more than $53 billion on congressional races, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets. Spending on 2024 congressional races was double 2010 levels, while presidential campaign contributions were more than 50% higher in 2024 than in 2008, the last election before Citizens United.
The DNC's action on dark money was overshadowed by its rejection of another resolution calling for a suspension of US military aid to Israel.
"This party keeps digging its own grave," said attorney and organizer Asma Nizami. "And it's owned by AIPAC."
CEOs of the 100 S&P 500 firms with the lowest median wages, a group we’ve dubbed the “Low-Wage 100,” have enjoyed skyrocketing pay over the past six years.
The gap between CEO compensation and median worker pay at Starbucks hit 6,666 to 1 last year. In other words, to make as much money as their CEO made last year, typical baristas would’ve had to start brewing macchiatos around the time humans first invented the wheel.
Starbucks takes the prize for the most obscene corporate pay disparities of 2024. But jaw-dropping gaps are the norm among America’s leading low-wage corporations.
This year’s edition of the annual Institute for Policy Studies Executive Excess report finds that CEOs of the 100 S&P 500 firms with the lowest median wages, a group we’ve dubbed the “Low-Wage 100,” have enjoyed skyrocketing pay over the past six years.
In 2024, average compensation for Low-Wage 100 top executives rose to $17.2 million, up 34.7% since 2019 (not adjusted for inflation). Global median worker pay at these firms stood at just $35,570, after increasing at a nominal rate of only 16.3% since 2019—significantly below the 22.6% US inflation rate. The Low-Wage 100 pay ratio increased 12.9% to 632 to 1 over the past half decade.
Here’s yet another sign of the Low-Wage 100’s skewed priorities: Between 2019 and 2024 these firms spent a combined $644 billion on stock buybacks. This once-illegal financial maneuver artificially inflates the value of a company’s shares and, in the process, pumps up the value of CEOs’ stock-based compensation. Even the most inept executives can rake in vast fortunes through this scam.
Every dollar spent on buybacks represents a dollar not spent on workers. The tradeoffs can be downright staggering. At Lowe’s, for instance, every one of their 273,000 employees could’ve gotten an annual $28,456 bonus over the past six years with the money the retailer blew on stock buybacks. Lowe’s median worker pay in 2024: $30,606.
80% of workers said they view corporate CEOs as overpaid, and nearly 70% said they do not believe their own company’s CEO could do the job they do for even one week.
If McDonald’s had spent their buyback outlays on worker bonuses during this period, they could’ve given all their employees an extra $18,338 per year—more than that company’s median wage.
Siphoning resources from workers to make CEOs even richer is especially outrageous at a time when so many Americans are struggling with high costs for groceries, housing, and other essentials.
Stock buybacks also divert resources from capital investments vital to long-term growth, such as employee training or upgrading technology, equipment, and properties.
At 56 Low-Wage 100 companies, outlays for stock buybacks actually exceeded capital expenditures between 2019 and 2024. If we exclude Amazon, a CapEx outlier, the Low-Wage 100 as a whole spent considerably more on buybacks than on capital expenditures over this six-year period.
Extensive research has also shown that excessive CEO compensation is bad for business because extreme internal pay disparities undermine employee morale and boost turnover rates.
As poll after poll after poll has shown, Americans across the political spectrum are fed up with overpaid CEOs and want government action. In one rather amusing recent survey, 80% of workers said they view corporate CEOs as overpaid, and nearly 70% said they do not believe their own company’s CEO could do the job they do for even one week.
How could policymakers incentivize more equitable pay practices? Several bills in the US Congress and state legislatures would increase taxes on corporations with huge CEO-worker pay gaps. Polls suggest this would be enormously popular. In one survey of likely voters, 89% of Democrats, 77% of Independents, and 71% of Republicans said they’d like to see tax hikes on companies that pay their CEOs more than 50 times what they pay their median employees.
Congress could also increase the 1% excise tax on stock buybacks that went into effect in 2023. If that tax had been set at 4%, the Low-Wage 100 would have owed approximately $6.3 billion in additional federal taxes on their share repurchases during the past two years. That revenue would’ve been enough to cover the cost of 327,218 public housing units for two years.
Policymakers have ample tools for tackling the problem of runaway CEO pay. Now they just need to listen to their constituents and get the job done.