Sarah Palin wants Corporate America to pillage and plunder even more than it does already

By Michael J.W. Stickings

On her Facebook page -- where else? -- Sarah Palin argues, or rather "argues," that President Obama should remove "the boot from the throat of American businesses." (This assumes, of course, that there is in fact a boot on, in, or in some way blocking the throat of American businesses.) Her primary concern, supposedly, is about "keeping jobs for working class families in America."

This is bullshit, of course. Her primary concern has nothing to do with working class families and, as is the case with Republicans generally, everything to do with deregulating the market and reducing taxes so that the rich can get richer and the powerful can get more powerful.

And, what's more, it's just plain wrong. There is no boot anywhere near Corporate American, not even with the supposedly socialist Obama in the White House, who is nothing if not a free market enthusiast. Consider how he bailed out the auto industry and let Wall Street off the hook almost entirely for almost destroying the country.

And as The New York Times reported last year (via Chait):

The nation's workers may be struggling, but American companies just had their best quarter ever.

American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms.

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Corporate profits have been doing extremely well for a while. Since their cyclical low in the fourth quarter of 2008, profits have grown for seven consecutive quarters, at some of the fastest rates in history. As a share of gross domestic product, corporate profits also have been increasing, and they now represent 11.2 percent of total output. That is the highest share since the fourth quarter of 2006, when they accounted for 11.7 percent of output. 

Read that number back to yourself: $1.659 trillion. This while unemployment continues to be a huge problem and while ordinary working families are having trouble paying the bills and putting food on the table.

And the problem is that businesses are somehow not just being held back but actively throttled? How much richer does Palin want them to be? How much more able to make massive profits on the backs of, and at the expense of, working Americans?

Palin is an idiot, sure, but she offers us a pretty clear view of the Republican soul. Take a good look, America. It's an ugly, ugly thing.