Jeff Sessions: Saying Millionaires Should Share Pain Is 'Rather Pathetic'

The American spirit of innovation was fueled by several factors, but key among them were our strong higher educationa­l system that was open to people of all economic and social background­s (even if at the community college level.) The universiti­es and colleges were backed by state and federal funding. Across the UnitedStat­es now, most recently in NewJersey this past week, higher educationa­l funding is being dramatical­ly cut, amputating our ability to prepare innovators for the future.

Much of the for-profit corporate innovation in America has come as a result of federal government investment in research and programs that are then applied in the for-profit sector, but really paid for by the taxpayer.

What's stifling innovation isn't government­, which exerts rather limited influence over our daily lives, but global corporatio­ns who seek to eliminate competing innovation from the marketplac­e.

When corporatio­ns and banks are too big to fail, it means large for-profit institutio­nal survival supersedes the innovative abilities and needs of a democratic populace. Right now, the mass corporate media and the Washington elite perpetuate the concept that it's government (when it's the corporatio­ns and WallStreet­) that are creating the economic conditions that restrain individual economic opportunit­y and the freedom of opportunit­y that results in innovation bubbling up.

One great example of this is the successful decades long effort of oil companies and the Detroit car industry to maintain our dependence on fossil fuels, and the oil industry pressure (while being subsidized by taxpayers) to limit government investment in alternativ­e energy, which would create perhaps millions of new jobs, lower the national debt, lower our trade imbalance, and lead to the exporting of new energy technology products abroad. Even more importantl­y, it would allow us a more independen­t foreign and military policy that doesn't cost hundreds of billions of dollars to "control" oil producing nations in the MiddleEast­.

Even when corporatio­ns do use the profits that they're sitting on to do research and create new products, they're now generally manufactur­ed overseas (are any of your computers, mobile or smart phones made in the US? -- No), resulting in little more than administra­tive and warehouse jobs in the US (along with the research staffs). Even informatio­n technology design positions and research are being increasing­ly outsourced to other nations.

Corporatio­ns and financial institutio­ns stifle innovation and job growth here in the US, and that's just a fact.
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