From now until the next big election cycle, it will be a stand-off between the People and the Corporations. Coming out of the mid-term elections, the corporate class has clearly won this battle (but not the war) and has handily seized the momentum that could determine the outcomes in 2012. Many voters are standing like the proverbial deer in front of the super-sized headlights of the corporate truck full of goodies to gain more power like money, tax cuts, elected officials, banks, the courts, etc. Most of us don’t have the luxury of waiting for anyone to save us. That’s whether it is Superman, President Obama or God.

So the question is: Are you tired of being hustled by the Democrats and rolled over by the Republicans?

Since we now understand that getting “shellacked” means to get your butt kicked, working people in this country are about to get shellacked to the tenth power. Coming at us is the expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of the year if our Congress does nothing. That’s not going over too well with the folks who’ve been getting a free or nearly free ride for a long time.

The first test of the People’s collective strength is about to manifest itself in the show-down around the tax cuts.

President Barack Obama wants to permanently extend tax cuts for the first $250,000 couples earn and the first $200,000 singles, but he would let the tax cuts higher earnings expire. Obama’s proposal would increase the national debt by $2 trillion through 2020, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Extending all the Bush tax cuts would add $2.7 trillion. And if all the tax cuts were permanently extended, the debt would balloon by $4.9 trillion, according to CBO. So much for trying to cut the deficit!

For most of us, we’re just catching up to the fact that those tax cuts were put in place way back in 2001 and 2003 to mostly benefit the wealthy. On top of endless tax loopholes and other legal (but unethical) holes, corporations continue to enjoy big profits with no accountability as responsible citizens. In fact, the Government Accountability Office reported in 2008 that two thirds of US corporations paid no income tax between 1998-2005. During that same period, nearly 70% of foreign companies doing business in the US also got the big hook up and didn’t pay federal income taxes. This, despite record profits by most of them.

More than 15 million people in the U.S. are unemployed and searching for work, with eight million more who are just getting by with a part-time job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over two million more people were working prior to the recession but have now dropped out of the labor force. About 40 million citizens are considered chronically poor and for the first time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is concerned about escalating hunger statistics in the belly of the richest country on earth.

Here’s why we can’t expect the Congress to advocate for us regarding the tax cuts. Over half of the Congress members are millionaires - 261 out of 531. The Center for Responsive Politics further reports that 55 of the lawmakers have an average wealth of $10 million. The median wealth in the House is about $765k while the Senators boast an average wealth of $12.4 million. These folks will be looking out for their own interests when the time comes to deal with the Bush tax cuts.

And I’m talking about both Democrats and Republicans. These so-called public servants are the biggest investors in the corporations who are whining about losing money, should those tax cuts expire. Two of the corporations who see heavy investments by lawmakers are General Electric and Bank of America. Bank of America is the largest lender in the country and was squarely behind goo-gobs of home foreclosures. General Electric is one of the corporations who paid no income tax last year, making it look like they lost profits in the US, while at the same time earning $10 billion globally.

It is imperative that we who have corporate footprints on our backside interject ourselves into the big debate over the next few weeks. Call or write your Congressperson to tell them to support President Obama’s original proposal: letting the tax cuts expire for the wealthy. That proposal is bound to get watered down after all the lobbyists get through schmoozing with our elected officials. We should also call, fax or write President Obama to help support his sometimes wobbly back-bone.

The working poor and the middle class must stand in uncompromising unity on this issue. Corporations already have unprecedented leeway to make obscene profits and they want more - at our expense. They must be stopped and that means snatching our Congresspeople from their clutches and reminding them about their constituents back home, struggling to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. It means organizing communities to stand up and move forward around a strategic plan for political and economic empowerment. Let’s end the year with a victory for the people, not the corporations.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Jamala Rogers, is the leader of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis and the Black Radical Congress National Organizer. Click here to contact Ms. Rogers.