Leave it to Robert Reich (one of the few economists who can hold a candle to Paul Krugman when it comes to intellectual candlepower) to be able to explain in 2:15 why we’re stuck in our current clusterf—k. As it turns out, it really comes down to one reason. Since 1980, the economy has doubled while middle class wages have remained flat. The additional wealth has gone largely into the pockets of the the super-rich, the top 1% of earners who now control 20% of our national wealth.
As if that reason wasn’t disturbing enough, the top tax rate has dropped from 70% to 35%, meaning that the percentage of the economy being collected in taxes is 15%, the lowest in 60 years. And you wonder why government is cutting to the bone and beyond?
My purpose here isn’t to bash the super-rich, though they haven’t exactly been doing much to help their reputation of late (see Koch, David). I don’t begrudge anyone their success; what upsets me is the lengths to which some of the super-rich have gone in order to keep from paying their fair share, a burden that’s increasingly being shifted onto the poor and middle class.
I believe that IF America wants to continue to be great, we cannot continue to tolerate a tax system so thoroughly and completely out of whack. We cannot continue providing tax cuts to the wealthiest among us while shifting the burden for paying for those tax cuts onto the backs of those least able to shoulder any additional burden.
We’re on the verge of becoming a country in which the majority exists largely to service the interests of an oligarchical minority lacking any sense of or responsibility for the common good. The Right is working to create a “trickle-up” economy in which wealth percolates up to the oligarchy, and taxes default to the poor and middle class. In our new Citizens United world, corporations, now that they’re legally considered “people”, have purchased an entire political class dedicated to identifying, addressing, and satisfying their interests and desires.
The truly sad thing is that the Right has managed to so thoroughly propagandize the American Sheeple that we’re eagerly participating in the dismantling of our own best interests. We hold the power in our votes, and yet we vote for people dedicated to serving those who would turn the poor and middle class into what could only reasonably be described as a servant class. We’re willingly participating in our own enslavement- because collectively, we’re too stupid and inattentive to bother paying attention. Because what is American democracy but the best political system money can buy?
