WashPost editorial: Facing Inequality
President Bush has finally mouthed the word. Now he should do something about the problem.
Sunday, February 4, 2007; B06
THERE WAS a flurry of excitement when President Bush allowed the words "global climate change" to escape his lips in his State of the Union address. He didn't propose any useful response to the problem, but somehow we were supposed to feel grateful that in his seventh year in office he finally had acknowledged the phenomenon's existence. Last week came a similar epiphany, when Mr. Bush went to Manhattan and acknowledged for the first time the reality of income inequality.
"The fact is that income inequality is real," Mr. Bush pronounced. Not only that, but "it's been rising for more than 25 years." The historical addendum no doubt was intended to insulate the president from any blame in the matter. But it has the opposite effect. If rising income inequality was already a problem when Mr. Bush took office, his regressive reshaping of the tax code becomes even less excusable.
Mr. Bush is right on his history. Post-tax income of the top fifth of households was 6.7 times higher than incomes of the bottom fifth 25 years ago; the multiple has risen to 9.8. That wouldn't be so terrible if everyone's incomes were rising at a healthy clip, but between 1980 and 2004 wages of the typical worker actually fell slightly, when adjusted for inflation. Mr. Bush says that "the reason is clear," which must come as alarming news to an army of economists who make their living debating the relative importance of globalization, technology and other factors. Mr. Bush's diagnosis -- "we have an economy that increasingly rewards education" -- leads to a useful prescription, namely, as he said, "strengthening public education."
(Continued here.)
Sunday, February 4, 2007; B06
THERE WAS a flurry of excitement when President Bush allowed the words "global climate change" to escape his lips in his State of the Union address. He didn't propose any useful response to the problem, but somehow we were supposed to feel grateful that in his seventh year in office he finally had acknowledged the phenomenon's existence. Last week came a similar epiphany, when Mr. Bush went to Manhattan and acknowledged for the first time the reality of income inequality.
"The fact is that income inequality is real," Mr. Bush pronounced. Not only that, but "it's been rising for more than 25 years." The historical addendum no doubt was intended to insulate the president from any blame in the matter. But it has the opposite effect. If rising income inequality was already a problem when Mr. Bush took office, his regressive reshaping of the tax code becomes even less excusable.
Mr. Bush is right on his history. Post-tax income of the top fifth of households was 6.7 times higher than incomes of the bottom fifth 25 years ago; the multiple has risen to 9.8. That wouldn't be so terrible if everyone's incomes were rising at a healthy clip, but between 1980 and 2004 wages of the typical worker actually fell slightly, when adjusted for inflation. Mr. Bush says that "the reason is clear," which must come as alarming news to an army of economists who make their living debating the relative importance of globalization, technology and other factors. Mr. Bush's diagnosis -- "we have an economy that increasingly rewards education" -- leads to a useful prescription, namely, as he said, "strengthening public education."
(Continued here.)
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