Progressive Ponderings: We’re Number One and 'Broke'
by Joe Mayer, Mar 11, 2011
We Americans, especially conservatives, love to claim “we’re number one.” Thanks to the New Deal we did become number one in the world, still holding the title of the world’s richest nation. Today, though, out of the other side of their mouths conservatives are screaming “We’re broke” -- our nation is “broke,” our states are “broke,” our cities and counties and school districts are “broke.” At the same time the number of millionaires and billionaires among us keeps multiplying.
After WWII, we paid off the war debt and developed a healthy growing middle class through progressive taxation, strong labor laws, and expanded educational opportunities – K through college. Union membership reached 29% of the labor force and equity of income and wealth opportunities allowed more and more people to participate in the “American Dream.”
Equality seems to rankle the owning class. Beginning with Reagan they set the stage for a return to the “Gilded Age” and the policies of Hooverism. Reagan fired the air-traffic controllers, smiled and set the poor adrift, and began to disparage and starve government. The corporate world responded by buying government, thus creating an atmosphere in which the productivity of the workers flowed upward into the pockets of the owning class. After 30 years of this we now have only 12% of our workforce unionized, a regressive tax structure, corporate ownership of media and message, growing inequality, and a Democratic Party frequently abandoning its base in order to reap the corporate and elite-rich campaign contributions.
The conservative program of austerity for the poor and the middle class goes unanswered. Middle class outrage is exploding in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and across our nation. The bank/corporate Ponzi scheme that crashed the world’s economies continues to pay itself immoral salaries and bonuses. As long as we refuse to tax progressively, wealth will continue to control our government and our economy.
Billions, maybe trillions, of dollars commandeered upward causes suffering in the lower classes reaching Depression levels. Yet NO member of the owning class who caused this mess has been charged with a crime.
Those of us who point this out are accused of fomenting class warfare. Does naming something, class war, become the cause? Did teachers make this mess? Did those in foreclosures cause it? How about the unemployed, did they? Did our kids, 45 in a class, foist this on us? Did the poor? Did the environment? Did unions? Did the gay community?
Why do we let the guilty off without penalty and allow the system to pick us off, group by group, until there’s no one left to speak for the last one standing within the lower and middle classes?
We Americans, especially conservatives, love to claim “we’re number one.” Thanks to the New Deal we did become number one in the world, still holding the title of the world’s richest nation. Today, though, out of the other side of their mouths conservatives are screaming “We’re broke” -- our nation is “broke,” our states are “broke,” our cities and counties and school districts are “broke.” At the same time the number of millionaires and billionaires among us keeps multiplying.
After WWII, we paid off the war debt and developed a healthy growing middle class through progressive taxation, strong labor laws, and expanded educational opportunities – K through college. Union membership reached 29% of the labor force and equity of income and wealth opportunities allowed more and more people to participate in the “American Dream.”
Equality seems to rankle the owning class. Beginning with Reagan they set the stage for a return to the “Gilded Age” and the policies of Hooverism. Reagan fired the air-traffic controllers, smiled and set the poor adrift, and began to disparage and starve government. The corporate world responded by buying government, thus creating an atmosphere in which the productivity of the workers flowed upward into the pockets of the owning class. After 30 years of this we now have only 12% of our workforce unionized, a regressive tax structure, corporate ownership of media and message, growing inequality, and a Democratic Party frequently abandoning its base in order to reap the corporate and elite-rich campaign contributions.
The conservative program of austerity for the poor and the middle class goes unanswered. Middle class outrage is exploding in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and across our nation. The bank/corporate Ponzi scheme that crashed the world’s economies continues to pay itself immoral salaries and bonuses. As long as we refuse to tax progressively, wealth will continue to control our government and our economy.
Billions, maybe trillions, of dollars commandeered upward causes suffering in the lower classes reaching Depression levels. Yet NO member of the owning class who caused this mess has been charged with a crime.
Those of us who point this out are accused of fomenting class warfare. Does naming something, class war, become the cause? Did teachers make this mess? Did those in foreclosures cause it? How about the unemployed, did they? Did our kids, 45 in a class, foist this on us? Did the poor? Did the environment? Did unions? Did the gay community?
Why do we let the guilty off without penalty and allow the system to pick us off, group by group, until there’s no one left to speak for the last one standing within the lower and middle classes?
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home