What we fight over
Why has the nation's reservoir of wealth drained away to unprecedented disparity from those of us working for a living? How did it get concentrated at the top?
Is it class warfare?
Some people are accusing Obama of class warfare, as he suggests letting tax cuts for the wealthy expire. But evangelical leader Jim Wallis, of sojo.net, gets it right: " ...let's be clear: There really is a class war going on, and the upper class is winning." Former President Bill Clinton rightly pointed out last week that 90 percent of income gains in the last decade went to the top 10 percent, and 40 percent of the increased wealth went to the top 1 percent--those are folks who make their money on money, not on work. That has left the rest of us who do real work watching our take home pay get cut and the cost of living keep rising.
The reasons aren't palatable at the top. The nation's top plutocratic politicians and pundits stir up deceptive froth to hide the truth, like this:
"…The top 10% income pay 70% of the nation's income taxes!" Fortunately, this time it fell dead on the floor. Not included in the finding was the percent of the nation's total personal income that lands in the pockets of those 10%. Plus, with so many loopholes for dividend income, billionaires and millionaires usually end up paying taxes at a lower rate than middle class wage-earners (Chris Hayes on MSNBC Sept. 24).
We hear this daily on the media, "But we can't tax the super rich... they provide jobs!" If that's true, why have employment rates and real wages both continued to decline even with Bush's generous tax cuts in place? Furthermore, what corporation hasn't benefitted from transportation, security, infrastructure, and educated employees... all provided by the public? Shouldn't corporations invest back in the public works and services that make our nation stable?
Government Social Programs
The froth of this debate is so confusing most Americans just sip on. A 2008 poll of 1,400 Americans by the Cornell Survey Research Institute is revealing. Ninety-four percent of those Americans who said they were not beneficiaries of any government social programs actually were receiving government subsidy costing money to tax payers. Those making this false claim had in fact benefited from at least one; the average "I haven't participated!" respondent benefited from four (Susan Mettler, New York Times, Sept. 20, Cornell Survey).
Froth gets attention, unfortunately. So it was with the survey's first question: "Have you ever been a beneficiary of a government social program?" True to the emotional bias of those three words, of course they said no. Their second question was to examine a list of some 20 federal government programs, indicate if they had participated, and rate their experience. This included Social Security, unemployment insurance, the home-mortgage-interest deduction and student loans. That's when the truth became visible.
While the average American complains about big government, that same American most likely appreciates and participates in government social programs. The reality is that nearly all of us like what government does for us. Case in point: Social Security.
What a lazy way to cut the national debt: renege on the promise of Social Security. Perry's Ponzi scheme charge, and that congressmen who agree with him, is really a double entendre Ponzi scheme to reduce our benefits to satisfy economic problems brought on by Wall Street's under-cover wealth concentration. We the taxpayers have already funded wealth-concentrating bailouts.
Social Security is different. The nest egg is transparent, we the people own it, and for decades it has been lowering the poverty rate of seniors from 50% at its inception to 10% now. Unlike a Ponzi scheme, that money does not flow into the coffers of a few. That's why the program is popular, valuable and solvent. That's why the elite get bug-eyed with greed at the mention of Social Security. See on line "WPIX-is-social-security-a-ponzi-scheme."
You elite Republicans, misguided Democrats, and Tea Party naysayers, don't mess with our Social Security. If you want to be in government, stop the scheme of our earned benefits leaving our middle class and piling up in the top one percent. You will eat those dregs yet.
Our media pushes the froth of political drama, hyperbole, and outright deception across the government bar to us the public. It's so comical. How can we avoid sipping froth? It's less inebriating to imbibe the reality of how and why the nation's reservoir of wealth has been extracted from those of us working for a living.
The first tax of the first US Continental Congress was a property tax on the rich. Look up any source anywhere to find why they chose a property tax, and why they chose the rich to tax, leaving most first-generation Americans with no federal tax.
If we do swallow a few dregs of truth, would we really rather not know about it?
Look up 2011/09/21/inside-the-list-facts-and-figures Forbes Magazine.
Perry's Ponzi Schemes
Governor Perry hatched a Ponzi scheme that never really got off the ground, thanks to some fine Christian fundamentalist folk from the Texas countryside. With mandatory participation by every girl in Texas ages 12 and 13, and the profit from the scheme set to go to a big Pharma corporation that contributed heavily to his campaign, it looked like a done deal. Who funded it? The government—that is, the Texas tax-payers, all of them. Read on line how Perry's Texas government Ponzi scheme was caught before it started, look up "texas-perrys-vaccine-mandate."
To top it off, Perry has divided Republicans with his charge that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, to the delight of the talking heads in the media. This even filtered down to Big Horn County. So let's cut the froth and connect the dregs to those who work for a living, especially those whose compensation is barely enough to float a family. Look up
http://blogs.reuters.com/reuters-money/2011/09/28/heres-the-real-social-security-ponzi-scheme/
When government/business colludes to the benefit of jobs for many, as in the subsidy to retool Ford factories to build its electric "Focus," it works. So Republicans this past weekend went after that money. Why don't Republicans and Tea Partiers go after the squandered tax-payer money of the Wall Street/government collusion that's at the root of our economic doldrums? When have they criticized the Ponzi-like schemes that really have taken wealth from all of us for the benefit of a few?
The Economist Sept. 24-30 features the cover title "Hunting the Rich" and articles on class warfare in America. Very informative, for all sides:
http://www.economist.com/node/21530104
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David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org
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