To his credit, President Obama has succeeded in keeping income disparities from growing even wider, by such measures as by forcing tax rates on the wealthiest Americans up toward fair levels.
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Meanwhile, on the programmatic side, among the many meritorious aspects of the much-maligned Affordable Care Act are its redistributionist elements: higher taxes on investment income and some health care businesses are being used to provide low-cost or free health care to a projected 26 million Americans near the bottom of the income scale.
But much more can and should be done — like raising the minimum wage nationwide and expanding the earned-income tax credit (a step supported by Republicans).
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Helping those in the middle, whose incomes have been battered by globalization, will be harder and take longer. Expanded training programs and better education should be the centerpiece of any strategy to improve the lives of the middle class. A more robust economic recovery will also help the middle class, as will pro-growth policy initiatives like investment in infrastructure.
Critics from the right argue that doing more to level the income pyramid would hurt growth. In a recent paper, the International Monetary Fund dismissed that concern and suggested that a more equal distribution of income could instead raise the growth rate because of the added access to education, health care and other opportunities.
While some believe that the recent elections will stimulate both parties to make progress on the mound of challenges, in my view, that’s a bit of a fantasy. But we can’t stop talking about the problem of inequality, because then there really would be no hope.
Steven Rattner is a Wall Street executive and a contributing opinion writer.''
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