While we argue additional tax cuts for the wealthy and the merits of "trickle down" economics a strange thing has happened. The standard of living for working americans has fallen. We make less money than we did a decade ago while the rich have gotten richer
Census: We̢۪re poorer - THE WEEK
The Census Bureau’s annual report on income is out, and “there’s no good news” in it, said Felix Salmon in Reuters, unless you’re “the kind of person who worries about inflation.” Median household income has fallen 3.6 percent, from $52,153 in 2007 to $50,303 in 2008—a loss of “real money.” And 2.5 million more people are living in poverty, including 19 percent of kids under 18. That’s “unconscionable, in the richest country in the world.”
The “big news” from the Census report isn’t the drop in income since 2007, said David Leonhardt in The New York Times. It’s that we’re earning less than a decade ago—median household income in 1998 was $51,295, in today’s dollars. There hasn’t been such a lost decade in 40 years of Census tracking, and probably not since the 1930s. “What’s going on here?” Very slow growth, and the fact that “much of the bounty from our growth” has gone to the very rich.
I can't tell you the number of times I've heard rich people complain when the suggestion is made that the top few percent pay a little more, or for support of the inheritance tax. These are the only taxes the rich pay substantially more.
But rarely do we see the coverage of the rich waging a white-hot war on the poor. I've never seen such an organized attempt at the destruction of working people in my life, than the one that has happened in the last 40 years.
It really started happening during Nixon's years, as he sucked up to China. That was the beginning of our destruction. It accellerated during REagan's years, as he managed to get rid of fairness in the media, with his fairness doctrine. Ten or 20 republican think tanks opened, financed by some of the wealthiest people on the planet, and they made arguments for everything. The media managed an incredible feat. They convinced everyone they were liberal, by bringing on guest after guest, who threw that talking point out there, then they proceeded to demonize workers, and unions. Worse, they made up the most awful things about the most impoverished, calling all welfare recipients welfare queens. Not the powerful, who controlled everything were no longer suspect. It was the "welfare queens," and "union thugs" that were America's biggest woe.
The people, like the ******* lazy sheep they are, followed this right-wing media, both in calling it liberal, and at the same time, memorizing all of their little slogans about "unions wanting too much," and "I don't want to give my money to a "crack whore welfare queen." Well, who does? But in truth, they weren't the facts, but what matters, honesty in the media? Pshaw, forget that. We need to brainwash them against the poor, and make them worship the rich.
We see the stereotypes here each day. Many negatively affected by these policies, have yet to realize that they've sown the seeds of their own destruction, of their families dystopic futures. They are loathe to understand that they have brought us hurtling toward third world levels of poverty, of violence, of crime, of infirmity.
Way to go, class warriers, you've managed to help them destroy us. You've helped them keep down the minimum wage, thus knocking the foundation out from under us. You've cut the rope of the middle class, on which we used to climb up to better things. Good going, it was real smart of you. Thanks for destroying our carefully crafted good life, gained by decades, no really centuries of American workers trying to and achiving a better life, not too much, but enough. You've punched holes in our economic bucket, and there is scant water left, and it is leaking faster than any meager drops that come from other countries.
Better wake up! We're not long for the world, not far from being the same puddle drinking, garbage dump searchers as the countries you've been trying to get us to emulate. Even atop the heap, you don't get much of a view if all you are looking at is the cesspool of America, that you've created.
