We’re not Broke. We’ve been Robbed!
http://www.newdeal20.org/2011/04/25/we%E2%80%99re-not-broke-we%E2%80%99ve-been-robbed-42676/We’re not broke. We’ve been robbed by the super-rich and big corporations who are raking in the cash and running up the deficit. Our economy is still more than twice as large as any other country in the world. With 4% of the world’s population, we generate 24% of its wealth. We spend more on our military than almost all other nations combined and more than twice as much per person on health care as other developed countries. But over the past three decades, the rich have gotten richer while their tax rates have plummeted. While the income of the richest 400 Americans quadrupled — they now have more wealth than the 155 million Americans on the other end — their effective tax rates were cut almost in half.
One thing is for sure: corporate America is not broke. Sitting on some two trillion in cash, fattened every quarter by record profits, corporate taxes are at an historic low in terms of the economy and share of federal revenues. And that includes Wall Street, which was rewarded with bailouts, bonuses and bonanza profits for igniting the deepest recession in three-quarters of a century.
We’re not broke, but the wealth grab is wrecking our economy. The rich can’t spend enough to keep the economy going. The engine that drives it is a strong middle class. The problem isn’t that we haven’t generated wealth, it’s that we’ve stopped sharing the wealth we’ve generated. If wages had kept up with productivity over the past 30 years, the median wage would be 60% higher than it is now. If income had increased at the same rate for everyone from 1979 to 2006, the average family would make about $10,000 more a year, but the top 1% would make $700,000 less.
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We’re not broke, but we have been impoverished by an “on-your-own” ideology that denies the best in us. At the end, this is a question of what we believe. When you stood in school and took the pledge of allegiance, was it a pledge for liberty and justice for the few, for the super-rich? Or was it a pledge for liberty and justice for all? That’s the pledge I remember taking: liberty and justice in an America that works for all.
(more at link)
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Yeah. Enjoy!
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