We have crossed the boundary. For most Americans, America is a banana republic That the mainstream Broadcast News media does not tell this story to Americans to allow them to decide for themselves the type of republic they want is unconscionable. The wealthy did not get there on their own devise. It is a defect in our form of capitalism that allows the hoarding of wealth. Moreover, a willing middleclass is required for the wealthy to exist.
The only method of correcting the defect in our form of capitalism that ultimately transfers wealth from the middleclass to the wealthy is through our tax code. Unfortunately the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats have characterized increasing taxes on the rich as somehow socialist or job killing. The history of economic growth under more moderately high taxes as well as basic mathematics dispels this notion. It is unfortunate that no media has done any real investigative reporting on the actual effects of wealth hoarding by the wealthy.
If Americans do not wake up, the same instability that is found in countries with this type of wealth and income disparity will afflict us as well. Unlike many other countries, our citizens are well armed and with recent Republican prodding have become very polarized. This is a mixture for disaster.
My Book: As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom
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In my reporting, I regularly travel to banana republics notorious for their inequality. In some of these plutocracies, the richest 1 percent of the population gobbles up 20 percent of the national pie.
But guess what? You no longer need to travel to distant and dangerous countries to observe such rapacious inequality. We now have it right here at home — and in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, it may get worse.
The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.
C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.
That’s the backdrop for one of the first big postelection fights in Washington — how far to extend the Bush tax cuts to the most affluent 2 percent of Americans. Both parties agree on extending tax cuts on the first $250,000 of incomes, even for billionaires. Republicans would also cut taxes above that.
The richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers would get a tax cut of $61,000 from President Obama. They would get $370,000 from Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. And that provides only a modest economic stimulus, because the rich are less likely to spend their tax savings.
At a time of 9.6 percent unemployment, wouldn’t it make more sense to finance a jobs program? For example, the money could be used to avoid laying off teachers and undermining American schools.
Likewise, an obvious priority in the worst economic downturn in 70 years should be to extend unemployment insurance benefits, some of which will be curtailed soon unless Congress renews them. Or there’s the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which helps train and support workers who have lost their jobs because of foreign trade. It will no longer apply to service workers after Jan. 1, unless Congress intervenes.
So we face a choice. Is our economic priority the jobless, or is it zillionaires?
And if Republicans are worried about long-term budget deficits, a reasonable concern, why are they insistent on two steps that nonpartisan economists say would worsen the deficits by more than $800 billion over a decade — cutting taxes for the most opulent, and repealing health care reform? What other programs would they cut to make up the lost $800 billion in revenue?
