Just the Facts

Let’s look at the big picture trend of the U.S. economy, to see what all the whining is about. The income going to the richest 1% in the U.S. has gone up almost 350% in real terms in the past twenty years. But how much did that rising tide raise all the little boats? Answer: the income of the poorest 40% went up by only 12%. Put another way, twenty years ago, The top 1% received just 7.9% of the national income, compared to a whopping 16.7% in 2003; a pure doubling. By the time this administration leaves, that should be in the 20% range.

The share of the poorest 40%, in contrast, declined from 18.8% to 13.2%. Compounding the problem for the lower 40 is the fact that health care costs, whether in the form of health insurance or out-of-pocket expenses for the 45 million without insurance, has risen over 250% in that same span of time.

Faced with these facts, the Republican-led Congress, at the behest of the man from Texas, has slashed hundreds of billions off the tax bills of that affluent 1%, while doing nothing about out-of-control rises in healthcare and medical insurance. This has led to untold stress and misery on the part of those struggling Americans trying to protect themselves and their families from the wolf at the door. (And now they are preparing to abolish the estate tax as well, further adding tax burden to the middle class in deference to the very wealthy.)

In a short number of years, when this situation is reversed (and it will be, when the public finally wakes up), the people will look back at this period as the shameful, unconscionable aberration that it is. But an even stronger emotion will be their own embarrassment that, in a democracy, this dereliction of the public trust was allowed to go on for so long.