Looking For the Middle Class

THE NUMBERS DON'T LIE. America is a land polarized between rich and poor, with little or nothing in between. We have several million millionaires, a nice, healthy number of them, tens of millions of paycheck to paycheck low wage workers, and at least fifty million people in poverty, a group which blends in nicely with the working poor. In America, you can work full time, and be in poverty, even if you spend money wisely, especially if you have kids. If you listened to the recent republican presidential debate, you heard two hours of talk about how best to help the billionaire and millionaire class, but you heard nothing about the middle class or the poor. So, where is the middle class? Well, it has long since blended into either the wealthy elite, or the working poor, most likely the latter. The rich get richer, the poor poorer, and the gap ever widens. That'll lead to big trouble soon enough, you can bet on it. It hasn't always been like this, and it doesn't always have to be like this. We need to and can reverse the trend. Its all happened before, and we know what to do. We do not have to sit helplessly by and hope for mysterious unseen market forces to create better economic equality in America, we have the power to do it ourselves. Between the 1870s and the 1930s inequality in America was extreme, like it is now. But during World War Two the problem was remedied by high taxes on the wealthy and the war time economy. During the 1950s and through the 1970s middle class America was strong, dominant, and vibrant. Then came the Reagan revolution, and corporate monopolies and low taxes for the wealthy. We are still living in the period of corporate power; the sooner we end it, the sooner we will all be more nearly equal, and more nearly comrades, with a strong prosperous economy for us all.