Facts of American political life

Most Americans--56%--want to repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.  Unfortunately, very few people care about the views of those 56%.  To paraphrase Tom Hagen in Godfather II, "It's like they don't even exist."  Kevin Drum:

...the responsiveness of senators to the views of the poor and working class is....zero. Or maybe even negative. And that's true for both parties. The middle class does better — again, with both parties — and high earners do better still. In fact, they do spectacularly better among Republican senators...

This is the shape of American politics. If your income is low — and probably a fair number of the 56% who want Bush's tax cuts for the rich repealed are low-income voters — politicians simply don't care. If you're middle class they care a little more. But if you're rich, then they really, really care.

Income inequality in the United States is worse today than it was in 1915.  Then, the top 1% accounted for 18% of the nation's income.  Today, it's 24%.  From 1985 to 2005, more than 80% of the nation's total increase in wealth went to the top 1%.

Whenever you mention these inconvenient facts, the plutocrats always start squawking about "class warfare."  In reality, "class warfare" has already been going on for quite awhile, but only one side has been waging it.

Comments

[lillianjane]

John,
This is your friendly free proofreader. I think you want to delete the "NOT" in this:

[lillianjane]

Ack--the second part of my comment was deleted. Here it is:
Most Americans--56%--do not want to repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Unfortunately, very few people care about the views of those 56%.

[John Petty]

Oops! So right. I'll fix it.