As the author says below, this is what happens when the wealthy live on the backs of the poor:
US Has Fourth-Highest Income Inequality Rate in the World
A recent report issued by Paris’ Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development analyzes the countries around the world with the highest income inequality rate, per capita. And guess where the United States sits? At number four — right after Chile, Mexico and Turkey. Given our country’s unemployment rate — noted today to have jumped unexpectedly last week –compared to our proportion of billionaires (of the richest people on the planet, the US claims four of the top ten), this doesn’t come as a huge surprise. But it does underscore what happens to a country in which the wealthy live on the backs of the poor — for evidence, check these Mother Jones charts that illustrate why Congress is friendlier to Wall Street than Main Street.
Highest (Worst) Income inequality Rates in the World (HuffPo)
1. Chile
2. Mexico
3. Turkey
4. United States
5. Israel
6. Portugal
7. United Kingdom
8. Italy
9. Australia
10. New Zealand
Source: sarahlee310
Take a look at the facts of income inequality growth / bottom-to-top income redistribution over the past three decades:
Mother Jones: It’s the Inequality, Stupid!
WINNERS TAKE ALL: The superrich have grabbed the bulk of the past three decades’ gains.
How are the wealthy walking away with such a HUGE chunk of the national income? One reason is tax breaks paid for with spending cuts (I won’t even get into union busting, layoffs, useful idiots of the Republican base, offshoring, deindustrialization, hoarding money instead of creating jobs, and same job / lower wages). Not only is corporate tax lower than 99% of us pay on our income tax and payroll tax, but capital gains tax (income tax for the wealthy) is also much lower.
(See all graphs / charts at Mother Jones)
What can be done? Here’s a start:
The New York Times, “Obama to Offer Plan to Cut Deficit by Over $3 Trillion.
President Obama will unveil a deficit-reduction plan on Monday that uses entitlement cuts, tax increases and war savings to reduce government spending by more than $3 trillion over the next 10 years, administration officials said.
The plan, which Mr. Obama will lay out Monday morning at the White House, is the administration’s opening move in sweeping negotiations on deficit reduction to be taken up by a joint House-Senate committee over the next two months. If a deal is not struck by Dec. 23, cuts could take effect automatically across government agencies.
Mr. Obama will call for $1.5 trillion in tax increases, primarily on the wealthy, through a combination of closing loopholes and limiting the amount that high earners can deduct. The proposal also includes $580 billion in adjustments to health and entitlement programs, including $248 billion to Medicare and $72 billion to Medicaid. Administration officials said that the Medicare cuts would not come from an increase in the Medicare eligibility age.
Senior administration officials who briefed reporters on some of the details of Mr. Obama’s proposal said that the plan also counts a savings of $1.1 trillion from the ending of the American combat mission in Iraq and the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.
In laying out his proposal, aides said, Mr. Obama will expressly promise to veto any legislation that seeks to cut the deficit through spending cuts alone and does not include revenue increases in the form of tax increases on the wealthy.
99% of us — along with our nation’s treasury — shouldn’t have to continue to suffer in order to further enrich the wealthiest 1%. No, the richest of the rich don’t work harder than the rest of us! No, IT ISN’T UNFAIR to require they pay what the rest of us do on income. No, the U.S. doesn’t JUST have a spending problem — we also have a revenue problem. And, no, funneling more wealth to the wealthiest in our society does not “trickle down’ to everyone else — OBVIOUSLY!
Isn’t three, long decades of this GOP bullshit enough? Time to turn the page.
