The article Red-State America Against Itself over at AlterNet struck me as an excellent summary of why the Democrats suck so much these days. It highlights their steady decline which began in the 70's when they deserted their platform of progress by having government making life better for the lower and middle-class. Instead they adopted a policy of reform largely via increasing wealth, and hence played right into the hands of the Republicans who also appeal to the self-serving wealth seeking human nature. The Republicans had the advantage that they could lay claim to the conservative wealth seeking poor and turn a class based struggle for improved quality of life into one that was largely fought on narrow issues such as abortion, religion, guns, drugs, "family values" and good old American xenophobia. And so the battle for the historically democratic voting "working class" was lost.
Ironically it seems that the poorer and worse off people get under a Republican administration, the more likely they are to continue to vote Republican. It seems like the Republican message to the working class has exactly the same appeal as winning the lottery. The more you need it the more attractive its allure is. Not only does it have the appeal, it also has the same pay-out characteristics - the higher the prize available the lower your chances of winning it as all the fools rush in, but if you don't play you can't win right? Well that's appears to be how it works in the economics of everyday poverty and income distribution. As the upper 5% get even richer, the harder and less likely it is for someone to claw their way out of working poverty of the bottom 20%, and working mediocrity of the bottom 80%.
To illustrate this point United For a Fair Economy have some great graphs illustrating US wealth distribution and income distribution and how they have changed over time. The three charts derived from US Census Bureau historical income data are most alarming to me. They show that during the 32 year period between 1947 and 1979, pre-tax income growth was pretty balanced. It was roughly the same within plus or minus 10% across all income ranges - the top 5% of income earners actually seeing their income growing the least with an increase of 86%. However, in the 22 year period between 1979 and 2001 the income of the bottom 20% of wage earners has grown by just 3%, the top 20% by 53%, and the top 5% by a whopping 81%!
But wait, it gets worse! When you look at after-tax income you see that the tax breaks enacted since 1979 have compounded the effect. Since 1979 the after-tax income of the bottom 20% grew by just 9%, the top 20% by 68% and the top 5% by an enormous 201%! So not only do the super-rich enjoy massive increase in real income setting them even further apart from the remaining 95%, they also get tax breaks that compound that increase by an additional 120%. Thus in the last twenty years the top 5% of income earners have seen their after-tax income more than triple! Does anything about that strike you as wrong there?
And the sad thing is that many people not in that top 5%, or even top 20% will still say "No". Its just like adding a bonus ball to the lottery jackpot - it just makes striking it rich even more attractive! If you're already in poverty (in 2001 that lower 20% were earning a mean income of $14,021 and a good half of them were in poverty) then what does an extra 9% increase in disposable income over 22 years make? Bugger all, that's how much. So you might just as well fixate on the prize, or to put it another way: learn to stop worrying about being poor and love the rich, because one day you might just win the lottery and be one of them.
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