Reply #70: Here is a suggestion for you: [View All]

[Atypical Liberal]

Would you suggest the government should buy a Learjet for anyone who wants one?

Of course not.

The fact that people are able to fly their kids to summer camp on private jets is merely indicative of the problem in this country that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a tiny portion of the population.

Why does this matter?

First of all, with wealth comes power. Thomas Jefferson realized this and worked to include restrictions against business monopolies as part of the framework of this nation. When you have the Forbes 400 richest Americans controlling as much wealth as one half of the country, those 400 people probably have more influence over government, and thus government policy, than half the country. This seriously undermines democracy. And how do these people use that influence? Almost certainly they use it to make sure that policies get in place that protect and enhance their financial interests. This causes a snowballing effect where wealth buys influence which generates more wealth which buys more influence, and so on.

Secondly, when less and less of the population has wealth, it becomes harder to generate tax revenue from a broad tax base across the country. Already 50% of the country pay no taxes. As larger and larger portions of the country have wealth worth taxing, this tax burden will shift to a smaller and smaller portion of society. This opens up the potential for the people paying taxes to be a voting minority.

Thirdly, when real wages for the majority of the citizens of this country continue to decline, as they have for 30 years, it means that there is less and less opportunity for more and more Americans. Oh, yes, it certainly still is possible for anyone in this country to become wealthy. But the trend over the last decade is that most people's means are declining, not increasing. So becoming wealthy is very much an exception, not the rule. The majority of citizens in this country are now in a position where they will be less prosperous than their parents, as will their children. This means less opportunities for these people, and their children, than their parents were able to take advantage of. Less vacations, less college, less consumer demand.