http://www.faireconomy.orgExcerpts:
New Data Show Widest Income Gap Since 1929
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has released a new analysis of Congressional Budget Office data that found:
Income for the top 1% skyrocketed 201% between 1979 and 2000.
Meanwhile, income for the middle 20% rose only 15% and income for the bottom 20% rose only 9%.
AND
UFE Fights the "Shrink, Shift and Shaft" Budget and Tax Agenda
Read the op-ed "Shrink, Shift and Shaft" by UFE program director Chuck Collins.
The radical right's budget and tax agenda:
Shrink government to nothing more than a "Watchtower State," limited to military, police and property-rights protection.
Shift the tax burden off investments and onto wages, off of federal progressive taxation and onto state and local taxation that hit low- and middle-income people hardest.
Shaft people who depend on government safety nets or investment in equality of opportunity.
Also, in 1968 the minimum wage was $1.60/hr when a liveable wage was $1.85/hr. In 1979, the minimum wage was $2.60 and the liveable wage was $3.63. In 2001, the minimum wage was $5.15 and the liveable wage was $8.48 (though I'd say it'd be closer to $12/hr).
While repukes, including Bill Clinton in the past (the 1996 welfare reform act), have reformed and are eliminating welfare, nothing is being done about "corporate welfare" which is the government giving millions or billions to giant corporations. What happened to republican rhetoric about all of us being able to stand on our own without help? Government's helping their own quite nicely, it seems.
Back to that nice 1996 welfare reform bill that Clinton signed: It slashed benefits for low-income familes while Lockheed-Martin took over the welfare program in Texas. Also, the US public school system is chaotically and unequally funded, with Lehman Bros saying that public schools is a local industry that, over time, will become a global business. Prisons becoming privatized even though many county governemnts have renovated or created new facilities? Yup. American Express, GE, and the Correctional Corporation of America have all invested or been in supprorting privatized prisons for their own gain.
Oh year, Mars company (the chocolate people who make M&Ms) support the end of the estate tax. They've pumped LOADS of money into lobbyists and lawyers.
And social security. Many Wall Street firms are actively lobbying to get this program into the stock market (including George Duhbya Bush), but did you know that these firms would be collecting multiple billions in "fees" if this were to be implemented?
In the 1940s, corporations paid 33% in federal taxes. By the 1990s, they pay only 15%. Guess who makes up the slack?
Between 1977 and now, the middle 20% of all taxpayers pay much more in taxes. Meanwhile, those at the top 1% are paying much less. Hardly their fair share.
What has NAFTA and GATT done to us, with FTAA to follow? They have shifted jobs to low-wage countries, doing nothing to help these countries improve their quality of life while lining their own pockets with $$$. They exploit the environment even more because the laws don't exist in those countries. Yet alone data practices, so your credit card reports and all can easily be taken! As there are fewer Americans with jobs, that's less income for the government. This means cuts for social programs, even though corporate welfare remains UNTOUCHED. Also, NAFTA allows the US to freely take supporting countries' oil and gas stocks in an energy crisis. That's the price of free trade, and then consider what items the US has banned or is trying to ban from these countries. Free trade my ass, anybody who supports NAFTA and FTAA is a sleazy traitor to the American people, period.
Up until 1980, real family income increased for ALL wage levels. It's been documented. Since then, the rich have obscenely taken over, leaving everyone else to rot. Is this a freedom that Bush* talks about people hating us for?
Best of all: What started with Reagan, but didn't get addressed during the 1990s: CEO pay used to be 43x the typical worker in 1979. In 2001, the pay is now 531x. That's a jump of 1164% between the time period! Stock market also did well during the same time period, jumping 873%. Meanwhile, worker productivity (that's us, by the way) had gone up 45% yet workers' median PAY had gone up by 10 CENTS. Labor creates all wealth and we are overworked and underpaid. (And by the way, Clinton's a repuke licker for any number of reasons: DOMA, NAFTA, DMCA, firing of Jocelyn Elders, welfare reform acts, the telecom act, and the facts of the economic situation. People did NOT earn more in the 1990s, though CEOs did. But on the plus side, he had nothing to do with the hell bushco* is unleashing.)
Our government is selling out to the very people who make us hated amongst the world and, if we don't turn the whole damn world into a population of anti-american terrorists, we're going to be very sorry in the end.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
