What has bled the nation dry is the conservative policy of keeping revenues disastrously low while continuing to raise expenses, such as two unfunded wars. A 25% cut in taxes on capital gains and (special) dividend income is still in place (capital gains and dividend income are now both taxed at 15%), resulting in federal taxes on the wealthy averaging 16%. Most of the income on the wealthy is exempt from payroll taxes. Contrast this with a 25% tax rate on middle class incomes along with payroll taxes. So people are taxed at a much higher rate if they have to labor for their income rather than sending their money out to do the work for them.
We have had thirty years of class warfare by the wealthy. Income at the top has soared while wages among the poor and the middle class have stagnated.
Legislation is dominated by corporate influence. The conservative strategy of increasing the deficit in order to provide justification for cutting social spending has worked. The conservative's stated goal of keeping the economy from recovering in order to defeat Democrats is working.
There is a reason the top 1% pay more in taxes than the bottom 50%. Look at the relative incomes. Just how much should poor people pay in taxes while their income and spending power continues to tank?
Unemployment benefits, public libraries, a women's right to vote, environmental protections, food safety, a 5-day work week, living wages, child labor laws, desegregation, national parks, Social Security and Medicare. That is what progressives have fought for and won. How many of these have conservatives attacked? Do you really want a return to child labor, six-and-a-half day work weeks, senior poverty and poorhouses, sawdust in hot dogs, rivers catching fire, workers being fired for not being able to perform their jobs after being injured on those jobs, and wages that are little more than indentured servitude?
Go ahead and continue to support today's GOP. Continue to vote against your self-interest. Continue to believe right-wing propaganda and continue to believe that progressives are socialists. Continue to support free trade agreements that force American companies to compete against companies that are subsidized by their governments and whose workers have government (not company paid for) health care and 50-cents-an-hour wages.
