Update of: Welcome to the New Gilded age – and the Big Lie (+)
by: AmberPaw
Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 17:05:59 PM EDT
[Edited on March 23, 2009 based on the 2008 post]
(The expansion that wasn’t … in MA or anywhere else. (PS — I cannot endorse AmberPaw’s breach of Godwin’s Law.) – promoted by Charley on the MTA)
Remember the so-called “Gilded-Age” when the100 room+ cottages were built in Newport?
According to John Kerry, at a speech given in Hudson at the Middlesex-Worcester Dem Alliance Brunch:
In 1980, the top 1% in income took home 8% of the total income in the US.
In 2005-2006 the top 1% took home 23% of the total income in the US!
This goes along with the Globe article, which states that income in Belmont increased 43.3 % between 2001and 2006 – but income in Lawrence declined. The average income in Harvard increased 31.3% to $169, 370.00, the average income in Lexington also saw a double-digit increase to $157,388 – while Burlington, Billerica barely increased their average of $57-67,000.00 – and the average income of about $20,000.00 in Lawrence declined. For the graphs and full story, go to: http://www.boston.com/news/loc…
Tax cut mania has benefitted the rich, who are getting richer. Tax cuts have not benefitted those at or near the poverty line, nor most of the folk earning $40,000-$70,000 or thereabouts.
So why the move to repeal even the flat income tax here in Massachusetts?
Well, Adolf Hitler is famously quoted as saying:
If you tell the same lie often enough, everyone will believe it is the truth.
The tax cutters are lying through their teeth. The only way to equalize income, or sustain our infrastructure is, in fact, for the top 1% to pay their “fair share”, proportional to what the top 1% paid in 1980. They don’t want to. The paid public relations firms for that top 1% have made millions of dollars for themselves and billions for the top 1% by lying to the rest of us.
The parable of the frog in the cookpot comes to mind. When first popped into the water, the water was at room temperature. But that pot was on the stove! The burner was turned on, but very low. The frog comfortably floated, half asleep in the nice warm water, not noticing that his bath kept getting warmer – until the frog was poached for dinner never noticing as the waters around him got warmer and warmer.
Welfare reform has been like the frog bath, just as the tax cut frenzy has been leaving us all in the Land of Potholes and debt…
Between 1997 and 2007, as a percentage of income, the spending on lower-income families in Massachusetts declined by 1.3 billion, due to a slick but phony promise called “welfare reform”.
Why do I call it a “phony promise”?
The promise was that cash grants to those in poverty would decrease, but spending on good services like first class early child care and access to education to raise the poor into the middle class would be funded by the all or at least most of money saved by welfare reform. This did NOT happen!
Rather than spending the money saved by slashing welfare rolls on education, child care, building affordable housing, or in any way building a better future – almost all of that money simply vanished into the general fund of was swallowed by unwise tax cuts.
While a certain amount did go to increased child care, there remain waiting lists for child care needed by working class families who are eligible for that care of thousands of children in every age group. Similarly, the promised affordable housing did not get built.
To quote the study released on April 2, 2008 by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center:
As Table 1 shows, while spending on the cash grants measured in 2007 dollars, fell from $970 million in 1995 to $290 million in 2007, a drop of $680 million, spending on child care rose from $255 million to $510 million in 2007, an increase of $255 million. The increase in appropriations for child care programs accounts for less than half of the $680 million that Massachusetts saved as demand for cash grants fell.
Where did the money go?
Well, again, the beneficiaries of tax cutting have been the top 1%. Remember, in 1980 the top 1% took home 8% – and today the top 1% takes home 23% of the whole pie. We only have one “pie” to cut up and share. If 1% gets 23% that only leaves 77% for the other 99% of us.
Welcome to the New Gilded Age – brought about by the Big Lie of the tax cutters who have poisoned public debate by demonizing government.
You and I do not have millions for public relations professionals. B
ut we had best wake up and see the truth about the tax cutter’s selfish, deliberately misleading conspiracy of misinformation – or join the frog in his stove top bath.
Cross posted at One Massachusetts on “April 14, 2008 See http://onemassachusetts.org/
Addition: Rememember, income is what the Government says it is – no more, and no less. We have been robbed blind because we, collectively, stopped paying attention. There is no way that more than $500,000 is needed for folk to take bankster jobs – it is just that the Bankster Tribe got away with plundering for so long it bacame, in their minds a “right”. We either change that, or return to some form of feudalism.
Collectively, that choice really is ours.
Remember the frog in the pot? I surely hope that enough citizens are listening to avoid the Banksters all dining on Frog Fracasse.
For my earlier post in its “pure” form: http://bluemassgroup.com/s…
