Running on Empty

The Potato Eaters

NY Times columnist Paul Krugman writes that, while in the 50s, 60, and 70s, the lower and middle classes in this country were finding it possible to get by fairly nicely, that since the 1980s, and the onset of the Reagan administration, that trend has reversed itself and now both classes are beginning to suffer, quite noticeably actually when just the lower class is considered. Since the end of World War II it has always been the middle classes which have kept this Nation prosperous, and with their imminent demise it is difficult to predict what is going to happen next – only that it won’t be fun for anyone on the lower end of the scale. No surprise to you I bet, and no surprise to me either. I’ve lived on minimum or near minimum wage for much of my life, and while never necessarily an easy thing to do, it has recently gotten all that much tougher.

Krugman says that: The middle-class society I grew up in no longer exists…Working families have seen little if any progress over the past 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the income of the median family doubled between 1947 and 1973. But it rose only 22 percent from 1973 to 2003, and much of that gain was the result of wives' entering the paid labor force or working longer hours, not rising wages…Meanwhile, economic security is a thing of the past: year-to-year fluctuations in the incomes of working families are far larger than they were a generation ago. All it takes is a bit of bad luck in employment or health to plunge a family that seems solidly middle-class into poverty…But the wealthy have done very well indeed. Since 1973 the average income of the top 1 percent of Americans has doubled, and the income of the top 0.1 percent has tripled.

For some reason, the myth of Horatio Alger among them (young, hard working poor guy makes good), people in this country become uncomfortable when you start talking about class, and class differences, particularly as it relates to incomes and relative worth. For a long time, everyone who was poor thought that someday they would get rich, and so they tended to identify with the rich folks rather than with the poor. If it ever was true that a poor guy had a good shot at getting rich (and it may have worked out that way for some small, although noticeable percentage of the population), it is no longer so, and if you are poor today your chances of ever getting stinking rich, or even improving your lot a little bit, seem to have disappeared with those politicians who felt they should legislate in behalf of all the people, and not just those at the top. Since Reagan, and for the last 5 years in particular, every piece of legislation offered and signed into law has benefited the rich out of all proportion to how it has benefited the poor, irrespective of what George Dubya may be telling you. The simple fact of the matter is, he is lying to you, and to everyone not in the top .01% of the population. Those guys have had Christmas every day for the last 5 years.

What Americans, and particular poor Americans, need to wake up to is that without strong labor unions and lobbyists working in the poor guys behalf, working class Americans are going to continue to get screwed. If that sounds like class warfare to you, then so be it, because maybe that’s what it is going to take to get the situation turned back around again, if ever. As po’foke we need to stop smiling at all those making obscene salaries and perks, and start screaming for our fair share – because we sure as hell haven’t been getting it.

While they don’t bat an eye about spending upwards now of $200 billion in Iraq - fighting an unnecessary and immoral war for the benefit of big oil and those such as Halliburton and the rest of Dick Cheney’s, and George Dubya’s, richest friends – they are busily cutting those programs the poor rely upon for basic social services and health. And there ain’t no poor man gonna benefit one iota from that stupid war; about the only thing the poor man has to do with it, is to go over and fight and get killed, or maybe have a limb or two blown off. You won’t find the rich man’s kids fighting over there, no matter how hard you look.

What they done in America is to have replaced a progressive tax system with one that is now in many instances a regressive tax structure, and while offering all sorts of corporate welfare for the super-rich, have eliminated or curtailed many of those systems of general welfare that so often helped to see families through. That some reform was necessary in welfare, there can be little doubt (the old system had some rather bizarre rewards built into it, by mistake), but to attempt to fix those problems by simply eliminating the system altogether was a cruel and unusual thing to do.

We need to replace this current bunch of rich loving legislators with those who care about all classes, and wish to see social justice implemented once again. So remember that, register to vote and then do so, and tell your friends to do so also. Don’t let them hassle you out of registering either, it’s all part of their plan to crap all over the little guy. Do whatever it is you have to do to vote, and then let’s dump the bastards!