Folks from throughout the political spectrum should be able to agree on one thing – we are living beyond our means. We’ve been doing so since 2001, after a brief sojourn in the 1990s when the budget was balanced. It’s much harder to reach consensus on what we should do about it. Some, like Rep. Paul Ryan, say we must balance our budget solely by cutting federal expenditures. The inevitable result of this will be substantial cuts to programs that benefit the neediest in our society, including ending Medicare as we have known it.
One way to get at a possible solution to this dilemma is to look at some statistics. In 2007, the last year for which such information is available, the top 1% of the US population held 43% of the country’s financial wealth and 35% of the total net worth. By contrast, the bottom 80% of the population has only 7% of financial wealth and 19% of the total net worth. The percentage held by the very wealthy has been steadily increasing during the past generation, and dramatically so since 2001, when the Bush tax cuts on the rich came into effect. We have become a nation of haves and have-nots, reminiscent of the gilded age of the robber barons.
There is no question that we will all have to do more with less to balance out federal budget. But, surely the place to start is to eliminate the Bush tax cuts on the rich. They have benefitted richly from our great country. They should be willing to repay their fair share.
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