In 2008 when BHO was running for President, a Conservative White Plumber from Ohio, named ‘Joe’ approached him and raised the prospect that his policies would lead to a ‘Transfer of Wealth from the Middle Class’.. The media and unsure White voters seized on this comment, as did the McCain/Palin campaign in an effort to undermine the BHO candidacy. the thing is ‘JTP’ was partly right, but he was aiming at the wrong target.
The truth is that a massive transfer of wealth had already begun long before BHO. It was initiated by Ronald Reagan and the usual crowd of ‘Robber Barons’. This time they enlisted the support of the Christian Right, under the banner of the ‘Silent Moral Majority. They were silent on the social issues relative to civil rights and racial equity. They were silent on the atrocities and abuses of socio-economic polices., They had opinions and sometimes violent responses to abortion, though they were silent on the welfare of children once they were born. They became the foot soldiers of Republicans who cloaked their true desires for wealth and power in theology.
But back to ‘Joe the Plumber’, since the Reagan Presidency here is what the real transfer of wealth in this country has looked like::
-When Reagan was elected there wasn’t a single billionaire in America. Since the implementation of ‘Trickle Down Economics’ homelessness spreads like a relentless fungus, destroying the lives of millions of Americans — particularly millennials.
-.The most important reason millennials are so badly screwed these days is the various changes in our tax code that began in the 1980s. Reagan dropped the top income tax rate on the morbidly rich from 74% down to 27%, and cut corporate tax rates from 50% to functionally nothing.
-The average billionaire pays an income tax rate of under 3%, and the majority of our nation’s largest corporations not only pay nothing in annual income taxes but most have so gamed the system that they get money back. Where does that money come from? It’s taken out of the taxes the government collected from you and me.
The changes in the tax code were designed to starve the Federal Government from resources to provide for the general welfare of American citizens.
-This 42-year-long process, with Reagan’s original massive tax cuts amplified by trillions more in tax cuts for the morbidly rich from the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations, has produced a $50 trillion transfer of real wealth from the middle class to the top 1%.
-Republicans have handed all that money over to the top 1% — and five Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that billionaires and corporations owning politicians isn’t corruption or bribery but “free speech” — its getting harder and harder to do anything about it.
-Every time any sort of reform — even modest, reasonable reforms — come before Congress, a united block of Republicans in the Senate haul in another billion dollars in campaign contributions and Mitch McConnell and his friends kill it in the Senate.
-Republicans, right across-the-board, continue to deny, in deference to the fossil fuel industry and its billionaires that funds their elections. They’ve put money and power above the fate and future of your and your children’s planet. That is the bottom line on climate policies that could reverse the impact of climate change.
-They even tried to end our 240-year experiment in democratic self governance, and are now actively embracing neo-fascist autocracy, openly trying to emulate the rightwing strongman governments that have taken over Russia and Hungary.
-They’ve even succeeded in overturning the right to abortion and are openly embracing homophobia and misogyny.
-400 million guns drenching our country and blood, and Republican Senator John Cornyn just today saying that Republicans are unified across-the-board to prevent any further action to stop gun violence in America?
–Back in the 1980s, huge numbers of Boomers voted for the Reagan Revolution that kicked off this whole political and economic death spiral. The guilt is largely ours.
-Republicans are trying to marinate your children in their white supremacy and racism by forcing teachers to push a false narrative about American history — all while they try to rig our elections by purging millions of minority, Boomer, and Millennial voters from the rolls.
-The good news, however, is that, increasingly, our two generation are working together to throw Republicans out of office and elect progressive Democrats who understand these issues and know how to do something about it.
(These point are taken from the Commentary of Thom Hartmann posted below)
However, millennials and Gen Xer’s and Zer’s need to understand that reversing this policy travesty will take more than a single Presidential election cycle. It will take informed engagement for two more generation as the actual assault has been on going since ‘Great Depression of the last 1920’s, caused by the wealth class of that time. They have been working to reverse FDR’s programs to counter the negative impact on the lower and middle classes. Then When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960’s racially motivated religious leaders teamed up with big money corporate donors ion a long term strategy that has led us to this moment.
You’ve been had by Republicans, but also disinformation from apathetic minorities and minorities drinking the theological Republican Kool-Aid.
A Reasonable Point of View 