Prevailing Winds "For the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom . . ." 2 Cor. 3:17, TNIV

September 22, 2011

The Debt The Rich Owe — It’s A Social Contract, Not "Class Warfare"

Filed under: Uncategorized — keelyem @ 5:00 pm

With thanks to my friend Peggy J.:

“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

“Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

I don’t know whose words they are, but this is right on. The super-rich currently pay about half the tax rate they would have paid in the sensible, community-oriented, and prosperous Eisenhower era, and the burden of not only paying down the national debt but also maintaining even the minimal function of society now falls on the middle class. There are more poor people in America now than in decades — and the gap between the middle class and the rich is widening.

That gap is ripping this country apart. Shame on those religionist Republicans who continue to parade their devotion to Christ while whoring for the richest corporate interests.

And yes, I mean “whoring.”

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