Saturday, June 24, 2006
Robert Kuttner speaks true
In his column in the Boston Globe he highlights the continuing right wing assault on tne middle class and poor of America. Using the minimum wage defeat and the Paris Hilton tax repeal, he reviews the speech of John Edwards this week and the important issues he raised.
Today, with only 12 percent of Americans officially poor, the challenge of leadership is more complex. Yet four Americans in five have had basically stagnant living standards since the mid-1970s. That's because three decades of economic growth have gone almost entirely to the top, not merely the top 20 percent but mainly the top 1 percent.It is time to make it a public issue.
Estate tax repeal is just part of the story. Executive pay, relative to typical worker pay, has risen tenfold in two decades.
The right has managed to savage the institutions that produced increasing opportunity and a broader middle class in the decades after World War II -- minimum wages, trade unionism, job-security, decent health and retirement plans, affordable college and housing, Social Security that rose with inflation, and economic regulation to keep Wall Street from grabbing most of the winnings.
The middle class hasn't been so insecure since the depression. But today, unlike 1937, this epic reversal is off the political radar screen. The insecurity is experienced privately rather than as a national issue.
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