Half the households in this nation do not have two-thousand dollars to help handle an emergency and couldn’t get that amount even given 30 days. Nearly, half the nation’s 310 million citizens live in or near poverty and are only one “crisis” away from being dependent on a local foodbank for their next meal. Yet those facts are not a part of the national debate in this election cycle. Why not?
There are more Americans without health insurance than ever before. “As the Great Recession has sown unemployment and downgraded work even for those people who have held on to their jobs, the number of Americans lacking healthcare has swelled beyond 50 million, according to a sobering new report from the Kaiser Foundation.
Among the report's most troubling findings: The number of Americans without any health care coverage grew by more than four million in 2009. That left almost one-fifth of non-elderly people uninsured. Among those between 19 and 29 years old, nearly one-third lacked coverage.”
An estimated 17 million children go to bed hungry every day and live in food insecure households. Poverty is and has been an issue across this nation throughout its history. Those facts are not being discussed. Certainly, the greatest income inequality in 80 years isn’t being mentioned by the candidates. The exception is Mitt Romney’s declaration that he’s “not concerned about the very poor.” Was it a real Rick Perry moment or a Freudian Slip? Maybe the reason it’s not being discussed is because when anyone brings up the issue GOPers immediately start whinning that Democrats are engaging in class warfare.
If it is warfare, so be it. While I’m not altogether certain what is up with the majority U.S. population’s fixation with “war” it is strange that this is the one war they shy from. All other wars are perfectly acceptable but this one--- not so much. There have, however, been many headlines in the news recently that provide a snapshot of where the nation is when it comes to public policy and elections and it isn’t pretty.
This past week’s headline “Working Poor: Almost Half Of U.S. Households Live One Crisis From The Bread Line” told us that theCorporation for Enterprise Development, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group released a report which showed that “43 percent of households in America -- some 127.5 million people -- are liquid-asset poor. If one of these households experiences a sudden loss of income, caused, for example, by a layoff or a medical emergency, it will fall below the poverty line within three months. People in these households simply don't have enough cash to make it for very long in a crisis.”
As if one-percenters and states are out to add insult to injury the Mother Jones article, “Soaking the Poor, State by State” documents the fact that in states that have a state income tax that tax is regressive. Regressive taxes are those that place the higher tax load on those who can least afford it. That makes sense really. The one-percenters control everything including tax rates. So they give themselves yet another tax break and make up the difference by increasing taxes on the poor.
Texas (Red) doesn’t have a state income tax which is probably a good thing since Texas is also a “right to work” state which means that given low wages that prevail in a "right to work" state Texans couldn’t afford a state income tax if there was one. That term, “right to work” is both a misnomer and a subterfuge for levying yet more income inequality on the working poor in the name of “being attractive to companies.”
Essentially our politicians are pimping us out to the lowest bidder. In 2010 Texas tied Mississippi for having more workers earning minimum wage or less than any other state in the country. Some 9.5% of Texas workers earned minimum wage or less compared to a national average of 6%.
“The Corporation for Enterprise Development recently released a scorecard for all 50 states, and it has boatloads of useful information. That includes overall tax rates, where CFED's number crunchers conclude that in the median state (Mississippi, as it turns out) the poorest 20 percent pay twice the tax rate of the top 1 percent. In the worst states, the poorest 20 percent pay five to six times the rate of the richest 1 percent. Lucky duckies indeed. There's not one single state with a tax system that's progressive.” There’s a link with the article so you can check your state.
We get plenty of real world evidence of income inequality and the disdain and indifference toward that inequality that exists in this nation from remarks made by GOPer president wannabe candidates and their never ending American Idol-like debates. Imagine the arrogance and money it takes to make a “friendly wager” of $10,000.
Consider this only three percent of “Americans” earn $300,000 or more annally. Standing alone, that fact is startling enough. If you juxtapose the gist of the headline, “What it takes to be a 1 percenter in the Washington area” the conclusion is that if “that end-of-the-year bonus didn’t send your household income well north of half a million dollars, you can’t count yourself among the elite 1 percent in the Washington region” that’s not just startling that’s just downright daunting.
Sadly and conversely the headlines reflect that Americans Set the "Rich" Threshold at $150,000 in Annual Income. Cleary that is not the case but when the average income across America is $43,000 and only $28,065 in San Antonio Texas’ Westside what can we expect? To the 99% an annual salary of $150,000 is comparatively rich.
So tell me again---how is it we're any different from a Third World country? And don't give me any pontificating crap about our "freedoms." The only freedoms we have left are the freedom to go to work (if you're lucky enough to have a job) and the freedom to pay your bills.
Then again maybe it is a very compassionate conservative Christian thing to believe. The Christ we’re told did say when urged to help the poor, “the poor will always be with us.” Apparently so and paying more taxes and bailing out "too big to fail" one-percenters in the process.
From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…
Hasta Siempre,
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