Remember the good old days? You know, higher taxes on the rich and social investment
If you’re wondering whether we’ll see more tricks than treats this Halloween, as a nation it is clear as a mountain stream. Tricks wins. The middle-class promise of America is broken.
While we desperately need disruptive solutions that right the ship, our leaders sail on, seemingly oblivious to the plight of the ordinary American. Politicians distract us with false-flag cultural concerns when the big picture lies unaddressed. And corporate titans want you looking anywhere but at the quantum multiplication of the distance between C-suite salaries and those of their employees. CEO compensation has grown 940 percent since 1978. In 1965, CEO-to-worker compensation was 20 to 1. Now it is up to 278 to 1. Twenty to 1 would sure work for me. You?
In the real world below the executive floor, the big-ticket items of housing and education show a similar escalation. These were the two principal ways to reach the middle-class. Now they are a distant dream for all too many. Home prices have ballooned 531 percent since 1960, putting home ownership out of reach, along with the main source of equity for most Americans. At the same time, higher education costs have climbed a similar skyscraper, jumping more than 500 percent since 1985. These increases are far from trivial. They reflect a system so out of control that it is hard to find words adequate to describe it. It spells the death of the American dream.
In the face of this five-fold escalation of the key costs that can change lives and move families from poverty to sustainability, the old answers won’t do. Stagnation in small doses is all that nibbling away at student-loan debt in unequal bites offers. Higher education needs to be free or close to it. In a knowledge economy, nothing less will do. Those who are busy rolling back corporate taxes and creating loopholes for the rich and the realtors neglect historical facts. The economy was booming in the last years of World War II, when the highest marginal tax rate was 94 percent. In the banner years that followed, the highest rate stayed at 70 percent or above until 1981. Then came Ronald Reagan, and now we whine over a highest marginal tax rate of 37 percent, half what it was when we had the long postwar boom.
What’s wrong with this picture? How did we allow a smooth-talking, dog-whistling B-movie actor to become the model for fiscal restraint and the Republican ideal? Let’s not even try to comprehend the GOP’s current collective psychosis. As historical numbers show, taxes aren’t inherently evil as long as they are not regressive and fund essential societal needs. They help equalize the ratios of American economic life. The ultimate absurdity was a real estate crook as president, guaranteeing all the depreciation and tax breaks that made for wealthy land-barons and no trickle-down to homeowners.
We are spending too much time putting solar panels on the roofs of those who can afford 30-year payoffs. We spend little on converting residences, abandoned factories and underutilized office buildings to affordable housing with options for ownership. We need a new model for moving young people and families into livable dwellings with the potential for equity. With a proper redistribution of federal expenditures and more equitable taxation, this should be doable.
Sure, a thousand vested interests and fear-mongering politicians will cry foul, but frankly to heck with them. If they really believe taxes will drive business to another country, hail and farewell. It’s all a bunch of hooey. This was a great nation when the wealthy and corporations paid twice as much. All the more so when homes and colleges cost one-fifth.
According to Republicans, “socialism” is a dirty word, the way communism was in the 1950s. The Affordable Care Act, weak vessel as it is, is apparently socialism. So are many of the supports that keep kids from starving and sick and elderly from premature death. The scarlet “S” of socialism should not be a shameful brand. Without it, there would be no Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or public school. The condemnation by distorted and stigmatized words is the same trick as “states’ rights” being something admirable. Tell that to Black people, women needing abortions, Venezuelan immigrants shunted to Martha’s Vineyard. We’re one nation-state.
Bite-size answers won’t do when we have a whale of a problem. We need to start by demanding what needs to take place for this country to restore a long-term future. To strike for new directions without fear or favor. We were founded in revolution. Today, we don’t need overthrow of government but of ideas. Let’s stop being afraid of change. If socialism worries you, try having a country resembling the homelessness of San Francisco, with an undereducated generation of workers. I don’t know about you, but for me, that is a scary Halloween.
