Robin Hood Justice

Every once in a while I watch the morning news shows during my workouts and this morning I happened to catch a sequence of “Morning Joe” that really irritated me. Joe Scarborough was debating some guests on the need for another Stimulus Package to counter the growing problem of unemployment. Scarborough has never been accused of being the brightest light in a dark room, although he is considered a leader among Conservatives.

While the panel advocated another “more focused economic stimulus” to increase employment, Scarborough kept repeating in mantra-like fashion “we have no money left… we have no money left…”

He’s wrong. We have plenty of money for a jobs program. We have enough money for a jobs program, universal health care – we just have to get it back from the people we gave it to, in exchange for the false promise of jobs. Reagan and Bush (W.) gave away massive amounts of tax money to the richest Americans – trillions of dollars – with the promise that tax cuts for the rich will stimulate jobs growth. It is a belief system that continues to this day, even though history has proven that tax cuts do not stimulate any significant job growth. For example, nearly 40% of Obama’s first “stimulus” consisted of tax cuts.

After WWII, the highest tax rate was 90% and later reduced to roughly 50%. The economy boomed and the middle-class thrived. Reaganism destroyed that prosperity and in the process he began the steady destruction of the middle-class. By now the damning statistic is well known: 95% of all wealth is controlled by 1% of the population. The rich have gotten unbelievably richer and many people are now recognizing that our Democratic Republic is threatened by a plutocracy. Is the real center of political power now on Wall St. and not Washington D.C.?

If the Democrats had any courage, they would raise the tax rate on the top 1% of the population 10% and tax bonuses over $1 million at 50%, private foreign bank account transfers at 90% then we would have more than enough money for universal health care and virtually eliminate the deficit.

What is unfair about taxing the top 1%? It’s not just sad, it’s immoral to allow millions of Americans to languish on unemployment benefits when they want to work.