Here’s another reason.
For political purposes, the threshold for “poor” has been moved higher, and “rich” basically means anyone who pays more in taxes than they get from the government.
Not a big fan of the “tone” of this article.
It gives me a feeling of someone “whining”.
I’m fortunate to have many friends, acquaintences and business associates and among this large group is a simple trend.
People who continue to work hard, re-invent themselves when their current occupation is no longer viable, etc, are doing just fine. Some may be struggling along, but by and large, they are prospering.
On the other hand, the people who are less motivated, and in some cases, lazy, and/or who want the “system” to take care of them, are suffering.
The beauty of this country is it offers the “opportunity” to work hard and make something of one’s self.
This opportunity doesn’t exist in many parts of the world.
God deals the cards, it’s up to us to play the hand. Or “If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me.”
The economy sucks but this article is just a bunch of whiney liberal victim-puke! How many times does the author compare the top 15 to the bottom 90%? Why isn’t there a comparision of the taxes paid by the top 1% to everyone else?
The Communists under the guise or Unionism, Environmentalism, the ACLU, trial lawyering, and incessant anti-business bleating from Hollywood and the media, have destroyed manufacturing in this country, and with it, the middle class.
Here’s the one that upsets me: We work very hard, are by no means wealthy, but pay all of our bills and have some savings, etc. But our standard of living is barely, if at all, better than a good percent of the “poor people” who do not work at all and have no intention of working; who get free health care, free food at schools, free cell phones, food stamps, subsidized rent, monthly welfare payments of some type, aid for dependent children, free cab rides to all of their appointments for medical and social services, grants for education/training programs, and often free utilities through the “chariites” (example: heat aid fund) set up by the local utility providers.
Those of us who work for a living pay for all of those things, plus taxes. The “poor” get them all for free, no taxes, no taxes on their benefits.
Progressivism is a conspiracy by the elite and the underclass against the middle class.
An elephant in the room that this article mysteriously fails to mention is the importation of a Latin American peasant population of 30+ million counting legal plus illegal plus offspring of both. This vastly increases the poor population plus forces wages down for native-born workers, pulling people down from lower middle class into poverty or taking job opportunities away from native-born workers.
The rest of them are just the RESULTS of the assault by liberals on freedom, responsibility and fostering a general sense of entitlement among the worthless sheep of this country.
ping to self.
Democrats have been destroying America’s Middle Class through job-killing legislation for 40+ years, beginning with the 1970 Clean Air Act Amendment that drove steel production out of America.
Marxism’s enemy is not the Capitalist (the Wealthy). It is the Bourgeoisie (the Merchant, Professional, and Artisan clsses). Those are the most numerous and the most resistant to communist enlightenment. Forcing them into the ranks of the Proletariat (the wage-slave working class) not only eliminates an enemy, it creates an ally.