Published: September 20, 2008 11:45 pm            

Economic inequality

In July, Cecil Acuff wrote a thoughtful column about American economic inequity. A local rightist responded that Lenin, Marx and Engels would have liked his column. Why should exposing economic facts bring charges of communist sympathies? Does the right want to hide these facts?

Acuff is correct; there is a large and widening income gap between rich and middle class Americans. CNBC recently reported the richest 1 percent of Americans has more wealth than the lower 90 percent combined. Last year, the Wall Street Journal (hardly a Marxist newspaper) published a table ranking the world’s major nations for income inequality. Only Brazil had a greater inequality than America.

Economic inequality has grown worse under the Republicans. They claim the average income has risen. True, but the average is skewed by huge gains at the top while middle class incomes have actually fallen. The inflation-adjusted median income (half earn less than the median) fell by 2 percent between 2000 and 2005 (WSJ, October 2007). We lost 500,000 jobs since January and the number living in poverty increased 1.2 million from a year ago (WSJ Aug. 27). The median income fell another 2 percent between July 2007 and July 2008. (Barron’s, September)

The saddest aspect of our huge and growing economic inequality is that, in November, millions of hard-working, God-fearing, patriotic Americans will vote against their own and their country’s best interests because the party of the wealthy is so adept at waving the flag and thumping the Bible.

Bob Gholson

Stillwater

        

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