The middle class has been DECIMATED while Democrats negotiate with themselves over half-measures
The top 1% is now worth more than the entire middle 60%, with the biggest upwards wealth transfer currently happening, while Democrats are negotiating with themselves over the Build Back Better agenda
The last year has been a disaster for your average Joes and Janes. The entire economy has been shut down, and, while they struggle to pay for their basic needs, billionaires have increased their net worth by over $1.8 trillion over the last 18 months, a 62% increase on what it was previously.
One of these billionaires, Elon Musk, is worth $150 billion more than he was at the start of 2020, a 600% increase, making him the richest man in the world, a position he is loving.
When Jeff Bezos, now the second richest man in the world, tweeted about how Amazon revitalized two industries (we’ll get onto how Amazon has harmed normal people), Musk responded with a silver medal emoji, referencing Bezos’ fall to No. 2 in the richest man stakes.
This is the richest man in the world revelling in his wealth, ignoring the fact that, while he is worth over $200 billion, there are 35 million food insecure Americans. 50% of Americans can’t afford a $400 emergency, and Musk doesn’t care. He doesn’t come out and campaign for solving these issues. He sits comfortably.
He doesn’t even pay his fair share of taxes. In 2015 and 2017, he paid less than $70,000 in federal taxes, and didn’t pay a dollar in tax at all. While America is sitting in about $27 trillion in government debt, he doesn’t pay his fair share. Not just that, but he also takes money from the government. He has received $4.9 billion in government subsidies for Tesla, who are attempting to do a service that NASA could do half a century ago.
Jeff Bezos, Musk’s main competitor for the richest man title, is even worse. He pays under 1% in taxes, while he receives billions of dollars in government subsidies.
This system is simply unacceptable. We are giving the richest people massive amounts of money while they don’t pay their fair share, while their net worth massively increases, at the cost of the rest of us.
This is because these monopolies, especially Amazon, have closed countless small businesses during their rise to massive power. They sell anything, with maximum convenience at reasonable prices, compared to small businesses where you have to go to a store for a selected range of items. Most people would choose to use the convenient option.
As a result of this, in some small towns, particularly in the Mid-West, can’t work anywhere but at Amazon. And Amazon is not a good place to work.
While they do pay $15 an hour (because Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna forced them to), the conditions are not even remotely good. People are regularly forced to do back-breaking work in 12 hour shifts. When I say back-breaking, I mean that literally. Amazon workers have absolutely massive injury rates. It is simply not a safe place to work.
On top of that, if you are working as a delivery driver rather than as a warehouse worker, it isn’t better. These poor workers are so rushed for time that they piss in bottles and shit in bags regularly. And these workers don’t really have the choice to work anywhere else because Amazon has closed small businesses while manufacturing has moved overseas because of free trade deals.
However, that’s enough dunking on the mega-wealthy. I can do that anytime. What not many people seem to do, especially the Washington elite, don’t seem to care about nearly as much is that normal Americans are struggling badly.
For example, in the middle of the 20th century, families would double their net worth every 23 years. At the current rate, they only do that every 100 years. The net worth of Americans is increasing at only one fourth of the rate it was 70 years ago.
These middle class Americans also pay a higher percentage of their income in federal tax than the top 1% do. Just think about that. The people who have pretty much unlimited money don’t have to pay a reasonable amount, while your average Joe or Jane has to pay more.
This is why we have so many millions of people who are classed as being in the working poor. They aren’t poor because of the old conservative trope that they are just lazy pieces of shit who refuse to work. They work very hard, doing much more than billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg are, and yet are worth significantly less. They are poor because the system is set up to massively the already rich. As Martin Luther King put it, we have socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor.
The other problem is that neither party are going to do anywhere enough about this, because they are both owned by the donor class. Despite the fact that universal healthcare would massively help out millions of Americans, it would harm their donors at Pfizer, Moderna and all the other health insurance companies, so they refuse to do it.
Likewise, if we raised taxes on the mega-wealthy, we would be able to afford to do a lot more stuff to genuinely help the poor and middle-class. Unfortunately, the politicians in positions of power who have the ability to do something about this massive, never before seen inequality all happen to be bought out by their billionaire donors.
And, as we recently learned as a result of the leak of the Pandora papers, many billionaires are entirely capable of avoiding tax legally because of the many loopholes, especially in South Dakota, and politicians do nothing to stop this, because they personally these policies in the form of corporate donations.
There is currently a bill with potential to go through the Senate that will actually help the struggling middle class, the Build Back Better reconciliation bill, with several parts of that bill designed to help the working and middle classes.
Now, the mainstream media has not even looked at what is in this bill. They have spent a lot of time trying to paint this as a partisan issue where the progressives like it, while the centrists and conservatives are opposed to it. They don’t even detail what is in it, for the most part, because they know that it won’t fit the narrative that they like. So let’s look at what is in it.
Two years free community college
Free Pre-K and Childcare
Medicare expansion, including dental, hearing and vision services, and the age to be eligible for medicare reduced to 55
Extended child tax credit, giving up to $250-$300 for every family per child
A cut of prescription drug prices
Paid family & medical leave
A series of climate change provisions
And, even better, every single cent of this bill is paid for, through small increases in taxes on the rich and beefed up IRS tax enforcement on the wealthy.
Now, this bill is not perfect; far from it. There is no $15 minimum wage, no universal healthcare, two years free community college rather than full-on free college, a cut of prescription drug prices rather than the nationalization of Pharma and some climate change provisions rather than the full-on Green New Deal.
However, despite all of that, it is still the most transformational bill in America since FDR’s new deal. It would be an absolutely massive deal if it were passed.
However, that is simply not going to happen, at least in it’s current state. The Republicans refuse to support the bill, meaning that they need every single Democrat to support it, and two of them don’t.
Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin are both massive corporatists who refuse to support this bill.
This isn’t because they just have a different opinion. I would be OK with it if it was an honest disagreement where we have opposing perspectives. However, it isn’t.
With Sinema, the only part of the bill that she has specified as being against is the lower drug prices, and medicare being able to negotiate with big pharma for these lower prices.
Now, this seems stupid. It makes her an opponent of the 83% of Americans who support this part of the bill, including 71% of Republicans. But, Sinema doesn’t.
However, this isn’t a position that she has always had. In 2018, she tweeted that prescription drug prices need to be lowered.
However, since then, she has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, including, in just the last year, $115,000 from Blue Cross/Blue Shield, a major drug company. As a result of that, she has completely flipped on this basic, obvious policy that a 3 year old could see as being the right thing to do.
Joe Manchin, on the other hand, is opposed to the child tax credit. This is a part of the bill that promises to lift half of children who currently live in poverty out of that situation. Again, this puts him in the massive minority of Americans, with only 38% agreeing with him.
These two oppose this bill big-time, and their defenders claim that it is because they are just representing their politically diverse, more Republican-leaning constituency. They claim that, because Manchin comes from West Virginia and Sinema from Arizona, both of which have a reasonably large Republican base, it is all fine as their constituencies don’t support the bill.
This, though, doesn’t reflect reality. Nonpartisan nonprofit WorkMoney found that, of the 800 people in West Virginia that they polled, 80% supported it. That is an absolutely gigantic number, especially in a state that voted for Donald Trump by a margin of 38%. In Arizona, it is much the same story, with a recent poll finding that 70% of people in that state support the bill, and they largely oppose scaling it back.
This bill is wildly popular in Manchin and Sinema’s constituencies and they still refuse to support it.
Now, there have been a couple of incidents involving progressive activists attempting to pressure both of these corrupt politicians into voting for the bill.
The first involved kayakers, yes kayakers, rowing up to Manchin’s yacht and requesting that he vote for the bill, in what was a sad indictment of an America in which the politicians look down on the people.
Now, I hate to admit it, but Manchin here showed why he is a really talented politician. While he fucks over regular Americans, he managed to talk to activists calling him out on his bullshit in a caring way, that was really admirable. This was really good politics. However, what isn’t good politics is the fact that he is still trying to curtail a bill that his constituents support overwhelmingly.
The other instance was much more borderline. Some activists were ambushing Sinema on a college campus, and followed her as she went into a bathroom, still going off at her over her corrupt politics.
Now, in terms of what they were saying, I completely agree with the protesters. However, there is a debate to be had on whether following her into the bathroom is a legitmate plan.
One part of this argument is that politicians should be scared of the people, rather than the other way around, and that this is part of implementing that way of life.
However, the other argument is an attempt to hypocrisy burn those who believe that, saying something along the lines of ‘you wouldn’t support this if it was your mother, your sister or your girlfriend, so you shouldn’t support it with Sinema.’ However, this ignores the fact that Sinema is refusing to vote for policies that would save lives because of her corruption. My mother, my sister and my girlfriend are not doing that, so I don’t care.
For me, I agree with the first sentiment. I don’t care if activists hurt your feelings with their demands that you don’t want to save lives because doing that would stop you getting some donations.
So, to wrap this all up, the top 1% is now worth more than the middle 60%, and the only bill that could help the middle class catch up a little is being kneecapped by radical, right-wing corrupt Democrats, which Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and the rest aren’t doing anything about.