enough to understand the plight of the american middle class the day
you have to understand that an actual crime
has taken place
middle-class isn't dying today because of a random financial crisis in two
thousand seven
you know maybe george bush had something to do with it rear-ended deep and long
lasting recession might nineteen twenty eight
nine-a
analyte happened
but the middle class is dying today because of a decades along there
three decades of least
arguably criminal
effort to read the american economy in favor the corporate elite
and the very well wealthy
and transfer massif amounts of money
from the vast majority of americans
up to the top one percent
we're now on the final stages safford what i call the cancer stage of
capitalism
and more more americans are waking up to what's really happening
presses senate candidate in massachusetts elizabeth warren
spoke directly
too
this issue
in her d_n_c_ speech here she is
system busy great against them
and here's the painful part
there right
the system is relieved
look around oil companies does living on billions in profits
billionaires
pay a lower tax rates than their secretaries
and wall street's ceos this same lines to wrecked our economy and destroyed
millions of jobs
still strut around congress no shame demanding favors enacting like and we
should saying hey and does point here have a problem with that
you know
or over the war it is really one smart woman and likes others smart americans
she's wise that the what's really happening in our nation which is the
alright staff
of the wealth of the middle class
and the passing of it along to the top one percent
interest article published for alternate david agrawal another smart american
highlights each incident of faf against the middle class but a corporate elite
as the reagan tax cuts
and the destruction of labor unions beginning in the nineteen seventies
that has fueled an enormous pay gap between c_e_o_s in workers
so that
thirty two years ago and reagan came into power c_e_o_'s made twenty five
times more than their average worker
today
five hundred times more than their average worker
those same at policies
thirty-two years a reaganomics
have resulted in a sample one percent seen their share of national income
triple over the last three decades
all the bottom ninety percent of seemed fair share dropped by twenty percent
years of lobbying and outright bribery
every good tax kerrigan's working americans forcing them to pay a higher
tax rate
their members of the corporate elite like mit romney and warren buffett
and not only that those higher tax rates paid by working people they don't flow
through the cooper's a government to be reinvested help the working class with
things like better social services or better education or better
infrastructure
instead that revenue is going straight to corporate treasuries
in the form of bailouts to wall street
tax subsidies to the oil industry and giveaways to the for-profit health
insurance cartels
for instance
the wall street bailout financed by taxpayers liked you and me
led the bank stirs getting paid more than a hundred and fifty billion dollars
in bonuses just in two thousand nine
bob that same year we the taxpayers lost twenty five percent the value of her for
a one case
that same year the richest four hundred americans four hundred people
increased their wealth by thirty
billion uh...
dollars giving them more more wealth
than the bottom one hundred fifty five million americans combined that's about
half of america
as you grow up points out had our taxpayer money that invested in job
creation
rather than passed out as wall street bailouts
five million americans going to go back to work earning thirty thousand dollars
a year each
are unemployment rate would be like
five percent four percent
but that didn't happen
instead more than four teen trillion dollars
was quietly passed out to wall street and corporate america
trillions more went to our for-profit military industrial complex so they
could profit from our never ending war on terror and not a single penny
was reinvested in better education
better health care
better infrastructure where job creation for working americans
and working americans really needed all that wealth has been taken from them
his before bush
american spent seven percent of their income on food matter g today
it's twenty percent
working americans pay eight percent other income on health care more than
any other nation the developed world
and yet we get the worst results
meanwhile across the housing for the middle class is going up thirty four
percent
sort all these necessities are added together americans have to use their
credit cards to make ends meet
and are forced to go deeper and deeper into debt since our wallets have been
picked by the corporate elite
as was the foreign said the game is free
ever was a great give wages for working people i continue to rise
along with productivity
like happened during the truman administration the eisenhower
administration kennedy johnson nixon ford carter president is calling
every single one of us
as productivity went up wages went up
and then came reagan and
productivity
continue to go up wages flattened out if the rich still paid their fair share in
taxes in the reagan tax cuts had never happened
and if wealth distribution america stayed on track
with where was in the carter seventies
then today
now listen carefully to this
this is astounding
then today the middle class to be thriving
to grow argues had a corporate elite got stolen so much money from us over the
last thirty two years
we right now
the average middle-class income would be about a hundred and thought alhadeff it
would be about a hundred thousand dollars
we be able to afford free health care for every american
every american family would be able to afford a four-bedroom house
we would be able to afford free college for all of our kids
and twenty-first century roads bridges public transportation in internet
infrastructure
we can also afford eight-five percent income tax rate going moving forward
for ninety nine percent of all americans
the potential for all these things i just mention was stolen by the corporate
elite with the help of republicans ronald reagan
both george bush is
and their cronies in congress and smart people awaken after this reality in stay
and safe enough is enough which explains why rick santo rum
what what he was talking about last week when he said this about support for the
republican party
here on our side
will never have
the elite
sparkpeople ourself
pretty heady center it the smart people will never be on your side they will not
vote for you because more people will not do worse
the sort of middle-class destroying policies it useful in the it's like you
are pushing
the smart people the americans in all of this stuff
are standing up and speaking out against it the smart people not a reverse the
damage that's been done
they know that we have to roll back the reagan tax cuts with the strength of
protections from labor unions
tax preparer money has to be reinvested in the community and not given a
transnational corporations to build factories in vietnam and paid its c_e_o_
billions
we have figured out
rikki we know what's going on
this is the comma hardman program
is just incredible what has been stolen from us free health care free college
cheap renewable energy
at the very least all that has been so for you