NOT EVERYBODY IS HURTING

    When you look at the economy, it is seldom that you say everybody's hurting. Sometimes everybody does indeed suffer----a terrible hurricane  might come through and knock down everybody's home. Well, the hurricane that has hit America for the last 20 years, or so, has not had an adverse effect on everybody. It has adversely affected the working folks, the folks in the middle class. The people on top are doing better than they ever were. Our friends on Wall Street whose greed and illegal behavior caused the latest recession are now making more money than they ever did, after being billed out by the middle class of this country. 
   During the Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Dubya years, the 400 wealthiest Americans saw their incomes more than double, and their taxes reduced.  Does anyone think that after seeing a doubling of their incomes and a reduction of their taxes during the 200-2008 period, these people are in desperate need of yet another million-dollar-a-year tax break ? In 2007, the 400 top income earners in this country made an average of $345 million per year. That's 
shitting in high cotton where I come from.  And that's just the average. In terms of wealth, as opposed to income, the wealthiest 400 Americans saw an increase in their wealth of some $400 billion during the Boy George years. Imagine that. During an eight-year period, the top 400 wealthiest people each saw an increase, on average, of about $1 billion apiece. Together, these 400 families have a collective net worth of $1.27 trillion. (Yeah, good work if you can get it.) Does anybody in America really believe these folks need another tax break so that our kids and grandkids can pay more in taxes because the national debt has gone up ? I do not think most Americans believe that. And I don't think most Americans are proud of the fact that we have such a huge gap in income and wealth between the super rich and the vast majority. There was actually a time in this country when rich people became embarrassed for those who aggregated ridiculously-huge piles of wealth. 
   The point that needs to be made is, when is enough enough ? That is the essence of what we are talking about. Greed is like a sickness. It is like an addiction. We know people who are on heroin. They can't stop. There are people who can't stop smoking. They have problems with nicotine. They get addicted to cigarettes. It costs them their health. People have problems with food. We all have our share of addictions. But I would hope that these people who are worth hundreds of millions of dollars will look around them and say : There is something more important in life than the richest people becoming richer when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. Maybe they will understand that they are Americans, part of a great nation which is in trouble today. Maybe they have to go back to the Bible, or whatever they believe in, and understand there is virtue in sharing, in reaching out. What good does it do any human if he/she owns it all ? 
   I think this is an issue we have to stay on and keep beating our pots, pans, and drums. This greed, this reckless uncontrollable greed is almost like a disease that is hurting this country. And it's not every rich person who has this disease. Not every rich American wants a tax cut. Not every rich American opposes allotting a one-time $250 cost of living adjustment to disabled veterans and senior citizens receiving Social Security. Not every rich American thirsts for the power that comes from donating large sums of money to legislators, expecting selfish favors from government and forcing the national debt even higher. Just a small, but powerful group of rich folks, want more and more wealth and the power it bestows upon them.  It's just this group that is addicted to greed and is devoid of any sense of human compassion. It's this group that is sick, sick, sick.
   Speaking of the Federal budget and deficit, we absolutely must recall, and spread the word, that when Dubya first took office, he inherited a $236 bullion surplus in 2001 and a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. But then some things happened. We all know that 9/11 was not his fault, but what next happened was his fault. We launched a military invasion of Iraq, which expanded into war in Afghanistan. The invasion of Iraq was the fault of Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Dubya. Most Americans opposed it, but we went to war in Iraq.  The war in Iraq resulted in terrible losses of human life among the Iraqi people and American soldiers. Plus, by the time our last veteran is taken care of, the Iraq War will end up costing us something like $3 trillion. This erased the surplus inherited by the gang that took office in 2001. It not only erased the deficit, it created a deficit and national debt. And, we didn't pay for the war in Iraq. We just put it on the credit card.
   Boy George and gang gave out $700 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. What was the offset ? What was the economic benefit to Americans ? Nada. The only beneficiaries were the 1 percent who got the tax breaks. 
   Wake up, dear hearts, giving the filthy rich more tax breaks is never going to reduce unemployment, improve the infrastructure, improve health care, and restore our public education program to a point where we can again be proud and hopeful for our kids and grandkids.