Over the last few days and weeks, I’ve noticed, or thought I noticed, a bit of a change in the national conversation. My impression, for which I had no solid evidence, was that the issue of growing income inequality and the disappearance of the middle class was being discussed more and more frequently in the media. This article in the Times about shrinking middle class areas is a good example. I’m glad to say that my impression is borne out by the facts. Nick Kristof in today’s Times:
A reporter for Politico found that use of the words “income inequality” quintupled in a news database after the Occupy protests began. That’s a significant achievement, for this is an issue that goes to our country’s values and our opportunities for growth — and yet we in the news business have rarely given it the attention it deserves.
The statistic that takes my breath away is this: The top 1 percent of Americans possess a greater net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.
The more this is talked about, the more irrelevant the already irrelevant distractions about deficits and Super Committees will seem. The clown left standing after the fight for the Republican nomination will, after spending a couple of years proving his (or hers-we can still hope) fealty to the 1%, have an impossible job attracting votes in an environment in which this issue is front and center and in which the tax cutting shibboleth will have lost much of its appeal. More’s the pity that Obama won’t be able to ride the wave without doing some serious backtracking of his own. This is an issue that the Democrats should own, but too many of them are in thrall to the 1% (though always on a sort of probationary status), to take advantage of the opening.
It looks like we’ll have a great chance to see which side of this debate will resonate by looking to our neighbor to the North. One must wonder how much money Wall Street will have to raise for Scott Brown to overcome the harm articles like that in today’s Times (Wall Street Rallies Around Scott Brown for Senate Race) will do. As we proved here in Connecticut in 2010, at least in the more intelligent parts of the country, after a certain amount more money produces no additional return, provided the good guy has a reasonable sum of his/her own to spend. Warren will have plenty of money, both of her own and from third party groups. If Wall Street pours in extra millions, that very fact may lose Brown more votes than the money can buy.
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