Article Summary: The American Dream Of Today

The American Dream of Today
Kyliegh Yerby
New Mexico State University- Carlsbad

Author Note
This paper was prepared for English 111G, taught by Kathy Greenwood.
The American Dream of Today
The American dream has evolved into a new image in the eyes of Bob Herbert(2010), Cal Thomas(2010), Brandon King(2011), and Paul Krugman(2007). Thomas(2010) states that the original American dream “meant building a life based on the foundational principles”(p. 568). James Truslow Adams stated that the American dream is defined as “a dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability and achievement, regardless of social class or circumstances of birth” (1931). According
to King(2011), the American dream initially started to migrate to where it today after the Great Depression. The people of today’s society fail to follow the foundational principles that sustained the original American dream. The American dream has been redefined by the many changes that have molded American people of modern day society.

Flaws within the American Dream
Bob Herbert’s(2010) article “Hiding from Reality” informs the reader of the pit falls in the transformed American dream of today and gives several reasons for the transformation within the article. Herbert highlights several points of corruption in today’s society including economy and jobs, nonstop warfare overseas, public schools, and budget deficits(pp.565-66). Herbert also examines the fact that politicians promise perfection or aid in society but fail to generate any sort of results that would support their promises. Politicians instill false hope into the American people of society today according to Herbert. Cal Thomas(2010) examines Herbert’s points with greater detail in his article “Is the American Dream Over?”. The corruption within the American dream is caused by “expanding, encroaching, over-taxing, over-spending, and over-regulating government”(p.569). As portrayed by Thomas, the creation of government has prevented Americans from achieving the original American dream (p.569). The main problem lies with the issue of Americans putting their trust in politicians who will not actually do anything for the American people(p.569). The American people are government addicts and lack essential qualities needed for the original American dream such as self-reliance, individual initiative, and personal accountability according to Thomas.
In the article “The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold?” Brandon King(2011) examines the problems with today’s society as “weak national real estate markets, sluggish job growth, and the slow recovery of liquid assets lost during the recession are obstacles to a full recovery”(p.574). America is divided from the “have-mores”, rich, and “have-less” middle and lower class. (Reich, 2009, p.574) Krugman (2007) believes that we need to “seek a more equal distribution of income” as well as taxes. He also believes that the American dream cannot be accomplished by everyone largely due to the income gap. These are all key issues contributing to the failure of the American people of today to possess the American dream of the past in the eyes of the authors.
In Paul Krugman’s (2007) article “confronting inequality” he believes that the costs of inequality are social issues and politics.
The rich are “financial foreigners” in America (p.589). The upper class have their own, “health-care system (concierge doctors), travel network (Net jets, destination clubs), and separate economy. The middle-class is affected way more than the upper-class. Lots of people are going bankrupt in the middle-class not because they are buying luxuries, but because they are purchasing houses they really can’t afford. Why? Because they want their kids to be in the good school districts, trying to eliminate social inequality (p.590). Low income families are hit the hardest, they are more likely to be uninsured, have health problems, lack of nutrition and social support, distractions that end worse due to weakness of our safety net, and uneven quality of education (p.592). Krugman states, “equality of opportunity, not equality of results” (p.592). This is true, all Americans are offered the same but based on our income if you can or not. A great example is the percentage of finishing college of parents in the top and bottom quartiles; for the bottom quartile it ranged from a 3-29% and for the top quartile parents it ranged from 30-74%. They are both offered to go but due to socioeconomic status the lower class tends to
not.
Krugman also believes our politics are corrupt. As Woodrow Wilson puts it, “If there are men in this country big enough to won the government of the U.S., they are going to (p.592-93). There are cases every week that are greatly influenced by supporters with the big bucks and these supporters do this so they can enter a tax loophole. They end up only paying 15% compared to the 25%, costing the government six billion dollars a year (p.593).
Herbert states that we need to “recognize how much trouble we’re really in, and how much effort and shared sacrifice is needed to stop the decline (of the American dream)” in order restore the original American dream (p.567). Thomas says that we need to make an effort in order to keep the American dream alive. If we follow the proceeding guidelines we will not only keep it alive but we will build our country back up to its former glory. The guidelines are: “ studying and staying in school, achieving at least an undergraduate degree, avoiding drugs that will harm you, get married before you have children and work hard to stay married as an example to your children and society, savings and investing for retirement so you aren’t a burden to tax payers or relatives, live within ones means, demonstrate personal honesty and professional integrity, which comes from character development in one’s youth, usually by knowing right and wrong taught by parents and culture” (p.570). King says that “planning for the future by saving more and enacting policies that sustain economic growth are what will keep [the American dream] alive (p.578). King believes that this will end the Great Recession, overcome equality and achieve true prosperity. Krugman wants Americans to reform the tax system and hints to ways we should. Krugman wants Bush’s tax cuts to the wealth to expire in 2010 because it would bring in a lot of revenue (p.595). Urban Brookings Joint Tax Policy Center estimates letting the tax cuts expire will bring in $140 billion a year, which could pay for universal health care. Krugman also wants us to close obvious loopholes, which could bring in $50 billion a year.
We should tax the rich more because the British and French do quite fine economically and they are taxed at 48% and up while we stay at 40% at the most (p.597). Doing so we could generate quite a bit of money because only .1 percent of Americans make up for seven percent of all income. Krugman wants the U.S. to gain universal health care with all this revenue to show the progress in the U.S. and to help give benefits to the middle and lower classes. Also raise taxes on the middle class in their “benefits” they are taking away the inequality in an indirect way. The step that has already been taken is to raise the minimum wage. It is argued that raising the minimum wage will reduce employment and increase unemployment and that it will produce no effect. Krugman brings data to the table to prove raising the minimum wage does not cause employment to decrease (David Card of Berkeley and Alan Krueger of Princeton). There is no evidence that shows that raising the minimum wage creates job loss. The increase of minimum wage will greatly affect the lower class in a direct response, but everyone above the minimum wage will just have a “ripple-effect” (p.600). Minimum mainly affects the lower class, but if we are going to do anything about social inequality we need to approach further up the scale (p.601). The government needs to stop being against unions. Unions dramatically decreased in the U.S. due to political conservatism (p.601). This movement allowed employers to “engage in union-busting activities and punish workers for supporting unions”. Do to this atmosphere unions decreased because the supports would be out of work if they continued (p.601). Krugman is unsure that if we have new political climate unions will begin to emerge again. This might bring about laws like Employee Free Choice Act, which will not allow employers to intimidate workers. Also enforcing the laws already in the books will help because most antiunion movements are and were illegal.

References
Herbert, B. (2010). Hiding from reality. In G. Graff, C. Birkenstein, & R. Durst (Eds.), They say, I say with readings (pp. 564- 67). New York, NY: W.W. Norton
King, B. (2011). The American dream: dead, alive, or on hold? . In G. Graff, C. Birkenstein, &R. Durst (Eds.), They say, I say with readings (pp. 572- 79). New York, NY: W.W. Norton
Krugman, P. (2007). Confronting inequality. In G. Graff, C. Birkenstein, & R. Durst (Eds.), They say, I say readings (pp. 586- 605). New York, NY: W.W. Norton
Thomas, C. (2010). Is the American dream over? . In G. Graff, C. Birkenstein, & R. Durst (Eds.), They say, I say readings (pp. 568- 71). New York, NY: W.W. Norton