“The Party of the Rich” by Tim Dickinson appeared in Rolling Stone’s November 24, 2011 issue. Dickinson demonstrated that since 1997, the Republican party feverishly cut taxes on the wealthiest portion of the population and abandoned the poor and middle class population. In the article “The Party of the Rich” Dickinson illustrated that the Republican Party has become the party of the rich since Ronald Reagan was president. Dickinson also suggested that Reagan is an appropriate icon for tax-cutting Republicans and a prime example of a tax-cutting, small expenditure president. Dickinson illustrated that Reagan closing tax loopholes allow millionaires to pay less in taxes compared to bus drivers.…
This book is an overview of the dire condition of the American economy that looks at the many efforts the federal, state, and even municipal levels of government have undertaken to bring public policy to bear on the problem of poverty. Other topics include employment policy, housing policy, education policy, welfare policy, and criminal justice policy. In addition, historical perspective is offered on why some policies have worked and why others haven’t. Peter Edelman is currently a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who is a lifelong antipoverty advocate with experience in both the Kennedy…
The reason for Isenberg to write this book is too show the truth behind the myths about equality in what we call the United States the land of opportunity. She is uncovering the critical legacy of today’s poor white trash. Isenberg looks at hundred years’ worth of political rhetoric and policy, political literature, and scientific theories to show her assumptions…
A nation of equality, a wish come true. Knowledge Isn't Power, by Paul Krugman simply conveys about rising inequalities in wages and salaries of Americans. He proclaimed how the reason of inequality is not education, but power. He also stated that there are many actions that could be taken to "redress the inequality of power; only if there is a major party willing to move policy in exactly the opposite direction" i quote him. The thing that I disagree with the author is how he claimed that knowledge is not a reason for inequality.…
In Michael Harrington’s The Other America, he describes how the evolution of the American welfare transformed the aspect of the federal government. Furthermore, Harrington lays and points out that poverty is an issue being hidden and disguised. In the mid 1960s, President Johnson with the assistance of an evolving U.S economy were able to gain new laws on health,education, poverty, and housing. Recent and larger programs of the Great Society were nonetheless amongst the uttermost critical and significant adjustments in the American government. This modification ultimately changed the lives of countless Americans. In spite of the rate of poverty decreasing, President Johnson issued a call for an “unconditional war on poverty.” Conservatives…
Since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, much has been done to address poverty in the United States. Over time, there have been both changes and continuities. One continuity is that politicians have kept Medicare, Medicaid, and the Education subsidies from LBJ’s plan largely intact. One change is that LBJ’s plan focused on directly providing money to those in poverty, while later plans focused on getting people jobs.…
For eight years families existing in the low to middle socioeconomic structure were watching a “pick me-up” movie while their future was being hijacked. Ronald Reagan rode in the lead car at the parade with the elite 1% while occasionally throwing confetti to the average people on the street. His policies eventually guaranteed fortunes for wall street elite while insuring the moderation of the lesser stature and Americans approved of his economic plan by a ratio of two to one! A tribute to his projection of impermanence, an actor with great communication skills not a genius. As democratic speaker of the house, Tip O’ Neill saw, a president wholly unfit to hold the…
Paul Krugman’s “The Uneducated American” challenges the lingering perception of America as a frontrunner of the world’s educational systems. A place where a primary education free to all is seen as vital, and a higher education is easily attainable for the majority of its populace. However, Krugman asserts that though these acclaims were once well warranted, it has become glaringly evident that we have fallen behind, quoting the fact that not only are Americans less likely than many other countries to graduate with a college degree, but that we are in reality below average in our number college graduates, when stacked up against all other countries with advanced economies. Leaving us with the question of what happened? Krugman allocates this…
As an activist, anarchist, and self-declared democratic socialist, Howard Zinn admires the American people and their enthusiasm to improve their circumstances through protest and provocation (Zinn, Personal; Zinn, A People’s 9-10). He reflects this throughout A People’s History of the United States, placing emphasis on the plights of minorities, women, and the working class. By doing this, he chronicles the rarely told story of their struggle for equality in a biased, capitalist society. Though the US Constitution promised to “provide for the common deference,” the American government often catered to the will of wealthy businessmen and the male Caucasian elite (Constitutional). Due to the fact that the United States government failed to…
Have you ever noticed the crisis raging within the middle class? Lou Dobbs has surely noticed and in War on the Middle Class, Dobbs discusses the issues surrounding the middle class and how they can be solved. In this book, Dobbs discusses the problems of the elitists within the middle class, the flaws in healthcare, and the faults in the United State’s education system.…
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, with these two lines within the Declaration of Independence, America was born as a country of equality for all. However, America today, is a country ridden with disparity and inequality, resulting in glaring divisions amongst the American people. Today, the top 1% owns nearly half of America’s wealth, leaving the remaining 99% with only 50% of America’s wealth. Furthermore, according to the U.S Census, 27% of Black or African American households are living below poverty, while only 10% of White households are living below poverty today.…
As is noted in America in the Seventies, “the economic downturn of the mid-1970s” and “the impact of national deindustrialization and a concomitant disappearance of…jobs” had a disproportionate impact on members of minority groups – particularly those who were members of the working class (Bailey and Farber, 59). Prior to the demise of the liberal consensus, considering the belief held during that era that the government had a responsibility to ensure economic prosperity, and ignoring the racial issues that certainly would have cropped up, it is possible and even likely that the state would have stepped in to support working class during the period of economic transition. However, by the time of Jimmy Carter’s presidency that belief was specific to groups of people and not a general assumption held by members of the government. Carter was progressive enough to hold to his promise “to increase the number of blacks and other minority candidates” in federal positions. However, most benefits had “their greatest impact…on mid- and upper-income minorities, not the poor.”…
"Inequality for All" is very informative and persuasive documentary movie, produced by Robert Kornbluth and featuring Robert Reich, a professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley who was also a political appointee who served as the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. The movie explains how extreme inequality in income and wealth is a major problem for our society, regardless of which political side you find yourself on. Using video outtakes from the lecture series he currently presents at Berkeley and linking those with clips from movies and other videos, this documentary shows how income inequality has changed over decades in the United States. The movie offers a clear-eyed expose of a system that truly is stacked in favor of those who already have most of the money in America.…
Privilege, Power, and Differences, written by Allen G. Johnson, looks at America’s social system from the perspective of Socialists sociology. His book specifically examines “privilege” (p. ) in America. The author of this book acknowledges that he, himself, is privileged as a Wwhite, educated, and male. In contrast…
In his book The Great Divergence: America 's Growing Inequality Crisis and what we can do about it, Noah demonstrates the reality of our American government today, and how it is controlled by the ‘stinking rich’. Noah gives a fair and comprehensive summary of how inequality has widened so markedly over the last three to four decades, what it means for American society and what the country can -and should- do about it. As he makes clear, what has mostly grown is the gap between those at the top and those in the middle. As a result, his article reverberate more with the recent focus on “the 1 percent” than with more traditional concerns about poverty. Noah gives clear examples of how the income gap is hurting our economy as a whole while delivering an educated opinion on why Americans should wake up and realize what is happening to our system, through research and findings Noah supports his intriguing case with powerful insight to our continuing issue of inequality in…