At the turn of the century, early 1900s, a man or women could not earn a living wage for a family of four so the spouse and children had to work as well. Many worked in horrible, dangerous jobs sometimes 24/7 for 52 weeks a year. Children, some so young that they had to be chained to their workstation because they tended to want to get up and play, also worked. What changed and caused a middle class to rise up out of this terrible scenario ---- unions!!!!! The result was child labor laws, laws requiring safe working conditions, work week hours regulated, eventually minimum wage laws, etc.. When Ronald Reagan was elected one of his first actions was to break the Air Traffic Controllers Union and so began the assault on the American Middle Class. Since that time the concept of retirement with a pension has disappeared, minimum wages have stagnated, many thousands of jobs have been shipped overseas, work conditions have deteriorated, there is an ongoing battle against collective bargaining, and the war agains American workers continues. What is even worse is that trickle down economics have made corporations unbelievably wealthy. The Supreme Courts Citizens United decision has given corporations even more of a financial punch allowing them to use their wealth to buy elections---which ultimately allows them to control the law making process which results in NO ACTION on minimum wage increase, NO ACTION on a immigration policy which would protect American workers, NO ACTION on student loans, NO ACTION on punishing those that caused the economic bust of 2008. Corporate financed elections have resulted in the successful election of pawns for big business that are most interested in trying to end Social Security and Medicare as we know them. Programs that have done exactly what they were supposed to do and that was to relieve the financial burden on young families of caring for their parents at the time when young new families should be building a live for them and their children. These program were meant to be self sustaining and not as the Tea Party folks like to call them entitlements. The use of this term entitlements gives you the impression that the people that are the recipients of these programs didnt have to pay for them or help pay for them --- which is simply not true or at least they were not designed to be true. However, the revenue from withholding taxes which were to be placed in protected, interest bearing, and untouchable accounts ---- but legislators have touched these accounts and the result is that now the amounts that should be able to pay the cost of those programs are simply not there any longer. Wow!! I have to close this off but I must simply say, labor unions gave the working class a voice and a power that had to be reckoned with by the employer. Through governmental action or inaction we have lost that power and the gap between the wealthy and poor has grown to be as wide as it was in the early 1900s. The middle class has ceased to exist and we must regain what has been lost and end the most disastrous form of welfare ever know and that is the loopholes and tax incentives that are given to the wealthy and powerful corporations at the expense of what used to be the middle class American!!
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 12:13:53 +0000
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