Slipping Through Our Fingers, Part 2

The monstrous economic scam that has ensnared Americans these past 25 years, the one stealing our dreams of a better future for ourselves and our children, continues unabated. If anything, it has accelerated in speed and grown in viciousness. This is a con of many parts, including lop-sided tax cuts, depressed wages, rapid, uncontrolled increases in health and college costs, and inflationary rises in energy and food prices.
So how and why is this a scam? In large part, we can hold responsible the political class, in incestuous tandem with the monied elite (it's worth remembering the number of former elected representatives who, upon leaving office, cross the street to begin lucrative lobbying careers), which glosses over it by redirecting the attention of the American people.
President Bush said in 2006, demanding Congress to make permanent his earlier tax cuts, "I urge the Senate to vote swiftly so that I can sign this bill into law and put a stop to a massive tax hike that would be disastrous for small businesses, our economy, and all working Americans." Apart from the dishonesty that a refusal to make such cuts permanent is synonymous with a "tax hike," the president cited capital gains and dividends "tax relief" as cornerstones of his policy.
Such "tax relief" has little relevance for working Americans struggling to make ends meet (roughly 68% of American households would receive no benefit from such cuts).
For whom, then, would this be "disastrous"? Only the president and those he truly represents, the wealthy.
Indeed, in addition to being irrelevant to the bottom 40% of earners, the tax cuts necessitate (so the fiscal conservative argument goes) the slashing of social services used by the working poor. Of course, this is by design--since these tax cuts are targeted at the wealthy, the loss in revenue, combined with the astronomical cost of the Iraq War, increased defense spending and debt servicing (since less revenue and exorbitant defense expenditures means more borrowing) translates into fewer public services for working Americans.
The Administration heaps insult upon insult when one considers that, not only do working Americans have fewer social services to access, they pay more interest for money borrowed due to increased deficits and a ballooning federal debt. It's clear who wins and who loses with this administration's tax and budget policies.
And let us not forget that an official "strong dollar" policy has also done its part in depressing wages. The beneficiaries of this policy include, among others, the financial sector. They desire neither high levels of employment nor wage increases since these are considered inflationary--the enemy of the monied elite since inflation reduces the value of their assets.
Why, then, does the American public tolerate this? They do so, in large part, because the political and financial elites have been so successful in directing their attention elsewhere while performing this sleight of hand.
Americans hear and read about issues such as gay marriage, abortion, potential terrorist threats, and supposed attacks on religion. And as the public meditates on these "threats," they are unaware that these tax cuts have made them poorer and the elite wealthier.
We've witnessed for several years how the political and financial elite manipulates the idealism of Americans for their own ends. President Bush has long spoken of his religious faith and his "values," yet this has never been properly scrutinized by most religious Americans. They've simply taken his word for this even though his policies stand in destructive contrast to the values--decency, honesty, equality, fairness--most Americans treasure.
Now, time runs out and the hourglass empties. Will enough people in this, an election year, begin to remind their elected officials that the job of the representative is to represent those who elected them? Or will the American people simply watch quietly, meekly, as their elite "leads" them into poverty as citizens of a terminal, failed nation?