It's true, the 1% makes a lot more than the averge working man. But, what's also true is that we have a massive welfare system that eats up a big portion of the national budget. If welfare is supposed to lift people out of poverty, and the amount of money our country spends on welfare has increased astronomically, then why is our country more economically divided than ever?
I think we get hung up on the 1% issue, without bothering to consider why so many people are stuck in the poverty cycle. It's not as if the 1% are pushing people into Poverty Valley off the cliff at the edge of "Richistan". People live their lives in that cycle. Welfare is a noble idea, but the way it's administered now is broken! Obviously everyone wants good opportunities for health care, access to food, and affordable housing, but carte blanche hand outs are bankrupting our government MUCH MORE than the lax tax policies allowing 400 people to run away with fat wads of cash (otherwise known as bling).
It's easy to point the blame at a few people who, admittedly, are doing wayyyy too well for the work their doing. It's much harder for us to accept the fact that the way we "protect" the poor has failed to empower them. The famous saying "teach a man to fish" is *extremely* relevant to the fiscal calamity our country is facing. Think about this: Poverty levels are at an all time high. Guess what else is at an all time high: Obesity. Anything else? Medical spending on obesity related illnesses. Anything else that might be relevant? Social Security payouts. Anything else? Penny slot gambling.
We're enabling a segment of our country to live off of government money, spend that money on unnecessary activities, and receive health care to help them recover from their poor habits. We're teaching people that effort isn't necessary, that the government has their back no matter what. We need to change this system. I don't think we should *end* it. I think we need to update it, based on 60+ years of firsthand knowledge regarding how the system has NOT worked. We need to teach people to fish: how to take care of themselves and their bodies, finances, children, neighborhoods.
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Consider this:
"In the United States today, approximately 20 percent of children under the age of six are living below the official poverty line. Many of these children's parents are desperately impoverished and unemployed, and the plight of these families [...] is harrowing. Perhaps even more troubling, because of the irony, is how many poor children live in homes with at least one working parent; 40 percent of impoverished adults hold at least one job. Many of these families have worked hard, they have played by the rules, and they are still coming up short. The working poor challenge our thinking about inequality in America: if people wind up where they do based on how hard they work, and if 40 percent of the poor are working hard, then why is it that those families are struggling so to even stay afloat? Such questions have been asked often and social scientists have revealed some of the structural arrangements contributing to the predicaments of the working poor; only recently, however, have we begun to seriously consider ways that the structure of wealth ties into the dynamics of intergenerational inequality in the contemporary United States. [...]
Almost 40 percent of American families do not own enough assets to last three month if they were to lose their jobs, and 20 to 30 percent of all households have zero or negative net worth. Asset poverty has serious ramifications for a family, but particularly for the well-being and life chances of a child. It means that, for example, the security that can be provided to a child through owning a home is out of the question. Paying for a college education in the future, or helping a child get started on the purchase of a car, a home, or a business, is impossible. Moreover, with no assets to liquidate and nothing to fall back upon, a situation such as the loss of a parent's job, a family medical crisis, or another emergency can be totally devastating. [...]
A typical black family's net worth is only $8,000, compared to the $81,000 net worth of a typical white family. The picture this paints for the future is troubling: Not only are 26 percent of white children growing up asset poor, but so are 52 percent of black children. Since wealth-holding families have always tended to pass significant portions of their assets along to the next generation, the disparities have escalated over time. And, as wealth is inherited, maximized, and built upon, this racial wealth gap continues to increase, and the divides between black and white families continue to grow. [...]
The critical point is not that inequalities exist, but that they are being perpetuated in recurrent patterns - they are not always the result of individual success or failure, nor are they randomly distributed throughout the population. In the contemporary United States, the structure of wealth systematically transmits race and class inequalities through generations despite deep-rooted belief otherwise. In the Post-Civil Rights Era, the growing racial wealth gap defies our conviction in the principles of individual hard work and achievement at the heart of the American Dream." - Heather Beth Johnson, The American Dream and the Power of Wealth, 2006
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