CBO: Top 1% Getting Exponentially Richer

(CBS News) The Occupy Wall Street movement has, for the most part, been formed around the idea that wealth distribution in America is unfair, and that the economic system is skewed to reward the already wealthy with the highest gains. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office appears to have confirmed that.
Specifically, it has confirmed that the rich really are getting richer.

Between 1979 and 2007, the top 1 percent of Americans with the highest incomes have seen their incomes grow by an average of 275 percent, according to the CBO study (PDF).

In comparison, the 60 percent of Americans in the middle of the income scale saw their incomes increase by just 40 percent during the same time period, according to the study, which was based on a combination of IRS and Census data.

And the solution is that the government should confiscate earnings from the rich and give them to the poor. Just give it to them and smile that you've done something nice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...y.html?hpid=z3

The study that shows why Occupy Wall Street struck a nerve
By Eugene Robinson, Published: October 27

The hard-right conservatives who dominate the Republican Party claim to despise the redistribution of wealth, but secretly they love it — as long as the process involves depriving the poor and middle class to benefit the rich, not the other way around.

That is precisely what has been happening, as a jaw-dropping new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office demonstrates. Three decades of trickle-down economic theory, see-no-evil deregulation and tax-cutting fervor have led to massive redistribution. Another word for what’s been happening might be theft.

The gist of the CBO study, titled “Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007,” is that while we’ve become wealthier overall, these new riches have largely bypassed many Americans and instead flowed mostly to the affluent. Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I don’t remember voting to turn the United States into a nation starkly divided between haves and have-nots. Yet that’s where we’ve been led.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s vision of how Americans ascend the ladder of success is astonishingly narrow, revealing in ways that the Republican leader didn’t intend. His constricted view of our dynamic society, as recent polls show, does not resonate with how most Americans view their lot.

Cantor (R-Va.) was set to deliver a high-profile speech last Friday at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Though he canceled — because of nearby anti-Wall Street protests — he released the text.

His speech is a paean to entrepreneurs. He also insists, however, that those who would tax the affluent to help others get a foot on the ladder are practicing a politics of resentment and class warfare.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz1c3FJpuDK

This thread is ever more relevant after our discussions today.

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Originally Posted by Havakasha

This thread is ever more relevant after our discussions today.

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Back to your old tricks? Copying me. I'm not flattered.