Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses ~ Aristotle (384 BC to 322 BC) a Greek philosopher who was a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy.
The Walton family owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America. The top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the nation's wealth while the bottom 60 percent own less than 2 percent. Between 2009 and 2010 93 percent of all new income went to the top 1 percent, the other 99 percent shared the remaining 7 percent. The United States has the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any industrialized nation on earth and it is worse now than since the 1920s. The United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. [source: Bernie Sanders on the 8/3/2012 Stephanie Miller Show].
In response John Fugelsang asked: "if 60 percent of the population controls only 2 percent of the wealth, does that mean that the top 40 percent needs to pay 98 percent of the taxes?" [John Fugelsang is a friday regular on the Stephanie Miller Show].
The rigged tax system of the United States has been moving up toward oligarchy for the past 30 years - ever since Ronald Reagan set us on that path. According to a non-partisan analysis conducted by the Brookings Institute and the Tax Policy Center, "...a revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed – including reducing marginal tax rates substantially, eliminating the individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) and maintaining all tax breaks for saving and investment – would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle and/or lower-income taxpayers. This is true even when we bias our assumptions about which and whose tax expenditures are reduced to make the resulting tax system as progressive as possible".
Mitt Romney says he will reduce taxes across the board, but in reality his elimination of deductions would RAISE taxes on middle and lower income taxpayers. The Brookings/Tax Policy analysis says, "[Romney's] tax cuts predominantly favor upper-income taxpayers. Taxpayers with incomes over $1 million would see their after-tax income increased by 8.3 percent (an average tax cut of about $175,000)... while the after-tax income of taxpayers earning less than $30,000 would actually decrease by about 0.9 percent (an average tax increase of about $130)".
In other words: Romney wants YOU to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy! Unless you're rich and greedy, why would you cast your ballot for Mitt Romney? Barack Obama should win re-election in a landslide, but we all know he won't. It's going to be close. Why? I've been declared "arrogant" for saying so, but I'm convinced that a lot of voters are allowing themselves to be tricked into voting for oligarchy.
