The 2016 Presidential campaign has taken off and it is hard to keep track of who said what about which and to whom. There is one thing however that has not escaped my attention amid all the hoopla. There appears to be a number of newfound champions of the Middle Class among those vying for the GOP nomination. Apparently the analysts working for the Republican Party have figured it out that some of the things that defined the Middle Class in America still possess a broad appeal. Things like the 40 hour work week, a living wage, overtime pay, family leave, paid vacation, affordable higher education, employer provided health insurance and a pension plan are very popular and lend to a high standard of living. That high standard of living is the earmark of a vibrant Middle Class, the likes of which has been slowly eroding in America since the early 1980s.
I am going to borrow something from the playbook of comedian Bill Maher. New Rule: You don’t get to market yourself as a spokesman, champion or representative of the Middle Class unless you embrace and are a spokesman, champion or representative of the economic tool used to create it, that being SOCIALISM!
Bill Maher gives an excellent tutorial on Middle Class economics. Yes, it is true what Mr. Maher said, a Middle Class is not the natural byproduct of capitalism. It was created in the United States largely through the GI Bill. From the end of WWII through the 1970s those who served in the armed forces, nearly half the nation’s population, benefitted greatly from free college tuition and living expenses, low interests business loans, low costs mortgages with no down payment, and a year of unemployment compensation. The corporate tax rates of the 1940s and ’50s were well over 50% and individual income tax rates were as high as 94%. That provided the revenue income for redistribution which led to three solid decades of economic prosperity and a standard of living which was unparalleled in the nation’s history. As a youth growing up in the 1960s and ’70s I recall most families in my neighborhood only had one income and one automobile because that was all they needed. It was no accident that the Middle Class felt a definite squeeze beginning in the 1980s as President Reagan cut taxes and caused a ballooning of the national debt among other things, but I digress. Some will make the argument that other factors had an hand in the squeezing and erosion of the Middle Class but there is no denying when the income redistribution favored those in the upper tax brackets via tax cuts, those in the lower brackets definitely felt the pinch. Things have only gotten worse since with CEO salaries taking off and rank and file employee pay staying very near the same as thirty years ago.
The plain truth of the matter is that under our clothes we are all as naked as the day we were born. In the same sense, under whatever political label we may display on the outside, we are all socialists underneath. The agenda of the wealthy which has always been to gain more wealth has had great success demonizing the term while at the same time enjoying socialized financial risks and private profits. This sends a clear and clarion message that those benefitting from such an arrangement have no problem with socialism in theory or practice. They have a problem with who it directly benefits if it is not them first. Truthfully, socialism is a basic element of the American DNA as MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and Bill Maher so artfully illustrate.
As the campaign cycle heats up it is my hope that the issues that really matter to so many in this nation will take center stage. The one candidate in all of it who is not afraid to call himself a Socialist and who by all accounts has over five decades of public service consistently represented the values of the nation’s Middle Class is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. So there is no misunderstanding going forward it would behoove all, particularly those in the Democratic Party, to be familiar with terminology and by all means understand what exactly Candidate Sanders stands for.