(This is the first in a three-part series on class warfare in the U.S.)
Americans have been fighting a serious class war for at least the past 30+ years, and the lower classes, especially the poor, are getting the stuffing beaten out of them. Few people want to talk openly about America’s class war, but it’s a fact.
The church needs to get to grips with it.
Instead of siding with the rich time after time, the people of God must stand up for the poor. We need to recognize that our current tax policy, which serve as a major offensive weapon in the billionaires’ arsenal against the poor, is a moral catastrophe.
Did you agree with President Trump’s tax-cut plan passed by Congress last year? Did you cheer for his budget with its massive increases for the nation’s military-industrial-surveillance complex?
If you said Yes to either of those questions, then you supported a HUGE transfer of wealth that was taken away from the poor and the middle-class, and handed over to the rich and that new class of “people” called corporations.
THAT, my friends, is class warfare waged through the utterly undemocratic processes of Washington D.C., where the majority of our politicians are bought and paid for by millionaires, billionaires and corporate lobbyists. They don’t represent you and me. They represent big money.
We all need to get over the long out-of-date Cold War fear of saying anything that might sound even slightly Marxist (oooohhh, the big, bad boogy man…) and recognize that our society has been viciously twisted by a brutal 30+ year, class war being waged from the top down.
That war has empowered America’s richest families and biggest corporations to stomp the needy into the ground – not only in this country,
but around the world. (Read John Perkin’s book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; The Inside Story of How American Really Took Over the World, to learn about just one example of the international scope of America’s economic war against the poor).
As I demonstrate in my book, I Pledge Allegiance (see pages 155 – 157), it was not Karl Marx but Jesus Christ who insisted on building a just society – beginning with the Christian church – where everyone’s needs could be met, and no one need go without. Ages before Karl M. was even a glimmer in his father’s eye, Jesus’ church was living by a definite code: “from each according to your ability; to each according to your need.”
That’s right. Marx was ripping off Jesus.
Recently, the newly elected Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, suggested raising the upper tax bracket to 70%. Naturally, like robotic guard dogs hardwired for mindless assaults against anything that threatens their gold-plated, private communities and the corporate powers-that-be, the usual conservative, Republican and DINO (Democrats in name only) suspects have uniformly attacked this young, bright politician.
Paul Krugman (a Nobel Prize winning economist) is absolutely correct in applauding Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s view of taxation. Take a look at his latest editorial, “The Economics of Soaking the Rich.” Below is a brief excerpt, but you should read the entire piece:
“I have no idea how well Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will perform as a member of Congress. But her election is already serving a valuable purpose. You see, the mere thought of having a young, articulate, telegenic nonwhite woman serve is driving many on the right mad — and in their madness they’re inadvertently revealing their true selves…
“The controversy of the moment involves AOC’s advocacy of a tax rate of 70-80 percent on very high incomes, which is obviously crazy, right? I mean, who thinks that makes sense? Only ignorant people like … um, Peter Diamond, Nobel laureate in economics and arguably the world’s leading expert on public finance…And it’s a policy nobody has ever implemented, aside from … the United States, for 35 years after World War II — including the most successful period of economic growth in our history.”
Did you know that during the post-war period Krugman refers to, the upper
tax bracket in this country was 90%? That’s right. The richest Americans paid 90% in taxes on a portion of their income.
Many people fail to understand this point, and the pundits who feign moral outrage at such suggestions will never explain this point in public. After all, they are not trying to inform; they are working to protect their own financial interests.
When someone like Rep. Ocasio-Cortez suggests implementing a 70% tax rate, it does not mean that every American would pay a 70% tax on every dollar earned. Not at all.
It means that the wealthiest Americans (and corporations) in the highest tax
brackets would pay a 70% tax on a portion of their total income. What portion would be decided in negotiations over the subsequent budget changes.
That’s called “from each according to your ability.” I also call it good sense.
If Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican president, could smile on a 90% tax bracket fueling a healthy post-war economy, then why can’t today’s Congress embrace a 70% tax bracket; especially when we are repeatedly told that our current economy is booming?
Simple.
First, far too many of our elected representatives are millionaires or richer! The typical member of Congress is 12x wealthier than the typical American family. Time Magazine referred to Congress as the millionaires’ club. How enthusiastic will these people be at the thought of raising their own taxes?
Second, Washington D.C., and the American public, continue to be 
mesmerized by the dark enchantment of a mythical, fire-breathing monster called “trickle-down economics.” This farcical tax policy was conjured up from the pit by President Ronald Reagan, the national bamboozler-extraordinaire. Others have relabeled it supply-side economics or Reaganomics. But call it what you will, it remains the same destructive strategy for continually enriching the rich while further impoverishing the poor.
Only one thing “trickles down” from the powerful billionaires standing on top of you in this class battle. Take a guess at what it is. (I’ll give you a hint: it ain’t well paid jobs or affordable health care.)
Here is some more analysis from a real economist, Paul Krugman. Also, please look at the impressive graph included in this part of his article:
“You see, Republicans almost universally advocate low taxes on the wealthy, based on the claim that tax cuts at the top will have huge beneficial effects on the economy [the supposed ‘trickle-down’ effect]. This claim rests on research by … well, nobody. There isn’t any body of serious work supporting G.O.P. tax ideas, because the evidence is overwhelmingly against those ideas…[emphasis mine]
“Why do Republicans adhere to a tax theory that has no support from nonpartisan economists and is refuted by all available data? Well, ask who benefits from low taxes on the rich, and it’s obvious.
“And because the party’s coffers demand adherence to nonsense economics, the party prefers ‘economists’ who are obvious frauds and can’t even fake their numbers effectively.”
Yes, the multi-millionaire, Ronald Reagan (worth $10.6 million in 1981 
dollars when he took the president’s office) launched a new, immoral class war against the poor and the middle-class. Reagan whipped up irrational – even racist – hostilities against “big government” and supposedly ghetto dwelling “welfare queens” in order to sell his political snake oil dressed up as a tax plan. However, the real goal was producing a vast economic benefit for Reagan’s friends and campaign donors, members of an exclusive club I call the Triple-Bs: Billionaires and Big Business.
The working poor, the needy, the destitute, and even the middle-class, have been losing ground ever since. That lost ground includes their homes, jobs, savings accounts, educational opportunities, health care and government
assistance.
It is long past time for the conservative church, all those who consistently vote Republican, to wake up and smell the coffee.
You have been naïve (perhaps) but not guiltless co-conspirators in the heartless exploitation of America’s poor and needy, our children, our sick, and our elderly. It is time to rip off the cruel partisan blinders, repent of our selfishness and confess, “Yes, we need the politics of Jesus!”
From each according to your abilities. To each according to your needs.
