America's wealthy have declared an all-out war on America's "shrinking middle class," Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent, says.
"The nation's billionaires are on the war path. They want more, more, more," and "their greed has no end and they are apparently unconcerned for the future of this country if it gets in the way of their accumulation of wealth and power."
Sanders says that, "Right now, the top one percent controls more than 23 percent of all income earned in America," which is more wealth than "the bottom 50 percent" put together. What's more, he notes, "In the last 25 years, we have seen 80 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent." This comment is supported by data showing that productivity gains created by U.S. workers over the past several decades have not resulted in increased pay for them but have instead gone into profits. Salaries have stagnated.
"All of the progressive legislation that started with FDR is on the chopping block," Sanders declared. "Despite the fact that Social Security today has a $2.6 trillion dollar surplus, they are targeting Social Security. They are targeting Medicare. In Arizona, people on Medicaid who need transplants are no longer able to get them----(and) that is a real death panel."
The Vermont senator's charges about the Social Security surplus are backed up by the Social Security Administration itself. SSA says from 1937, when the first pay outs were made, through 2009, Social Security spent a total of $11.3-trillion. In the same period, though, it received $13.8 trillion.
Over the years, nearly 454 million Social Security cards have been issued and, presumably, as many people have been beneficiaries of the system. And between five and six million new cards are being issued every year. That's a lot of help for a lot of people.
Sanders says that since the Citizens United Supreme Court decision "what we are beginning to see in elections is unbelievable. Billionaires are going to flood states with all kinds of negative, dishonest ads in an effort to defeat people defending the middle class." He added that the Republicans' "have been
pretty honest" about their goal "to bring this country back to where we were in the 1920s."
Not only are the well-to-do out to demolish the progressive legislation enacted as America struggled out of the Depression of the 1930s but well-to-do individuals and corporations are skirting the tax laws enacted to make them pay their fair share of taxes on their income.
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