Screwed the Undeclared War Against the Middle Class (35 page)

We are fighting a war in America for the very heart and soul of our country. But it's a war we can do something about. Don't let yourself be screwed. Speak up, fight back, and never, never yield.

G
REG
P
ALAST

We're not asking for much: a Social Security check that won't bounce, schools for our kids that won't make them dumber, a fighting chance for a job that will let us take the tykes to Disney World, health insurance, and, when the waters rise, a government that will have some kind of plan to pluck us from the flood.

Fat chance.

Since Thom first wrote this alarm-ringing book, the war has turned severely, senselessly brutal. I'm talking about the class war—and if you're in the middle zone, No Man's Land, well,
good luck, Jack!

Since Thom's book hit the streets, 38,000 workers at Ford Motor Company lost their jobs. Add that to the Delco Auto Parts bankruptcy, and all of Michigan is busted. In the Bush years, the average annual income in that state declined by $9,000 per family.

You didn't have to move to Michigan to get it in the neck. Average income in the United States has fallen $2,000 per household since the last days of the Bill Clinton presidency.

Hartmann once told me that Thomas Jefferson said his greatest accomplishment was the founding of the University of Virginia—establishing the right of Mr. and Ms. Median Income to a decent, free education. "Universal education," that's what made this nation King of the Planet—a conquest of ideas, ideals, and inventions that no imperial army could have accomplished.

Jefferson considered free universal education so important that he had his university presidency, not the U.S. presidency, carved on his tombstone.

But I think that behind Jefferson's seemingly over-the-top enthusiasm for educating the country was an unstated fear that,
unless Americans stayed continually informed, knowledgeable, and alert, we'd end up a nation of knuckleheads and pea-brains ruled by dangerous, pompous pinheads who would take away our rights on the way to taking our wealth.

Jefferson was right: education's the key. I had feared that the 2004 presidential election, recording a Republican plurality, was an intelligence test that America flunked. But by the end of 2006, the Great American Middle rose up in revolt and voted the scoundrels out.

Generally, we've done OK. Franklin D. Roosevelt expanded our Bill of Rights with the Four Freedoms, including a New Deal guaranteeing our economic security. They don't dare take that away—in the open. I know our nation has sometimes fallen into the Bushes, but we always seem to get back up on our hind legs and follow our populist scent back to the True Path.

Of course, the story's not over. Whichever party is in the majority in Congress, it remains a millionaire's club, where average Americans, plucked of their vote, are soon carved into chewable pieces for the corporate carnivores.

Like I say, we're not asking for much: Hartmann's prescriptions to cure America can be summarized on a photo of Laura Bush's fake smile. That's the point. Ultimately, it's not up to the new congressional Democratic majority to save the Great American Middle; it's up to us—to hold them to their promises.

I want you to photocopy Thom's conclusion, "The Road to Victory," and check off each task as you complete it, from joining a union to calling in to a radio talk show.

Then, years from now, when your kids ask you, "What did you do in the class war?" you can point to the list and say, "My share."

Greg Palast
is the author of the
New York Times
bestseller
Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats, Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left, and Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.

References to the thoughts and the words of the Founders were drawn from Thom Hartmann's book
What Would Jefferson Do?
(New York: Crown, 2005).

1.
Business Week
, April 21, 2003.
Business Week
, April 18, 2005. U.S. Bureau of the Census, H-6 Table, 2004.

2. "Controversy Continues over Outsourcing Report: Commerce Department 'Disses' Congressional Democrats,"
Manufacturing and Technology News
, January 19, 2006. "Jobs Picture: Payrolls up Moderately, but Slack Persists Despite Low Unemployment," Economic Policy Institute, September 2, 2005,
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_jobspict_20050902
.

3. Kathy Chu, "For More Companies, 401(k) Becomes Automatic: Employers Freeze Pensions, Push Saving onto Workers,"
USA Today
, January 10, 2006,
http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/USATODAY/2006/01/10/1148127?extID=10037&oliID=229
.

4. Editorial, "The Pension Deep Freeze,"
New York Times
, January 14, 2006.

5. Allstate, 10/4/05.

6. Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, "Less Than Half of Enrollees Satisfied with Consumer-directed Health Plans, Study Shows," Kaiser Family Foundation, June 14, 2005. U.S. Census 2004,
http://www.census.gov
.

7. L. Conradt and T. J. Roper, "Group Decision-making in Animals,"
Nature
421 (January 9, 2003): 155–58.

8. James Randerson, "Democracy Beats Despotism in the Animal World,"
New Scientist
, January 8, 2003.

9. Paul Craig Roberts, "The True State of the Union: More Deception from the Bush White House,"
Counterpunch
, February 1, 2006,
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02012006.html
.

10. Gary Wolfram, "Econ 101: How Do Tax Cuts Work?" January 11, 2006,
http://www.freemarketproject.org/commentary/2006/com20060111.asp
.

11. Ravi Batra lays this out brilliantly in his book
The Greenspan Fraud
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

12. U.S. Census as reported in The Century Foundation report, "New American Economy: A Rising Tide That Lifts Only Yachts,"
http://www.tcf.org/publications/economicsinequality/wasow_yachtrc.pdf
.

13. David Lazarus, "Plan OK for Rich, Healthy,"
San Francisco Chronicle
, February 1, 2006.

14. National Jobs for All Coalition, December 2005 Unemployment Data,
http://www.njfac.org
.

15. Rob Kelley, "Debt: Consumers Juggle Big Burden," October 10, 2005,
http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/07/pf/debt/debtmeasures
.

1. Gail Russell Chaddock, "U.S. Spending Surges to Historic Level,"
Christian Science Monitor
, December 8, 2003.

2. At the time this book was written, Congressman Bernie Sanders of Vermont was running for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

3. Martin Crutsinger, "Slowdown in Red-hot Housing Market Could Spell Trouble for Vulnerable Homeowners,"
Associated Press
, February 5, 2006.

4. "An Inside Look: President Bush's 2007 Budget,"
NPR.org
, February 6, 2006,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5192631
.

5. National Climatic Update Center, December 29, 2005,
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/dec/decemberext2005.html
.

6.
St. Petersburg Times
, September 1, 2005.

7. Associated Press, "Death Toll from Katrina Likely Higher Than 1,300,"
MSNBC
, February 10, 2006,
http://www.msnbc.com/id/11281267
.

8. In the long feature "Unacceptable: The Federal Response to Katrina," Walter M. Brasch argues that the response to the Florida hurricanes was purely political and backs his argument with detailed quotes and reference material. September 12, 2005,
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Brasch0912.htm
.

9. Jonathan S. Landay, Alison Young, and Shannon McCaffrey, "Chertoff Delayed Federal Response, Memo Shows," Knight Ridder newswire, September 13, 2005,
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091405A.shtml
.

1. Ralph Blumenthal, "As Levi's Work Is Exported, Stress Stays Home,"
New York Times
, October 19, 2003.

2. The actual amount is $200,000 in 1944 dollars from Sam Pizzigati, "Shared Sacrifice, Shared Glory," May 28, 2004,
http://www.tompaine.com
; a conversion chart from 1944 to 2002 dollars can be found at
http://www.oregonstate.edu/dept/pol_sci/fac/sahr/cv2002.pdf
. Note that the 94 percent marginal tax was a war tax. Roosevelt, however, clearly appreciated a high marginal tax. The marginal tax in 1936 was 79 percent and remained high postwar.

3. David Wessel, "Fed Chief Sets Monetary Policy by Seat-of-the-Pants Approach,"
Wall Street Journal
, January 27, 1997.

4. Citizens for Tax Justice, June 12, 2002,
http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm
.

5. Citizens for Tax Justice, July 2005, citing data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Tax Model, July 2005,
http://www.ctj.org/pdf/gwbdata.pdf
.

6.
California Educator
, vol. 9, issue 1, September 2004.

1. "Prescriptions and Profit,"
60 Minutes
report, August 22, 2004,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/12/60minutes/main605700.shtml
.

2. Drew E. Altman and Larry Levitt, "The Sad History of Health Care Cost Containment,"
Health Affairs
, February 23, 2002,
http://www.content.healthaffairs.org
.

3. Stuart H. Altman et al., "Escalating Health Care Spending: Is It Desirable or Inevitable?"
Health Affairs
, January 8, 2003,
http://www.healthaffairs.org
:

The 1970s were marked by a number of cost containment efforts by the federal government—the Economic Stabilization Program in 1971–1974, National Health Planning in 1975–1979, and various types of state rate-setting programs—whereas the 1990s were dominated by spending limitations effected through privately managed care plans. In contrast, by the early 1980s most of the governmental regulatory apparatus had been dismantled; and by the late 1980s the few remaining state rate-setting efforts were ended and the market approach of the 1990s had not yet been assembled. One of the authors of this paper has called the 1980s "the decade of halfway competitive markets and ineffective regulation." The years following 1997 indicate a growth rate that is close to what we experienced in the 1980s. In fact, if the current trend continues, growth in health-care spending in the first decade of the twenty-first century could exceed that of the 1980s.

4. Paul Krugman, "Graduates Versus Oligarchs,"
New York Times
, February 27, 2006.

5. Ibid., quoting Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon, "Where Did the Productivity Growth Go? Inflation Dynamics and the Distribution of Income" (research paper, Northwestern University, 2005).

6. Matthew Miller and Peter Newcomb, eds., "The 400 Richest Americans,"
Forbes
, September 22, 2005.

7. Holly Sklar, "Growing Gulf between Rich and Rest of Us,"
CommonDreams.org
, October 3, 2005,
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1003-21.htm
.

8. National Center for Education Statistics, using information from the Department of Commerce and the Bureau of Census, cited in Tamara Draught,
Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-somethings Can't Get Ahead
(New York: Doubleday, 2006).

9.
American Heritage Dictionary
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983).

1. Kevin Phillips,
Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich
(New York: Broadway Books, 2002).