The People's Record

“During the depression, between 1934 and 1941 Roosevelt created and filled 12 and a half million jobs. What do you mean there’s no money? He knew where the money was. That’s exactly where the money is now. Do we have to have an austerity program here? Let’s review. Depression is three times worse in the ‘30s; we create Social Security. One-third the Depression now, and the Republicans and Democrats are trying to figure out how to cut Social Security. What starker opposition could you imagine?In 1942, Roosevelt sent a message to Congress, proposing a new top income tax rate for the richest Americans. For everyone earning more than $25,000 a year, the proposed tax rate above $25,000 was 100 percent. The Republican Party, then as now, went ballistic. That’s a normal condition for them. And they got half the Democrats to go along with them. That’s another normal condition. And they forced a compromise on the president. Every dollar over $25,000 that you earned in 1942, you gave 94 cents to Washington. You got to keep six. I didn’t make this up. I wouldn’t have had the imagination.”

In 1942, the wealthy in America got to keep 6 cents on every dollar earned (you can wiki fact check for confirmation, if you like). With that, we climbed out of the depression and far beyond. Could you imagine what we could do with a similar tax today?

I wish either of the candidates today were actually talking about potential solutions to the crises we continue to live through and not just competing for corporate endorsements while pretending that the poor and working class are non-issues. The political system in America is beyond broken.

We have the chopped-and-screwed version of Democracy with elections influenced primarily by money, primarily provided by wealthy anonymous corporate donors. And sometimes it feels like everyone’s on the take or has an intentionally cultivated sense of political ambivalence. And the fact that American schools don’t teach students about how the New Deal was paid for is SO frustrating. We have an ignorant, ambivalent populous, which is exactly what we would have to have in order to have a society that answers to the whims of corporate tyrants instead of one that acts in the interest of its own survival.

(Source: thepeoplesrecord.com)