School Year Just Begun, Teachers Strike Looms in Chicago

[sulphurdunn]

23. This is the stock argument

used by conservatives to justify every social injustice the people of this country have suffered in the name of free enterprise. It goes something like this: "Yes, it's unfortunate you're getting screwed, but times are tough, and we all need to tighten our belts, and besides, it wouldn't be right for you to get something you deserve, if someone else doesn't, and there just isn't enough to go around and..." This apology is called divide and conquer. It's the oldest class warfare strategy in the book and is always used by the super rich against everyone else.

When asked why he robbed banks, John Dillinger is reputed to have replied: "because that's where the money is."

In this country, the wealthiest 400 Americans are worth more than the poorest 150 million Americans combined and pay effective tax rates of less than half what most of them pay while their wealth increases at an average 30% annually. Billions of dollars in income from the these people and the rest of the wealthiest 0.01% is hidden away in foreign tax shelter and avoidance schemes and goes unpaid because of loopholes. The corporations they control squat on trillions in cash assets or hold taxable profits offshore to avoid paying American taxes, and-on-and-on it goes.

All the wealthiest nation in history needs do to solve its economic woes is go to the bank and withdraw some it's tax avoidance schemes, reimpose a real progressive income tax on upper incomes and resurrect the Glass–Steagall Act. It isn't even as if we even need to get creative about it. We've done it before, and it works.