Radical Shrinking of The Middle-Class

Statistical data regarding the radical shrinking of the middle-class serve as a stubborn fact that can not be swept under the rug.

Neither fancy propaganda, political rhetoric nor diversionary tactics (in other words FOX News programing) can hide the fact that the GOP designed supply side economics - ushered in by Ronald Reagan - has been a catastrophic disaster for the middle class.

Thirty years of more and more income and capital gains tax cuts, corporate deregulation, estate tax reduction, social program cutting has bankrupted our economy. The rich got super rich, the middle-class got squeezed and the poor became a permanent under-class.

And guess what - after the middle-class economic tsunami - the GOP wants even more tax reduction for the uber rich and more reduction of the social safety net that keeps our society from falling into feudalism.

The best explanation of the importance of a viable and strong middle-class was written in a Nigerian news website called The Nation:

The middle class, it needs to be stressed, is the bedrock of national stability and democracy. The middle class is the buffer and safety net between the filthy rich and the filthy poor. As it so happens with the ever changing dynamics of human society, on their way down, the super rich can be contained without a precipitate fall into cantankerous penury. On their way up, the once poor can be accommodated before they threaten the entire system.

The middle class serves as the guarantor of peace and prosperity in the modern society. Without them, there can be no democracy or national stability. It is the armistice zone which prevents the underprivileged from openly colliding with the over-privileged. A nation which destroys its middle class has killed the capacity of the people to dream of a better tomorrow and has added a dispossessed intellectual class to its list of mortal and implacable enemies.