I’ve often felt that my generation – the Baby Boomers – had the best of all possible worlds. I grew up in a time when America had a strong middle class. Families survived on one income. Upward mobility was possible. College was affordable. Housing was available at a reasonable price. Jobs were available upon graduation.
And then Reagan came into office and it all changed. We are still waiting for his trickle down economics to work. So far the trickle hasn’t happened because all the money was put into third and fourth homes and yachts for the now super rich with no money left over to trickle down the pike.
The middle class was eroded into non-existence thanks to the continuing tax policies of a party that seems to believe the only people they serve are the super rich. Young people can’t find jobs. They can’t afford an apartment. They will be paying off their student loans with their social security check – assuming that even exists when they get old. And the gap between rich and poor is now so wide that young people can’t see that far to the other side.
Unless we do something fast to save the middle class, we truly will become nothing more than the largest Third World country in the universe. China is already moving towards global dominance – coronavirus notwithstanding. Russia is trying its best to become a bigger player on the global economic front. American billionaires continue to take the money their recent tax break gave them and investing it overseas in factories where workers know better than to ask for decent conditions, bathroom breaks and safe equipment. And if it’s not going there, it’s going into some luxury retreat or private jet.
None of it – NONE OF IT – is being spent to help America’s middle class recover from the rape and pillage it has endured at the hands of Republicans for over forty years now. This is why America now has three classes – Congress, the super rich and all the rest of us.
I’m glad I’m at the end of my life and not the beginning. I got to grow up in America when it truly was a great country. I don’t recognize the hideous, divided, hateful place I see on the news every night. I’m so glad I only have so many nights of that horror left before I can move on to whatever is next. Because whatever it is, it has to be better than this.