I had a discussion with my doctor late spring 2017. I was having gastrointestinal issues, and I said to him that I kept wondering whether the anxiety that I felt about the Trump regime was affecting me physically. My doctor responded very seriously and with a straight face. He replied that many of his patients […]
tax cuts
President Trump, One Year Later
After 12 months that have felt like an eternity, Mr. Trump remains as greedy and volatile as ever. Donald Trump campaigned on the pledge to “Make America Great Again,” but he never did specify exactly who he wanted to make the country great for. After a year in office, we can deduce from his actions […]
Trump’s First Year: Did the Working-Class Benefit?
Donald Trump ran for president on a populist and inclusionary platform. As he campaigned across the country, he appealed to increasingly larger numbers of Americans who felt forgotten by the country’s policies and politicians. Despite the fact that he lost the popular vote by three million, there’s no doubt that he tapped into the visceral […]
Trump’s War on the Poor, Working-Class and …
When explaining why his cabinet is filled with billionaires, President Donald Trump uttered what might just earn him Class Action’s 2017 Most Classist Comment of the Year Award. Mr. Trump said, “Somebody said why did you appoint a rich person to be in charge of the economy? No, it’s true. And … I said: ‘Because […]
Trump’s Presidency: What We Deserve
Type “Trump voters deserve” into your search bar, and the two suggestions that pop up are “Trump voters deserve what they get” and “Trump voters deserve to lose healthcare.” To me, and I’d guess probably to you, this logic is completely unsurprising. In the Northeastern city where I live, we hear it every day – […]
Class Consciousness and College Education: 529 Plan Strikes Nerve
President Obama released his budget proposal this week outlining a number of commonsense ideas to reduce inequality and create an even playing field. One provision contained in his budget that certainly won’t become law anytime soon is a proposed levy on college savings accounts known as 529 plans, which the White House has publicly rescinded. […]
Now Showing in Seattle: A Multicultural Working Class Movement!
Any American interested in the working class should know about Kshama Sawant, an open Socialist (and immigrant), who was recently elected to the Seattle City Council. Recently, I exchanged emails with her assistant, Anh Tran. Rather than repeat widely-known facts, I’ll include some of our email Q & A, which I was grateful to receive […]
Obama’s State of the (Dis-)Union Speech, 2013
If you ain’t poor (by America’s low poverty standards), you are “middle class.” That is the current political and pundit mode of understanding the USA. Those below the middle class income standards have no claim to a class appellation—they are just “poor.” The president’s speech was largely about improving the situations of those already in […]
Taxing the Rich Isn’t Enough: Family Dynasties in America
My family has been wealthy for hundreds of years – with a lot of government help along the way. My ancestors had a plantation with slaves, which began with a royal land grant. Their state government went to war to protect their “right” to make money from slavery. The family’s wealth and influence was setback […]
Middle Class Traitors: Who Are They?
I recently came up with a phrase that other than one fleeting reference was not to be found in Google. It seemed to me to really describe a recent phenomenon that I found quite disturbing: the demographics of the electorate who voted for right wing conservatives in the November 2010 elections both on the federal […]
Chickens in Every Pot? Or Bentleys in a Few Garages?
Lawmakers are really in a bind over whether to let the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire at the end of this year. After all, they owe those millionaires a lot after all those campaign contributions this fall. But extending tax cuts for households with incomes over $250,000 would cost an estimated $700 billion […]
It’s Not Butter: The Other Tax Spread
Congress and the White House are wrangling over the future of the Bush tax cuts, which expire this year. Much has been written about how the 2001 and 2003 cuts widened the gap between the very wealthiest 2% of Americans and the middle and working classes. But far too little notice has been paid to […]
