For the first time since the great depression, America’s middle class has begun to shrink. This is leaving the common man very confused.
We work hard, we pay our taxes, what is happening?
Here is a rundown of what is happening…
Middle-class is defined as (the social group between the upper and working classes, including professional and business workers and their families.)
In the early 1950’s America was coming out of its second world war. The GI Bill was introduced and Americans began to go to college. During this time, there was a great boom in childbirth. This era became known as the “baby boomers” era.
Americans were confident in their futures and began to move to the suburbs. They used their new found education and newly acquired incomes to purchase houses, cars, television sets, and all other modern amenities that were becoming available to them.
Americans went to work, raised families, and paid taxes. America was booming…
Because of this economic boom, many companies grew by leaps and bounds. During this time, corporations had a statutory tax rate of 50%. Businesses had an understanding, that if you were so fortunate as to make a profit off of the American people, you were obligated to pay our country back for that honor.
Until the late 1970’s companies had an unwritten rule, a business was responsible for shareholder profit, worker well-being, and the community in which it was located. They believed that if these three things were not in alignment, they were cheating on the American dream.
This all changed in the 1980s…
In the 1980s, the rise of “corporate raiders” came into play. These sharks would come in, buy out a company and force that company to raise profit’s significantly or the company would be chopped up and sold on the market.
These businesses that once cared about the community they were located in, had no choice; they cut worker pay, laid off workers, cut benefits, and started to find tax loopholes. They lobbied Washington, in the hopes of creating new ways to shirk their responsibility to the country and their community. Corporations created new tax loopholes, set up offshore accounts, and established shell companies all to hide or relocate their profits in order to keep from paying government taxes.
One in five American corporations pays nothing in federal income tax…
The American middle class is doing the same thing it always has. We go to work, we raise families, and we pay our taxes. That much hasn’t changed. What has changed is, the entire burden of America’s tax system has been placed on the shoulders of the very group who keep this country moving.
If the poor can’t pay and the rich refuse to pay, who does that leave the responsibility on?
Answer: A middle class, who can’t understand why they continue to feel crushed.
What do you think?
~CA
[ABTM id=289]
About Author
