The root of the problem

I've had many discussions with the conservatives in my family about wages and taxes, and they side with business owners and the wealthy every single time.  They believe that the "job creating" rich are overtaxed and the "lazy" poor are undertaxed.  Yes, conservatives in my family have bought the lie that the answer to our economic problems is to raise taxes on those who cannot afford it and lower taxes on those sitting on piles of cash.  It's insane.

America used to have a vibrant, expanding middle class which supported a strong and continually growing economy.  In a nutshell, here's what happened in America to cause the disintegration of the middle class and the shift of their wealth to the rich.

From 1948 to 1973, the productivity of all nonfarm workers nearly doubled, as did average hourly compensation. But things changed dramatically starting in the late 1970s. Although productivity increased by 80.1 percent from 1973 to 2011, average wages rose only 4.2 percent and hourly compensation (wages plus benefits) rose only 10 percent over that time, according to government data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute.

At the same time, corporate profits were booming. In 2006, the year before the Great Recession began, corporate profits garnered the largest share of national income since 1942, while the share going to wages and salaries sank to the lowest level since 1929. In the recession’s aftermath, corporate profits have bounced back while middle-class incomes have stagnated.

Today the prevailing cut-to-the-bone business ethos means that a company like Caterpillar demands a wage freeze and lower health benefits from its workers, while posting record profits.  Link

Without a strong middle class, it doesn't matter if the so-called job creators get tax cuts or not.  If there's no one to buy your goods, then you won't sell anything.  Of course, the rich don't care because they can set up shop overseas, sell to China and India and pay their workers even less.  But America will decline.

If we don't do something to reverse this, we're screwed.