Friday, October 28, 2011

Reading the Newspaper

Every now and then, I purchase a copy of The Daily World. Published in Aberdeen, it is the closest [almost] daily newspaper around. I picked up yesterday's edition because two of the headlines caught my eye: 1) Study: Rich Getting a Lot Richer and 2) Gregoire Calls for Deep Cuts.

In regards to story #1, the Associated Press reports that "average after-tax income for the top 1 percent of US households almost quadrupled, up 275 percent, from 1979 to 2007." For the middle class the increase was only 40 percent and for those of us near the bottom, the increase was a paltry 18 percent.

Those are sobering statistics! The impact of the information presented in article #1 play a central role in the information presented in article #2.

It seems that our state has a $2 billion shortfall. In her proposed state budget, Democrat Gregoire "is proposing eliminating the state's health care program for the poor, trimming another 15 percent from higher education and reducing levy equalization for poor school districts by 50 percent."

Do you see a connection here? The rich keep growing richer which, in turn, impoverishes state government and the way state government proposes to dig out of the financial hole is to stick it to the poor. By eliminating or curtailing programs that serve the poor, we only will grow poorer, while the rich continue to get richer.

This model represents a dead end for too many Americans and offers yet another quintessential reason why so many have taken to the streets.

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