America’s Greatness

Over the last half century, powerful interests have taken control of our government. They

• relaxed protections for working-class income and for small businesses.
• globalized the labor market. We couldn’t compete with the less affluent nations, so we lost millions of jobs, but got a whole lot of inexpensive products. The captains of industry (who control the government) got very rich selling them.
• use unlimited propaganda to convince voters to elect candidates who give them an ever-increasing share of the nation”s wealth — and who serve them instead of the people.
• deny us the benefits enjoyed by many other wealthy nations:
  The cost of which wouldn’t even raise our taxes/GDP to the average of the other OECD nations.
  • Universal health care with low co-pays and no connection to employment.
  • Free or low cost higher education and free lifetime retraining.
  • 5 weeks paid vacation, plus holidays and paid sick leave.
  • Up to 18 months of paid parental leave for the birth of a child
  • Heavily subsidized, high quality child care
  • More secure retirement systems
  • Better unemployment and disability benefits
• Reagan stopped highly progressive taxation (introduced trickle-down economics) and caused the wealth disparity to become increasingly extreme — under both Republican and Democratic administrations. (The policy is still in effect and not much of an isssue.)
• are distracting us by scapegoating immigrants and with an unjust, illegal, and unnecessary war.
• have weakened the voting rights act and are doing everything else they can think of to increase and perpetuate their power.