Republicans Do Not Make Life Better for the Middle Class
By Nancy Eubanks, As published in The Union
Who killed the middle class? When I was in college in the ‘60s I could earn enough money working summer jobs to pay much of my college tuition and living expenses. Same with my husband. And we both came from middle class families. We both graduated with no debt. Today, according to USA Today as of November 2023, the average student debt is a staggering $37,338.
The 60’s was a time with good minimum wages, high tax support for colleges, higher taxes for upper incomes and higher corporate taxes. 70% of college tuition in public universities was paid with taxes – today it’s 20%. Most middle-class families could live comfortably on single earner income.
So, what has happened in the last 40-plus years to change all that? It started with the Republican “Reagan Revolution” as many people have noted. Please listen to Robert Reich and Thom Hartman YouTube videos or read the Thomas Piketty book on these issues. Following is my summary of their findings.
First, the silly Republican idea of trickle-down economics has had a devastating effect on the middle class. The idea is: give tax cuts to the wealthy individuals and corporations and their wealth will trickle down to the rest of us. Reagan cut progressive income tax on the wealthy from 70% in 1980 to 28% by the end of his tenure. Tax cuts for corporations have allowed some of the wealthiest corporations to pay NO income tax. Results from 1978-2022: the top 10% has seen a 1209% increase in wealth. The average worker has seen an increase of 15%. In 1965, the ratio of CEO pay to the average worker was 20 to 1. Now it is 366 to 1. Over the last 40 years there has been a one third drop in manufacturing jobs caused by the combination of falling union jobs and corporate greed as corporations move to nonunion states (i.e.right to work states) and overseas for even cheaper labor.
In 2020, 55 large corporations paid no income tax. Much of the high inflation of the early days of the Biden administration was caused by corporate greed that posted record high profits. By the way, remember Reagan’s strong anti-union and union busting tactics during his administrations? Union membership has fallen from 20% in the 80s to less than 5% today.
Another factor in demise of the middle class is the minimum wage. If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation the minimum wage today would be $21.00 per hour. Guess which party consistently opposes raising the minimum wage – yes, the Republicans. As a result of all these past Republican policies, the top 10% own 90% of the wealth in this country but pay only 40% of the tax burden.
Although Republicans complain about the debt and threaten default on our obligations by not raising the debt ceiling-only during Democratic administration-the only president to actually leave office with a surplus was Clinton. He left office with a $230 billion, that’s BILLION-dollar, surplus.
And what did GW Bush and the Republicans do with that surplus? Did they pay down the debt they are always complaining about? NO, instead they cut taxes again not once but twice and started 2 wars! The Bush administration ended with the GREAT RECESSION and the biggest deficit in history. Obama cleaned up most of the mess and our economy was back on track. Then Trump came to power, inherited a good economy, so guess what the Republicans did again. Yes, they pushed tax cuts that mainly benefited the wealthy and, after just 4 years, Trump ended his administration with another huge increase in the national debt, a loss of 2.9 million jobs, and unemployment rose to 6.3% — the worst jobs record in modern history according to Washington Post.
So, as you can see, Republicans do not make life better for the middle class, and their continued allegiance to disproven trickle-down economics has been disastrous. Most economists will admit the economy (for most people, the GDP and the stock market) does better under Democratic administrations. Please VOTE for Democrats up and down the ticket in November so we can make life better for everyone.