The Economy is Not Working for the Working Class

By: Sammy Quarrato

Bernie Sanders has been fighting for the working and middle classes since in public office. Credit: commondreams.org

Currently in this political climate, the Trump administration and certain economic experts would make you believe that the economy is doing great not just for the rich, but for everyone else.

They’d make you believe that all aspects of life have gotten better compared to the past, though they are half correct. They hide the other half that has been put under the rug since the 80s. 

The truth is that the middle class has been shrinking and not been doing as well as the 1% and especially not the .1% due to government corruption and class warfare.

The 600 richest families own more wealth than the bottom 50% of Americans, the top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 92%.

When you combine income tax, corporate/property taxes, estate tax, payroll taxes and consumption taxes, the taxation system in America is not a progressive tax, it’s a flat tax.

To whoever is reading this, you and everyone in the same room as you pays more federal income taxes than Amazon alone.

You pay more federal income taxes than not just Amazon, but also FedEx, Netflix, Starbucks, and Activision Blizzard combined.

The horrendous reason for that is because the government hands out large amounts of money to these companies. In 2018 alone, they gave $4.3 billion in rebates, but that’s not all.

President Trump cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 15% and that resulted in 81% of the tax cuts going to the top 1%. 

Senator Bernie Sanders is absolutely right on the economy not being for the middle class, quoting ML: “In America, we have socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor.”

It’s sad how this quote pertains to our economic situation today. Currently in healthcare, we spend double per capita compared to Canada and other western/northern European countries. 

We have 45,000 people who die every year from lack of basic healthcare, premiums, co-payments, deductibles, and out of pocket expenses have risen.

50,000 of them are men and women who have served in the military, yet they go hungry and this is one of the many issues that are not covered in mainstream media.

Student debt has risen to more than $1.5 trillion dollars with the cost of college skyrocketing to the point where students have no choice but to be drowned in debt to fulfill their future goals.

We spend more money on prisoners than we do on students in virtually every state, and what makes it worse is that we have more people in jail than any other country, even more than China and India.

Senator Sanders is the only candidate that is talking about every single one of these issues and he has a platform to mitigate and solve every single one of these issues, not just for the 1%.

Medicare for All, free public 4-year college, $15 minimum wage, affordable housing, getting money out of politics, making the 1% pay their fair share in taxes, canceling student debt and much more that would help the majority of Americans and future generations.

President Trump had a leaked conversation, admitting that during 2016 he was afraid of Hillary Clinton picking Sanders for Vice-President. He stated, “He was the only one I didn’t want her to pick.”

The president, the pharmaceutical industry, the Democratic establishment, the billionaires, the military industrial complex, and the overall elites of society are very nervous and have been attacking Sanders because they see his momentum and know that if he becomes President he will get the government to work for us. 

At the end of the day, it’s not him, it’s us, and that’s why he has been growing in popularity and fighting to the end to win the nomination for the presidency. 

Lastly, I have just one message to those who are reading this and you should spread this to family and friends: do your research and vote. Please do.

It’s better to vote for a candidate that you might not 100% agree with, than to not vote at all. Pick the candidate that cares for you and everyone else, not just the 1%.