Robert Reich: Inequality Has Warped the Minds of America’s Rich | Alternet
▻http://www.alternet.org/economy/inequality-has-warped-minds-americas-rich?akid=11516.108806.AozX20&rd=1&sr
February 16, 2014 | This originally appeared on Robert Reich’s blog.
America has a serious “We” problem — as in “Why should we pay for them?”
The question is popping up all over the place. It underlies the debate over extending unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed and providing food stamps to the poor.
Yet this doesn’t explain why so many wealthy America’s are also exiting. They’ve never been richer. Surely they can afford a larger “we.” But most of today’s rich adamantly refuse to pay anything close to the tax rate America’s wealthy accepted forty years ago.
Perhaps it’s because, as inequality has widened and class divisions have hardened, America’s wealthy no longer have any idea how the other half lives.
Being rich in today’s America means not having to come across anyone who isn’t.