2%---4%---- 98%

[Roy Rolling]

Unlike what we have been taught, there are some people who are more-than-equal than others in America. I have a theory: it is a product of leisure and lack of crisis. Because, in a crisis, nobody asks "are you in the top tax bracket?" When hurricane Katrina blew people away, the Army passing out MREs did not ask "are you in the top tax bracket or bottom tax bracket?" Those things only matter when there is no crisis, or the appearance of no crisis (today bought and paid for by deep-pocket right-wing interests)

Well, there is a crisis---an unemployment and deficit crisis. And until a stock market crash, banking scandal, or some other disaster (again) brings it to the forefront of everyone's short-attention span, the media will choose to hide it. As long as everything is hunky-dory for the vast majority, we will gleefully ignore the impending danger. But that doesn't make it any less dangerous. Does darkness that hides the hole you are about to step into make it any less deep?

So, we are indoctrinated that the top 2% are needy and should not pay an additional 4% on whatever they earn (after generous tax deductions most people never get to use). That is proof the millionaires in Congress think that there is an elite class in America that deserves a better deal than everyone else---the 98% rest of us suckers. Charity for the rich. To paraphrase James Carville----it's the economy, stupid.

2%, 4%, 98%---those are the numbers and they add up to disaster if charity continues to be showered on the rich instead of the needy.

[Goldstein1984]

1. I think it's a given that

The people getting MREs during Katrina were not in the top tax bracket.

Katrina is a perfect model for how the poor suffer disproportionately during and after natural disasters.