To the editor:
Around elections, the issue that most voters usually rank most important is “the economy.” That’s a broad term, but I think what most people mean by it is “life should be more affordable.” And they’re right; the American economy isn’t working for the vast majority of us. And most leaders and candidates won’t fix it.
For over 30 years, since Bill Clinton’s rise, Democrats have upheld that the solution is being pro-business, which will hopefully trickle-down to workers, with some assistance (Medicaid, SNAP) to poor people who can jump through enough hoops. Republicans agree, except they slash the assistance to poor people and instead cut taxes: Reagan made big tax cuts that he later reversed, then George W. Bush made huge tax cuts, then Trump made more big tax cuts in 2017 and 2025, with the largest savings always going to the richest Americans.
None of these solutions worked, of course, and wealth inequality only got worse. The Congressional Budget Office calculated that our total wealth quadrupled from 1989 to 2022, but the share belonging to the bottom half didn’t budge: Those 100+ million Americans put together owned just 6% of nationwide wealth in 1989, and 6% in 2022. Most of the new wealth went to the richest 1%.
So what actually keeps Americans’ lives unaffordable? For one thing, we spend more than any peer country on healthcare, because we have to pay the profits of health insurance companies, who make more money the more care they deny. Obamacare got insurance to people with preexisting conditions, but ultimately it still feeds that corrupt system of profit and denying care. Also, America has low union membership, which peaked in the 1950s and has steadily declined ever since thanks to antilabor policies and globalization. Union workers generally make 10-20% more money than non-union employees, so it’s unsurprising that bosses fight unionization with every weapon at their disposal, including politicians of both parties.
Our problems go much deeper, but for a start we need to significantly tax the wealthy, provide universal healthcare and unionize our workplaces.
Rob Kipp
Presque Isle
