Let the Rich "eat Cake" for Once

I'd feel real bad about ending George W. Bush's tax break for the wealthiest Americans except for one thing: they've made out like bandits for 30 years.

In 1976, the top 1 percent owned 20 percent of the wealth. Today that figure is 35 percent. Toss in the next 19 percent of the wealthiest and it goes to 85.5 percent, the highest concentration of wealth since 1929 and the worst distribution ratio among the G-7 industrialized nations. Conversely, 80 percent of the population owns just 14.5 percent of the wealth, half of which is equity in their homes.

Here're a few more statistics that will make you want to break into a few choruses of "The Internationale."

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports the ratio in after-tax income between the top 1 percent and the poorest 40 percent more than tripled since 1979. IRS data show the effective tax rate for the 400 wealthiest Americans, with a reported average income of $345 million, declined by nearly half -- to 16.6 percent -- since 1992, even as their inflation-adjusted pretax income grew five times larger. The ratio of CEO pay to blue collar pay rose from 42:1 in 1960 to over 500:1 today. The same ratio in Europe is 25:1.

Under the massive Reagan and Bush tax cuts inflation-adjusted income grew 27 percent between 1979 and 2006. However nearly all the gains went to the richest 20 percent while incomes of the bottom 80 percent remained stagnant, resulting in the highest income inequality in 93 years.

So what! say the cons. The rich earned their money fair and square and shouldn't be punished by oppressive taxes in order to redistribute the fruits of their labor to those unwilling to pull their weight. My, how quaintly Dickensian.

But that's just it! They didn't earn their money "fair and square." The fact is in this grovel -- I mean global -- economy, instead of the win-win economy of mid-century, the rich thrive purposely on the backs of the working and middle classes.

Is it fair, for example, to off-shore jobs, bust private sector unions, cut wages and benefits and employ political cronies to bastardize government oversight of financial institutions, minerals management, clean air and water, workplace and product safety and pension security?

Is it square to garner trillions from favorable trade rules, government subsidies, no-bid defense contracts and massive overruns, tax incentives, earmarks, bailouts, sweetheart deals to drill, mine, timber and graze on public lands and the unpaid costs of their pollution, all of which goes directly to their bottom lines?

Cons point out the richest 20 percent pay 70 percent of the taxes, but seeing as how they essentially own America, I say we raise their mortgage payments.