OUR MORAL DILEMMA

America became great by caring about and for one other. We supported one another while traveling treacherous routes over dangerous seas from far off lands to make our homes in a new country. We immigrated to this land for newfound opportunities. This new country gave our ancestors hope and freedom—freedom from oppression, freedom to govern ourselves, and freedom to work hard and prosper. It wasn’t easy at first but, by helping one another, communities were built. Communities grew, wars were fought, and we claimed independence and formed our own government. It was rocky at first, but our forefathers envisioned a country that would endure and developed a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” When we have focused on that commitment, we thrived—all of us.

Times have been tough before, but we must know history to prevent ourselves from enduring some of its harshest lessons.

Economic debates dominated politics in the 1930’s. Shanty towns (called Hoovervilles) sprang up as a result of the Great Depression, named after a president who felt that relief should be left to the private sector. This was a decade of enormous class conflict. Although some rich people lost money when the stock market crashed, most did not suffer from the unemployment debacle that the poor and middle class endured. Many working class Americans lost their jobs and, correctly, blamed the reckless financial dealings of the upper class.

With unemployment at record highs, reportedly up to 25% of the nation, some of the most ambitious programs ever developed became reality—programs designed to produce relief (government jobs for the unemployed), recovery (of the economy), and reform (through regulation of Wall Street, banks and transportation). The Social Security system was designed “to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of federal old-age benefits . . .” The Wagner Act officially became the National Labor Relations Act, which established the rights of workers to organize unions and engage in collective bargaining. The Glass-Steagall Act created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, giving Americans renewed confidence in the bands. The Securities and Exchange Commission was designed to regulate Wall Street. Federal spending provided funds to create the Public Works Administration, thus stimulating the economy. The Tennessee Valley Authority built dams, power stations, controlled floods, and modernized agriculture and home conditions in the poverty-stricken Tennessee Valley. Minimum wage was created under the Fair Labor Standards Act and more than 3.3 million jobs emerged under a second stimulation program of WPA and public works.

The upper classes resented their social inferiors (as they saw the lower classes) even more than ever. They viewed these programs as hand outs, which the rich felt was not their responsibility to provide.

When our families and neighbors suffered in the Great Depression of the 1930’s, though, we supported them. Our country began investing in our infrastructure and our people. Safety nets were woven to protect the most vulnerable of our society from the devastating poverty, unemployment and lack of money to provide education for our children.

Fast forward to the 1940’s and 1950’s, the “good old days” for the Baby Boomer generation. Workers received livable wages, education was more accessible to everyone, poor or rich, infrastructure improvements made our country look prosperous, and the economic factors that enabled the first Great Depression had regulations that prevented it from happening again. Our parents’ generation was freshly home from World War II, many graduating from college after using the G.I. bill, and moving from farms to cities and then to the suburbs. We were taught that we could do anything we wanted to, be anyone we wanted to be. The sky was the limit! If we worked hard, told the truth, made good grades, and ate our vegetables, we could succeed.

In 1936, the top marginal tax rate was 79% for everyone making over $5M. For that top group, it never dropped below 70% for 44 years—the most prosperous years in our history, from 1936 until 1981. During those years, our grandparents and parents worked hard, fought wars, bought homes, and could afford to send their children to college—many for the first time ever. Their generations overcame the Great Depression and they wanted to be sure that we never suffered through anything like it. America was prosperous. Businesses were flourishing, the middle class had secure jobs with pensions and insurance, and the poor had safety nets to help when times were tough.

By 1988, anyone making from $29,750 to infinity was taxed at 28%--the lowest since 1931. Sounds good at first, doesn’t it? During the ensuing two decades, though, corporate taxes rates dropped, tax loopholes abounded, regulations were repealed (or ignored), taxes for the richest of the rich were at an all-time low since the Great Depression, and corporate greed ran rampant. Hoover’s old ideas rebounded and the private sector was sold as the economy’s savior.

The poor and the middle class have been duped before, and they’re trying to do it again. From the late 1930’s until recently, we all thought we could achieve the American Dream. That dream has become a nightmare of massive unemployment, home foreclosures, threats to Social Security and Medicare, pension funds decimated by unscrupulous corporations, intimidation of unions that helped us make livable wages with decent hours and safe workplaces, attacks on public education for our children, and absolutely no plans for investing in our country’s infrastructure or its citizens.

When will we learn from history? When will we again stand up against the rich who disdain us? When will we return to our moral standards? Our country’s most vulnerable citizens deserve the safety nets we put into place long ago. The poor and middle class must be allowed to aspire to latch onto a realistic dream again. Oppression is not what our forefathers wanted for us. They never intended for corporations, with their sham organizations, to be able to buy elections. They never envisioned a country where people who work hard and were loyal to their employers could suddenly find themselves without jobs or homes or savings.

We cannot allow them to divide us. We must stand firm for our futures. We can do it, but not if we allow them to frame their message so that we fight amongst ourselves. Reaganomics didn’t work before and it won’t now. Taking away our safety nets—Social Security, Medicare, affordable health insurance, livable wages, pensions, bargaining rights, unemployment insurance, protection from unsafe work environments, polluted air and water, unsafe food or drugs, banks and other entities that take advantage of us, and regulations that protect consumers will not help us. Those things will help the rich who own corporations make more money without being responsible for the damages they leave behind. We’ll be left unprotected, unemployed, uninsured, and homeless.

Americans have, traditionally, been empathetic toward their less fortunate neighbors and have willingly paid our fair share so that the government would supply a safety net for people who are hurting. That empathy still exists and those of us who have been more blessed are happy to share what little we have left with others. Throughout history, the most generous have been those who have the least. We may not have much left except our empathy and our support. Let’s share it now. Stand tall for those of us who stand to lose the most, which is the majority of us.

"The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes." --Thomas Jefferson, 1779.

Our moral dilemma is before us. Will we stand up for the poor and the middle class or will we sit idly by and allow ourselves, our friends and families to return to what our forefathers fled?