The Zong

If by “the war” I mean “the race to fuck poor people right in their class-hole,” that is. Tucked away safely in the business section of the New York Times was an article entitled “Average Incomes Fell for Most in 2000-5.” It lays out a bunch of new government data and a bunch of fairly boring-ass numbers that might make most people’s eyes glaze over. Check it out:

The combined income of all Americans in 2005 was slightly larger than it was in 2000, but because more people were dividing up the national income pie, the average remained smaller. Total adjusted gross income in 2005 was $7.43 trillion, up 3.1 percent from 2000 and 5.8 percent from 2004.

At this point, I was wondering if this was really all that bad. Reporting about stuff in abstractions (read: trillions of dollars) makes me think maybe I should be reading USA Today or something. That said, it did say that the average income was $55,238 in 2005, which is a real number I can almost understand. Turns out though, that this particular report is kind of a fucking bombshell. Read on:

Total income listed on tax returns grew every year after World War II, with a single one-year exception, until 2001, making the five-year period of lower average incomes and four years of lower total incomes a new experience for the majority of Americans born since 1945.

Yeah? Wow. I’d better tell my parents what’s going on, since they were definitely born since then. I’ll then ask them what the new experience feels like.

The White House, who among other things wants sick kids to just hurry up and die because we don’t have the money to pay for their insurance, says these changes “should not surprise anyone” because of the terrorists and what with Al Gore’s invention breaking down for awhile there. This statement is a little less than shocking considering all the great stuff the president has been saying about the economy lately.

The thing is, even if we put aside that this is the first time this has happened since fucking Hitler died, the next part of the article is a jagged motherfucking pill for us progressives and for anyone making less than $100,000 per. It turns out that things weren’t all that terrible for all Americans, especially if you were (gasp!) rich.

The growth in total incomes was concentrated among those making more than $1 million. The number of such taxpayers grew by more than 26 percent, to 303,817 in 2005, from 239,685 in 2000.

These individuals, who constitute less than a quarter of 1 percent of all taxpayers, reaped almost 47 percent of the total income gains in 2005, compared with 2000.

Now, I’m not all that good at the math, but even I know there’s a big fucking difference between 1 percent and 47 percent. I’m not really sure what the disparity between those numbers has been in previous five-year periods, but I’ll be looking into it. In the meantime, this paragraph kind of has a nice “no shit” quality about it:

The fact that average incomes remained lower in 2005 than five years earlier helps explain why so many Americans report feeling economic stress despite overall growth in the economy. Many Americans are also paying a larger share of their health care costs and have had their retirement benefits reduced, adding to their out-of-pocket costs.

So that great economic recovery that the administration has been puking all over themselves to brag about doesn’t seem to be actually benefiting anyone except (wait for it) the richest 1% in the country! Shocking!

Is it stupid for me to be talking about something that we all knew was going to happen under this administration? Well, maybe so, but I’ll say this much: these numbers speak VOLUMES about the bullshit that conservative armchair economist assholes trot out every time they’re talking about tax cuts. Call it “Trickle-down” or “Something D-O-O Economics” or whatever you like, it still adds up to the same thing–a fucking ruse that allows Republicans to pay off their biggest donors and leaves the middle class struggling to pay their bills.

Robert S. McIntyre, the director of Citizens for Tax Justice, said that even though he expected a few very wealthy people to reap most of the tax savings generated by lower tax rates on dividends and capital gains, the size of the savings “still takes your breath away.”

He said the tax savings at the top, combined with lower average incomes after five years, “shows that trickle down doesn’t work.”

- M.G.