The dems want to take money from the middle class to pay for the deficit. 250K is middle class. Start taxing at a million per annum income. Americans are spoiled. The rich are spoiled, the poor are spoiled. there may be a huge difference between the rich and the poor today. But there is an even bigger gap between the poor 80 years ago and the poor today. While there is a million on the street. There is another 150 million watching the boob tube eating chips and drinking Bud and watching Oprah or Monday Night Football.

Hard to feel sorry for today's poor comparatively speaking. And if you want to get rich, come up with an idea and make it happen. Like Mr. Facebook. Get off your buns. This is American not a European Nanny State.

I really hope the person who posted at 23:52 is joking. First of all, I've always had a hard time thinking of a $250,000 salary as middle-class. Not that you're filthy stinking rich, either, but a quarter million dollars a year just doesn't strike me as middle class. But I'm sick and tired of hearing people talking down to the poor, basically saying "get off your ass and get a job", as if the people who are poor or are unemployed are poor or unemployed because they want to. Nobody said this was a European "Nanny State". But in the supposed wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth, the government should be able to take care of the people who really make the country tick- THE WORKERS. Targeting the working class like you do is sad. The people who work hard to make things run when times are good are to blame when times are bad. Mr. Reich makes good points here- the American people and what little bit of a democracy we have left are being robbed right in front of our eyes. Now more than ever we need the same revolutionary spirit that we had back in the '60s to take to the streets like the French are doing right now. We could take an example from them. The French government tries to raise the retirement age two years, and just about the whole country goes on strike. Our democracy is being bought and we don't know by whom. And we sit and do nothing. So maybe we should be looking at those "European Nanny States" and learning a thing or two instead of blaming the poor and unemployed in our country.

The most I've ever made in my life was $27,000 in one year. I'd LOVE to have made $250,000 in ONE(1) year. Geez! If you can't live on $250,000 a year there is something wrong with your life style. Please explain to me why Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, et al, can't part with another 5 mil a year in taxes to help out with some of the needs of their FELLOW citizens. Please explain.

http://thecurrent.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/public-financing.php

The culture of corruption and racism Republican's Southern Strategy has worked, expanding to the rest of America.

I just watched Lawrence O'Donnell's extraordinary interview with author Isabel Wilkerson ("Warmth of Other Suns") and NBA legend Bill Russell, describing the exodus of black citizens from the hardcore, racist, caste-system South between1950 and 1970, in which blacks fled the whites-only South for friendlier, freer climes.

The Republicans have just expanded their Southern Strategy out of the South to the rest of our society, resulting in a new Caste System (based on the old), with the typically whites-only ultra-wealthy malignantly transforming our country into a Caste System, but based on a division between the rich and poor, the haves versus the have nots, with all levels of government bought and paid for by the ultra-wealthy (mainly whites), just like what was present in the Jim Crow South.

And I'm white. And from the South. But I'm not fooled. And I'm voting straight Democratic Party ticket this election, in an attempt to stop this conservative Republican madness, if possible, before they completely destroy our nation, and the future of our nation's children, no matter what their color of skin.

"We're losing our democracy to a different system. It's called plutocracy."

Change the "losing" to "lost" and the "plutocracy" to "fascism" and I'll buy that. But I'm afraid that the author of this fine piece imagines that the solution to the problem he poses can be found in the proper exercise of the franchise. And in this belief he is deluded, of course. We are quite beyond elections, the importuning of the resident social fascists here this Fall to vote Democrat notwithstanding. One fully suspects that we will have to go through a reactionary, tea party phase before we arrive at an authentic opportunity for a peoples' moment. Historical precedent for such a development clearly exists. One sits out this and any other election in good conscience, therefore. We're next.

I love it--$250K is middle class? That's what Faux News is now teaching its viewers?

Oh, those poor dears, how WILL they get by, facing such hardships . . .

I don't think there can be enough articles written about this, for no other reason than to keep raising awareness. Here is a very interesting graph that indicate "Americans are horribly misinformed about who has money". http://www.good.is/post/americans-are-horribly-misinformed-about-who-has-money/

Anyone who believes the monetary system is archaic should probably check out the Zeitgeist movement. But I'm guessing that's way too radical for these readers.

Mr. Reich spreads the myth that most income in America is earned. The majority of wealth in the USA is inherited, and those billionaires don't want this democracy thing to touch all that unearned income.

They created the "death tax" tale to fool workers, but the dead pay no taxes, they are dead. In fact, the first two million is tax-free. Bill Gates deserves to be a billionaire, but do his children deserve to inherit billions of dollars tax-free while their maids, drives and butlers pay income tax?

The people who give to Angle's campaign scare me more than the corporations do.

Yeah, Angle brags about how much $$$ she receives each time she appears on Limbaugh's show and on the Faux News shows. A darling of the crazies.

In addition, tons of dough rolls into her campaign from the California tea partiers and from Rove's illegal operations.

There is very little difference between an Asp and a Republican. They're both toxic and even deadly. The thing with the Asp is, at least they don't pretend to be anything but a snake!

Man, all of you have valid points. The guys saying 250k is middle class is not far from the truth. There are millions of millionaires out there, they drive podunk cars to work or in our neighborhoods to deceive and hide Lamborghin's in the garage until Sunday mornings. While 250k is the upper echelons of middle class, they are still not millionaires. Taxing at 1mil and up makes sense. I will be looking into the credit union idea, I was in one for quite a while then got out, maybe like the poster says if we all show the Wall Street homeboys a thing or two, government will take notice and man up, and own up to the fact they've been doing a horrific job at taking care of their people. Vent your anger with your VOTE.

Bill Gates III is hardly self-made.

Gates II is a prominent Seattle attorney and sent Bill Jr. to Harvard before the latter decided to strike out on his own and become a super plutocrat.

No rags-to-riches there.

There was a time when there was a sense of outrage in this country. And a fourth estate that brought the weight of the public to bear on the idiots running us into the ground. Our owner class has completely wrung the necks of the golden egg layers, US. As happened in all countries who go through revilution (sic) when you have nothing to lose, that is the time when you get off of your easy chair and hit the streets. The French get riled over a change in the retirement age. We should be so lucky TO RETIRE. Outrage is muttered under the breath, and everyone seems to be waiting for some hero to come lead them across the Rubicon.

IT STARTS AT HOME PEOPLE. YOU ARE THE LEADER, THIS IS WHAT AMERICA IS ALL ABOUT! THAT'S WHY I CONTINUE TO SPREAD THE WORD TO EVERYONE, MAKING THEM UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THE TRUTH. THEY EVENTUALLY GET IT.

This movement is not about Repugnicans and Demorats. They are all tools of the CFR and Wall Street. We have been led to the slaughter, fleeced, fileted, fricaseed. Are you fed up yet? DO SOMETHING!!!

that'd be, "end welfare as we know it"