Inequality of Wealth Does Not Apply to Our Leaders

To The Editor:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass the Affordable Health Care Act so we would know what was in it. I am wondering what voters are thinking when they accept that we paying Congress $175,000 a year, plus benefits, not to read the bills they are passing. The Healthcare Act has made the voters compliant but exempted Congress and their staff and about 1,000 special interests. The Congressional exemption costs the taxpayers approximately $10,500 per member and staff for their healthcare insurance.
The president rails about the “inequality of wealth” in America. He perceives the concentration of wealth by a small minority of individuals should somehow be penalized/demonized for their success. I am not sure when the concept changed, but one’s education, individual skill sets, some large manufacturers that provided a diversity of disciplines and opportunities coupled with hard work, (some luck) determined their personal wealth.
The president and Congress recently raised the taxes on the rich and now suggest another increase. I ask readers or a politician if they confiscated all of their wealth, specifically what spending priority would be satisfied forever? After which, who pays the bill? Increasing taxation on the rich accomplishes what; they do have the money to pay the increases but the policy limits future access to those climbing the ladder.
An obvious challenge to the recently implied inequality was, in the early 1900’s the Rockefellers, Carnegie, Astor, Guggenheim, Ford, Vanderbilt families were worth millions while the average salary was lower than $30 per week. The wealthy became wealthy by creating opportunities, job skills and innovation spawning an economy and industrial base that became a world power and developed a middle class found no other place in the world.
Suggested increases to the minimum wage to $15 appear to bump the guard rail of economics and logic. The Minimum Wage Act was passed to insure that entry level positions were standardized as a baseline, and that increases were predicated on performance metrics, tardiness, attendance, responsibility. Today the unchallenged political hucksters imply that the “middle class” needs that increase. When did $15 an hour become the benchmark for the middle class? Our political representatives earn $175,000 and have an expense account that pays for their transportation, gas, and bottled water etc., and are exempted from the Affordable Care Act. What does that make them?
Our economic ills are not the sole property of any one party. However I do fault all of the leadership in Congress. At the last increase to the debt ceiling, the president developed the sequester policy then demonized the implementation. Two years later, we face another debt ceiling increase. In 2008 our debt was $9 trillion and is now $17 trillion. Has Congressional spending produced lower grocery prices, lower energy bills, more jobs, tax relief? Has obscene spending improved your family’s opportunities or quality of life? Unfortunately there is an absolute void in elected leadership putting our country first.
After Sandy’s visit I came across some Data Guides from school. One was a reference guide for economics, quoted from the title block, “Socialism: Large scale ownership of the nation’s productive resources; government planning may replace in whole or in part the free workings of the price system. Advocates usually urge more equitable distribution of income and the adoption of the system by peaceful evolutionary stages.”
The Economic Data Guide was authored by professors Richard Gill and Seymour Harris, chairman, Department of Economics, Harvard University. Does “equitable distribution of wealth” have a familiar tone?
And finally, Bill Murphy’s factual literary recommendation for me was a coloring book.
AL CROSSEN
North Wildwood