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Middle Class Voodoo
I may have joined the middle class, but I haven’t bought the myth of free stuff.
I was looking at one of my writings the other day that went on about “middle class” this and “middle class” that as if everybody would know what that meant. The Democratic Party’s presidential candidates make the same rhetorical plunge when they pledge not to “raise taxes on the middle class.”
This grizzled veteran of the war on poverty remembers that brief period when the government clearly took a side. There was a ruthless practicality to political issues. A candidate might pledge to grow some teeth for the laws that banned redlining or required equal pay for women — to name two fights that were over in the law books but not on the ground.
The very first bill Barack Obama signed closed one of the loopholes that keeps equal pay for women doing equal work elusive. Still, the problem persists for those of us who see it as a problem.
In the current election, candidates and the voters have made two issues universal talking points. Those would be improved access to health care and to a university education. I support both of these ideas, and I’ve always been embarrassed by our…
