“The short answer is that people in the lower two thirds of income level are making less money than they did 25 years ago. They can’t afford housing. The USA as a whole is getting poorer, while people in the uppermost five percent of income are getting richer and richer.

There are two reasons for why we have gotten poorer:

• One is nobody’s fault.
• The other reason is the fault of the Republican Party since the Reagan Administration.

Reason One:

The world economic system has changed; this is nobody’s fault. At the end of WWII in 1945, the USA was the only country with factories and infrastructure. We had full employment and sold our products all over the world. Millions of veterans were sent to universities and trade schools at government expense. Interstate Highways, power plants and public schools were built with US and state taxes, which were higher and more fair then they are today.

However, during the next sixty years, the rest of the world recovered from WWII and caught up with us. They built their own factories and laboratories and infrastructure (largely by buying it from us). Now they make and sell the same stuff we do, often cheaper. This means that factories have closed in the USA, and millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost.

Also, during that sixty years, computers have come into use. Millions of people who used to answer telephones, make appointments, and file records, in other words, the people who did the paperwork — their jobs no longer exist.

These people had to take low wage jobs. They can’t earn enough to save for emergencies, they’re getting older and sicker. One little car breakdown or illness, and they and their families are out on the street. Poverty and distress also generate drug problems and crime.

Another nobody’s-fault reason why we’re poorer today is that the population of the USA has more than doubled since I was in high school. Twice as many people are trying to live on the same amount of land and resources. Real prices have gone up, while real wages have gone down.

All of these problems could be alleviated by intelligent government. But we haven’t had that.

Reason Two:

Since 1981, when Ronald Reagan was put up for President, the Republican Party has slowly taken over Congress and most local governments.

The Republican Party is owned and operated by the billionaire class in the USA, people like the Koch Brothers and the Sackler Family. They want to pay lower taxes.

The Republican Party tells the voters that the solution for all of America’s problems is for rich people to have more money.

By endless cheap patriotism, waving the flag, talking about crime, drugs, prayer in schools, immigrants, lowlife behaviour, making us envy celebrities, saying “they” are going to take away our guns, that we don’t need education, our military is weak, etc., they have fooled poor uneducated people into believing that the solution for all of America’s problems is for rich people to have more money.

Since 1981, the Republicans also have changed many laws so they can now do things on the stock market and with the banks and during political campaigns that were illegal before 1981.

This is what the Republicans have done instead of working on America’s economic and social problems.

Meanwhile, the Democrats either have been letting it happen, or been unable to do anything because the Republicans control the Congress.

Meanwhile, our bridges and roads are wearing out, cities are deserted, schools get no funding. we lose our leadership in technology, wages are so low that our economy fails to provide housing, medical care, or even enough food for millions of citizens.

It’s time for citizens to wake up. Racism, religion, ignorance, and simple-minded patriotism won’t cut it. We need a political revolution.”