Sunday, July 31, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

Here’s more eye-popping statistics for you. The latest Pew Research Center report on who’s got what in America, shows that the median wealth of Hispanic households s has dropped by 66% since 2005, Asian households by 54%, black households by 53% and white households by 16%. And that’s not all. 33% of Hispanics, 35% of Blacks and 15% of Whites have zero or negative wealth, a sharp rise. We now have the largest wealth disparities in the 25 years that data has been collected. Median wealth of whites is 20 times that of blacks and 18 times that of Hispanics, double the disparity of ten years ago. Of course, if the White category excluded the very rich, I bet the decline in wealth of that category would be right up there with Asians, Hispanics and Blacks; what’s skewing that number is the richest of the rich who get the tax breaks while the rest of us get skewed. It’s all those tax breaks for millionaires that started with Reagan and continues with Obama. This morning I read about the debt limit debate in Congress and in that long article there was nary a mention of increasing taxes on the rich, the obvious solution to solving the financial problems of the U.S. of A. You gave one great speech on how the Republicans are holding America hostage for the benefit of the rich and then silence. You keep caving in to the Republicans’ outrageous democracy-killing demands and that’s not just disheartening, Mr. President, that’s infuriating. Over the past three years it’s become obvious you’re not a fighter and your notion of compromise is most people’s notion of immoral. More and more you’re looking like the Republican president We The People didn’t elect, not the Democratic one we did. We have less middle-class, less opportunity, less Hope, less equality, and less democracy now than we did in 2008. We have more greed, more corruption, more mean-spiritedness and more of a gap between the only two classes left in America, the haves and have-nots. Much of this is the result of the wars we have started over the past 10 years. All war is immoral but when war is based on lies and deceit, it is especially egregious. The never ending “War on Terrorism” that justifies every outrageous act also drains us in every way–spiritually, morally, financially. You were elected to end these unjustified wars and instead, you have expanded them. You have turned your back on the will of the people and on the founding principles of this country. Shame on you, Mr. President.