By Kyle Allen
Opinion Editor
and Danny Kelleher
Sports Editor
When Adam Smith and those of the Manchester School established the idea of laissez-faire economics, also known as capitalism, they intended to create a society based on merit.
When conservatives advocate for similar economic conditions in modern American society, however, they fail to see the economic disparity that prevents free and fair competition in this country.
This economic disparity has been largely caused by an imbalanced and inequitable tax policy that the federal government has pursued since the 1980s, the era of “Reaganomics.”
Currently, the federal government is faced with over $14 trillion in debt, underfunded social welfare programs and a hugely imbalanced tax code.
America is far from the image of equal opportunity that it tries to portray to the rest of the world.
According to studies done by New York University, the top 10% of earners in the United States currently control over 68% of total wealth, the second highest concentration of wealth in the hands of the upper class in the world.
However, American wealth has not always been this polarized; according to the NYU study, the amount of wealth controlled by the top 1% of earners has risen steadily since the 1970s, when these top earners controlled 19.9% of the available financial wealth, to the current 34.6% of the available financial wealth.
This economic disparity makes it impossible for Americans to compete on an “even ground.” It is clear that the cards of American economics are stacked against the middle and lower classes.
The extreme polarization of wealth to pre-Depression levels is mostly a result of an increasingly inequitable taxation system.
According to the IRS, the income of the average American taxpayer has actually decreased since the 1980s, while the average income of the top 1% of Americans has tripled in that time.
The “Reaganomics” philosophy developed in the 1980s by the Reagan administration and pursued by Congress all the way through the current administration did nothing to alleviate this glaring gap between rich and poor.
In fact, according to a statistics from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, the highest income tax bracket has decreased from 70% in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s to the current rate of 35%.
To restore the America of lore, a place of equal opportunity and societal advancement, the federal government must return to the progressive tax scale of the mid 20th century.
These policies drove an era in which the middle class was booming and drove the largest economic expansion in American history.
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