Redistribution of Wealth

Mother Jones has a set of eight charts which show the tremendous increase in income inequality in this country. Years of Republican policies designed to redistribute the wealth towards the top one percent have worked. The richest ten percent of Americans control two-thirds of its wealth. When polled, most Americans greatly underestimate the degree of income inequality, and think there should be even less:

With all the talk about tax rates, the rich are now being taxed at lower rates than when Ronald Reagan was president. That would continue to be true even if the Bush tax cuts (a major cause of the current deficit) were repealed:

Check out the full post for more charts and links to their sources.

Question of the Day

If the goal of Republicans is to reduce abortions, shouldn’t they be supporting organizations such as Planned Parenthood which assist women with birth control rather than cutting funding for the organization? If the Republicans don’t want government to pay for health care such as cancer treatment, wouldn’t it make more sense to continue funding for for early screening by groups such as Planned Parenthood?

Quote of the Day

“President Obama was in San Francisco today, meeting with a group of technology executives, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Their goal is to figure out how to create new jobs, to replace jobs that have been lost as a result of everyone spending all their time at work on Facebook.” –Jimmy Kimmel

Bonus Quote of the Day:

“The President hopes that, based on the success of programs like Farmville, a million new imaginary jobs can be created by the year 2012.” –Jimmy Kimmel