No. 969 - GROW THE MIDDLE CLASS - REALLY?

No. 969

Jim Davidson -- NEWSPAPER COLUMN

GROW THE MIDDLE CLASS –REALLY?

Whether we realize it or not, we are all affected by the news. Sadly, the past several years the news has been so bad that millions of Americans have just opted out and don’t keep up with what is going on in the world around them. Many of these people do keep up with what is going on locally, and that is good, but they would be better served if they would keep up with world and national events because they do affect our lives.
The one thing in America that we cherish more than any other is freedom. A free people can do and have more than those who are not truly free, and this includes the majority of people all across the world. For this reason the political process -- those we elect to represent us -- is vital for the future of our nation.
It is also for this reason that I would like to discuss something with you that we often hear from our elected leaders, especially our President and members of Congress. Quite often we hear some politician say that we “want to grow the middle class.” To this statement I simply say, really? As always, the devil is in the details. In each case I would like to ask the person making this statement, “What do you mean by that?” Sadly, the answer to this statement is more give-away programs and in most cases, is really just a way to buy votes. The tragedy is that when you get people on the dole, it’s awfully hard to get them off.
From my perspective, I would like to offer some suggestions as a way to grow the middle class. The “middle class” has been defined as a social class in the United States, and based on the criteria it includes the 25 percent to 66 percent of American households with income ranges from $25,000 to $100,000 per year. In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, I discovered an interesting chart that clearly demonstrates that income is in direct proportion to the amount of education a person has. For persons age 25 and up: a high school dropout earns $20,321; some college $31,054; bachelor’s degree $43,143; doctoral degree $70,853; professional degree $82,473.
Here are my suggestions as to how government can help to grow the middle class. No. 1-- Allow the American worker to keep more of his/her hard-earned money. Excessive taxes that are being sent to Washington seldom stimulate the economy because much of it is being squandered. Most of our citizens do not object to paying taxes when we know our tax money is being used in a responsible way. No. 2 -- Take the feet of the federal government off the neck of business and industry to allow them to create more jobs. While we have a lot of freeloaders, the vast majority of the 10 million workers who are unemployed would much rather have a job than taking a handout.
The major reason most companies are struggling today, which means they are not hiring, is because of excessive government regulations. I have seen reports that over the past two decades, 81,883 new regulations were added to the books. When you over-regulate business and industry, they spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to comply rather than producing the products and services they were created to provide.
And something seldom talked about is to provide tax incentives to companies and individuals who have several trillions of dollars off-shore to bring that money back home and begin to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure – highways, bridges, streets, sewer and water lines and other things that are badly in need of repair. This would also create millions of jobs. I am pleased to say that American ingenuity is still alive and well.
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(EDITOR'S NOTE: Jim Davidson is a public speaker and syndicated columnist. You may contact him at 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR 72034. To begin a bookcase literacy project visit www.bookcaseforeverychild.com. You won’t go wrong helping a needy child.)