In A Broken Covenant: The Rape Of The American Middle Class, Stephen Rodnesky reveals how the average member of the American Middle Class has been systematically ripped off to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars over the past two decades. Rodnesky explains the reason behind the dramatic decline of the income and wealth share of the middle class; the failing of current proposals to transform the tax code in the true best interest of the middle class; the long-term consequences from the currently pending efforts to eliminate the estate tax; and simple changes to the tax code that could rebalance the tax system while avoiding any necessity (and governmental temptation) to micromanage the American economy. A Broken Covenant is "must" reading for tax reform activists, governmental tax policy makers, and students of economics and political science.
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A Broken Covenant - the Rape of the American Middle Class by Stephen Rodnesky (2000), BMES Press, Pembrook Pines, FL (www.bmes.net), 150 pp., 23 cm./9 in., paperback, 0-9700890-0-7, $12.95 "This book reminds a person familiar with recent American history of a statement by Franklin Delano Roosevelt that (we must look after the poor, the indigent) ... "because the rich can take care of themselves". And, they do. Rodnesky provides the statistical data which confirms the moderate (centrist) belief that the tax proposals of the (new) conservatives serve, mainly, the rich and injure the middle class. The poor, of course, get what they has always got: less. The timing of this book is fortuitous since tax cuts are on the agenda of the presidential candidates. Among the concepts lost in the debate is the fact, not accepted by conservatives, that the welfare and social programs of the 1930's under FDR essentially saved the free enterprise system. Great unfairness in economic, political, and social terms leads, eventually, to revolution. This has been proven everywhere: France, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran ... does one need to go further?'The concentration of income into the hands of the privileged few and shrinking income of our middle class erodes one of the practical foundations of our democracy.' (p. 50) This is the underlying philosophy behind this book which, is well organized, clearly (though vociferously) written, and thoroughly documented. An interesting touch, which ought to be copied, is the recapitulation of the statistical tables (Chapter 19, A Quick Look Back) and a brief explanation of what the data indicates. As a working statistician and teacher of statistics, the reviewer appreciates that not all persons can glance at a table or graph and draw meaningful conclusions. Reading statistics can be tough; Prof. Rodnesky makes it less so. His conclusions suggest rearranging the income tax code to make for a tolerable and more just taxation. His proposal on estate taxes is more in line with the Democrats' approach ... raise the limit to a few million dollars. That happens to be in line with the intent of the Founding Fathers of our Republic as they recognized that the continued concentration of great wealth by inheritance was bad social and public policy. Rodnesky also recommends active and aggressive reduction of the national debt ... also good economic and public policy. [No space here to explain.]
All things considered, a rather good work and very timely. 4.0#" - hcl
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A Broken Covenant: The Rape of the American Middle Class, by Stephen
Rodnesky, considers the inequities legislated into our tax structure since 1980,
inequities paraded as "tax cuts". Its premise is that tax law of the
last twenty years has allowed the mega-rich to keep so much of their wealth that
the middle class has gotten fleeced paying more than its share of taxes. This is
supported by statistics, explained concisely, and with a light touch. The reader
will be shocked to find that these "tax cuts" actually only helped the
wealthiest one percent. Everyone else, including the upper middle class,
actually lost ground! And the biggest losers aren't the working poor or even the
lower middle class, but the well-to-do.
The book has an especially timely note on estate taxes, explaining congressional
maneuvers to salt away multi-billion dollar inheritances.
His statistics show a ratcheting up of subsidy to the mega-rich, a kind of
welfare for the wealthiest one percent. The outrage might seem a bit overdone
until one sees how the game has been rigged: the legislation comes from the same
incumbents who year after year get fat campaign contributions from that same one
percent. Until the rest of us (99%!) take action, the mess---private enrichment
at public expense, profit capitalized but loss socialized---will get harder to
clean up with each passing year.
What this reviewer found most intriguing, though, were the reasons Rodnesky
advances for why the rest of us allow this to go on: first, that most of us
don't believe we have the power to do anything about it; second, that Americans
glamorize wealth to such an extent that "by virtue of wealth alone, some
are deemed better than [others]"; and, third, that some people have such a
strong secret fantasy about striking it rich themselves, however unrealistic,
that they don't want to tinker with anything that cold prevent them hoarding
every penny of that windfall.
This is not your usual dry scholarly text, but an activist pamphlet (a sample
letter with the names and phone numbers of congressional targets in Washington
appears in an appendix), more Thomas Paine than Henry Adams.
It even proposes concrete solutions, like a 90% tax on incomes over $400,000, to
get a 29% cut for the 99% making less than that. One could quibble with the
specifics, but at least his proposals have some basis in the data.
The effect not only on individual pocketbooks in April but on infrastructure
that gets starved (the threat to Social Security, for example, that
"covenant between the generations" perhaps about to be betrayed) in
order to "keep taxes down" has a lot to do with this con game;
probably, the solution to these problems are to be found among the solutions
Rodnesky puts forward.
All in all, a handy shortcut to boning up on what needs to be done to "get
even" (99% of us, anyway), to put a stop to the bait and switch re-routing
of our taxes to the ("how much is enough?") superrich.
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Internet Book Review