Traverse City Record-Eagle

Archive: Wednesday

February 8, 2012

Letters to the Editor: 02/08/2012

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Honor basic concepts

Historic economic data show us that since I graduated from high school in 1965 there's been a shift in income and wealth distribution in our country, gradually transferring larger shares of income and assets to the wealthiest among us. The prosperous postwar middle class is disappearing. Other data show us that our society is more stratified, with less economic mobility than in European countries. Your chances of rising from poverty to wealth are worse here than in Europe. Is that fair?

Now we're told if we just give more income and wealth to rich "job creators," we'll all be better off. That theory fails the test of history. If giving more money to the wealthy increased employment, the decades-long economic trends should have led us to an unemployment rate of 1 percent, not more than 10 percent.

Our state's contribution to state university general funds has shrunk from more than 60 percent to just more than 20 percent. Young people here must assume huge student-debt burdens. The effect is less education, more stratification, less mobility.

It's time to increase taxation on the wealthy, devote the proceeds to education and real job creation, and honor the basic concepts of fairness that our nation values.

Chris Campbel

Traverse City

You don't have to yell

I supported the Occupy TC movement in the same way I support any group peacefully asking politicians to listen. It was democracy in action, and that was as far as it went for me. That was until I heard someone in a passing car yell out to the cold Saturday protesters "Get a job!" How ironic.

Many of the members of Occupy TC are professionals who have jobs; some are retired, some are students, and a lot of them are looking for work. They are not just protesting for themselves but for the 99 percent of Americans whose belief in the "American Dream" has been battered by big banks, big business and the big money that is buying our judicial system and our government.

This movement is what democracy looks like, and at times it may not be pretty. But it is the forum available to those who want to do something instead of staying home and complaining.

So if you want to know more visit their website, and if you want to talk to them you don't have to yell, you can just say "thank you."

Margaret Dodd

Traverse City

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