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Common sense from Robert Reich

 Editor, Index-Tribune:

Thank you for publishing "The truth about the American economy," by Robert Reich, in the Op-ed for July 22.

Reich points out that widening income inequality culminated in the great recession of 2007, followed by the jobless recovery we are experiencing now. The way to real economic recovery, Reich says, is not to cut taxes on the top incomes and cut spending on all programs designed to help the American people, but to restore the shrinking middle class, providing them jobs and, therefore, spending power, and enabling them to purchase more of what the economy can produce, That, he says, will re-ignite the economy.

Unfortunately, the policies now being discussed in Washington by the president, with the gang of the powerful few, are quite the opposite from Reich's recommended formula. The proposal being discussed is to increase income inequality by giving wealthy investors yet more tax indulgences, so that, at a certain point not yet seen, they will invest their untaxed gain in job creation. Current tax rates for the wealthy have never been lower, yet unemployment is increasing,

It is interesting that the president occasionally takes the time to remember that he was not elected by the Wall Street bankers. He has been seen to acknowledge, before the cameras, that there are "folks out there" who are hurting and who need jobs. He is talking about us, the American people, including the ones who elected him.

Catherine Beatty

Sonoma