Inequality for All Options Menu: Forum
This topic has been central to the public
Inequality for All Options Menu: Forum
This topic has been central to the public economic debate for the last several years. In effect, this is about the decline of the middle class and the significant growth and wealth concentration of the top 1% income earners in the United States; why this has happened, who is winning and who is losing, and what do we do about it. Again, this is a topic that the candidates for president should be talking about because these are real issues that face each of us. Yet, there are very different ways to address these issues – assuming you think it is an issue. President Obama’s approach has been to create jobs by growing manufacturing, alternative energy, traditional energy, and infrastructure; reducing healthcare costs; increasing the minimum wage; supporting expanded education at the pre-school level, K to 12, and higher education (e.g., free community college tuition, increasing federal loan money) be it for two or four year schools; maintaining and strengthening social security; and negotiating fairer trade agreements to create more markets for U.S. products and services, and thus, more domestic jobs. Your final mission is:
– Is there an income inequality problem in the United States?
– What, in your view, has caused this to happen?
– Should the government be involved in addressing this problem?
– How can the government address this and will it incur undue influence in our free market system?
– If you didn’t like the approach that President Obama undertook (i.e., expanding trade, focusing on education (especially two-year and four-year), increasing the minimum wage, and reducing health costs), or the Trump Administration (trade wars, tax cuts for the upper income and corporations, and weakening or eliminating reguations), what do you recommend and why?