It's Time to Close the Gap

Ethan Strimling, All Towns

Part of the reason I got into the race to succeed Maine’s next Senator (go Tom Allen!) in the House is that there’s an ongoing economic crisis in this country. Well, more than one, actually, but one in particular that has persisted for decades. I’m talking about the ever-growing gap between the richest Americans and the rest of us.

The gap between the richest and poorest Americans is now wider than at any time since the New Deal began. We’re literally back to the point of inequality where we were in 1929.

I’ve been proud to serve as the chair of the Labor Committee in the Maine Senate, and to be a sponsor of LD 1697, which raises Maine’s minimum wage to $8.40 and, more importantly, indexes this wage to the inflationary rate.

This year, our Democratic Congress managed to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade. While they accomplished a great step forward for the working class, we all know that prices are rising fast and that Congressional Republicans will try to obstruct fair wages whenever they can in the future.

Wages shouldn’t be a political issue. We need to establish a living minimum wage, then index it to make sure we don’t have to constantly revisit the issue and risk another decade of growing income inequality.

Moreover, there are persistent problems with our national tax policy that we have to address. The tax burden in this country has been unfairly and untenably thrown onto the backs of middle and working class Americans. The Republican Congress and the Bush Administration never met a tax break for the rich they didn’t like, and were always quick to label their giveaways as “helping the middle class.”

The farce has to stop. The Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans need to expire, and we need to reform the Alternative Minimum Tax, so that we can relieve the pressure on the middle class.

Rising oil prices, skyrocketing health care costs, and the subprime mortgage meltdown are all creating an unprecedented economic divide between rich and poor. Abraham Lincoln noted just about 150 years that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” It’s time we stopped using the Congress to foster divisions in this country.

We need to start working now to fix our broken economy and create a more equitable society.