Reaping what has been sown...

The Democrat party has spent the better part of the 20th century capitalizing and advancing their careers upon the illusion "leveling the playing field" betweeen rich and poor.

The original income taxes in England and the United States were levied against those who had extraordinary wealth, supposedly to benefit the other 98% of the population.

Unfortunately, the additional revenue flowing into the Federal Treasury created a disease which affects politicians and addicts them to spending other people's money. The more they misspent, the more they were forced to take from constituents. However, they couldn't take everything from the "wealthy" sect, so they were forced to levy taxes against middle class people.

When the politicians continued to misspend that money, they had to get more by taxing the poor people. Thus, the original mantra of taxing the have's to provide for the have not's backfired on the poor people because the wealthy were able to establish fancy loopholes, shelters, and exemptions available to those with the knowledge and resources to take advantage.

Now, the majority of Americans believe the federal government has the authority to confiscate the property of the People to use in just about any conceivable manner, ranging from investigating steroids in professional sports, to providing medicine to Africans to fight self inflicted illnesses, to funding public schools, to guaranteeing secure retirement income for all Americans.

We face a major problem, because the infection suffered by politicians addicted to spending money which does NOT belong to them spreads faster then their ability to garner additional streams of revenue. Thus, we find ourselves living in a time where annual budget deficits are larger than the entire GDP of most countries around the world.

The most transparent attempt to alleviate this mess was to create "free trade" areas, via agreements such as NAFTA, which provided Americans the opportunity to purchase goods at much cheaper prices, thereby freeing up more capital for the politicians to tax.

Sadly, the politicians were too short-sighted to realize that the men who lost jobs due to NAFTA would not be able to purchase anything, instead turning to the government for assistance in the form of subsidies, food stamps, etc...

Until the People of this once great republic wake up and stop electing Congressmen willing to ignore the strict restraints placed upon them by the Constitution, our economy will continue heading towards collapse.