Middle Class

Hoboken, New Jersey. -- This was America's deal with me:If I kept my nose clean and paid attention in school, I could go to college, even if I had to work in the summers and part-time during the school year to pay for it. Then, if I worked for a few years, I could afford to buy a house and one day make enough money to make sure my own kids got through college.And that's what happened, for which I am very grateful. That deal, and the fact that if one screwed it up the first time there was almost always a second and third chance in the land of the free, are a good part of the reason I have always thought this a great country.

Thomas Neale's recent letter to the editor employs uses usual Republican tactic of throwing out irrelevant statistics to confuse the issue of tax fairness ("The wealthy pay more than their fair share," May 14). It doesn't matter that the top 1 percent of taxpayers pay 38 percent of the income taxes. What matters is what percentage of their income do they pay in taxes - and not just income taxes, but all taxes. In the tax year of 2010, only 42 percent of federal revenue came from income taxes.

As a card-carrying member of the middle class, I couldn't be happier.A few days ago, I was forgotten.Now, out of the blue, I'm hotter than a hunky TV emergency-room doctor.Suddenly, everyone in Washington wants to know not what he can do for his country, not what he can do for his party, but what he can do for me. Move over, Al Franken. This is my decade.(If you want to know the truth, what I desperately need right now is somebody to clean my gutters. Maybe I'll put a call in to Dick Gephardt.

It was going to happen anyway, but Mitt Romney's wealth and history as a healer of troubled corporations doubly assures that this year's presidential campaign will see a return in spades to good old "class warfare. " David Axelrod, President Obama's chief strategist, put it this way to reporters the other day: "This is a candidate (Mr. Obama) who has a mission ... and that is to rebuild an economy in which the middle class is thriving, in which people can get ahead, in which everybody from Main Street to Wall Street plays by the same rules and gets a fair shake.

If you're a member of the middle class -- and you probably think you are -- Congress, President Bush and the presidential candidates have two words for you: tax cut."Sounds great," you say. But are you really a member of the middle class?To the folks at Shirley's Restaurant & Bar, a corner tavern in the heart of Curtis Bay in South Baltimore, that's an easy question. The waitress says the middle class begins somewhere in the $20,000 range and ends at $28,000 for a single earner. Her boss says the middle class stops at the $50,000 mark for a family.

ATLANTA -- A recent poll has found that 61 percent of black Americans believe that the values of poor blacks have become "more different" from the values of middle-class blacks in recent years. With the possible exception of Bill O'Reilly - who professed astonishment at the good manners of black patrons at a Harlem restaurant - no one should be surprised at those findings. There have long been two Americas - both black. One is inhabited by the accomplished, the educated, the pragmatic.

THEY TEACH America's children. They build our bridges and highways. They keep our streets safe and our factories running. They fight our wars and protect our peace. They raise the children who will be America's future. And they should be the centerpiece of presidential and congressional campaigns across the country. They are America's middle class. And they are in trouble. Since 2000, family incomes have remained stagnant while costs for the basics - a home, health insurance, utilities, gasoline, day care, college tuition - have surged by an average of 24 percent.

BOWIE -- Strutting into her 1992 re-election bid yesterday, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., boasted of her efforts to keep federal dollars flowing to Maryland -- and vowed to reduce the number of federal dollars leaving the wallets of middle-class taxpayers.During the first of six scheduled campaign kickoffs, the Baltimore lawmaker climbed atop the crowded bandwagon of middle-class tax relief."We see middle-class families taxed like the rich but disenfranchised like the poor," she said. "I'm convinced it's time to listen again to the middle class.

WASHINGTON - In a presidential election year, everybody loves the middle class. That's because nearly nine in 10 Americans consider themselves part of that vast segment of society that strives for wages to enable them to send their children to college, care for their parents in old age and retire comfortably after years in the work force. They are a part of the ritual appeal by Republicans and Democrats in each presidential election. But both parties have long spoken to this group in distinctly different ways, with varying prescriptions for help.

WASHINGTON -- Acknowledging that Democrats "have spent too much time whining and rubbing hands and worrying what our message should be," Sen Barbara A. Mikulski says theDemocratic Party should return to its middle-class roots."

With the Republicans going full swing with their war on women, and the Republican war on union employees, and the Republican war on the environment, and the Republican war on the middle class, I'm left to wonder one thing. Why do the Republicans hate America so much? Maybe they secretly joinedal-Qaida. William Smith, Baltimore

Unfortunately, Dan Rodricks ' column about our so-called "progressive" tax system in Maryland ("Land of pleasant living - thanks to your taxes, folks" March 25) has it wrong. The alleged "rate" of income tax is not the same as the true percentage of your annual income that you pay under state and federal income tax systems. You can have an apparently high rate, but given the abundance of tax shelters and various tax breaks that are available primarily to the wealthy, you can end up paying little or no tax. For decades now, the wealthy having been paying much, much less than the middle class in terms of the true percentage of total income.

If Republicans are getting ready to turn an election-year corner, settle on a presidential nominee and begin broadening their political message beyond the reality-challenged segments of the GOP base, Rep. Paul Ryan clearly didn't get the message. The $3.5 trillion spending plan the House budget chairman released Tuesday morning is a great deal like what Mr. Ryan and his tea-party-endorsed colleagues in the House offered last year - with a bit less detail in areas that got him and his party in so much trouble last year, like cuts in Medicare benefits for senior citizens.

Rick Santorum called the president "a snob" for wanting everyone to get a college education. (In fact, President Barack Obama never actually called for universal college education but only for a year or more of training after high school.) Mr. Santorum needn't worry. America is already making it harder for young people of modest means to attend college. Public higher education is being starved, and the middle class will shrink even more as a result. Over the last year, 41 states have cut spending for public higher education.

January's increase in hiring is good news, but it masks a bigger and more disturbing story -- the continuing downward mobility of the American middle class. Most of the new jobs being created are in the lower-wage sectors of the economy -- hospital orderlies and nursing aides, secretaries and temporary workers, retail and restaurant. Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain working only because they've agreed to cuts in wages and benefits. Others are settling for jobs that pay less than the jobs they've lost.

As the Republican presidential race moves to Nevada, land of roulette wheels, craps tables and slot machines, where dreams of quick riches are often broken, Mitt Romneycontinues to struggle with the political consequences of the millions he's made through the sweat of his hard-earned investments. The release of his most recent tax returns revealed how he successfully gamed the tax system by virtue of the low 15 percent capital gains rate, allowing him legally to avoid the 35 percent many other Americans pay. At the same time, his tin ear on the plight of the nonrich still plagues him, giving him a Marie Antoinette tinge.

In his campaign speeches, Vice President Al Gore tells audiences that he wants "middle-class tax cuts." Lest there be any doubt, he promises that his economic plan has "one guiding purpose: to help the middle-class families." When George W. Bush speaks of cutting taxes, he rhetorically targets the same crowd. One of his fundamental goals if elected president, Bush says, will be "to treat the middle class more fairly." But what is this middle class? Jeff Bradley, who makes $20,000 a year working for Sam's Shoe Service, a repair shop in Columbus, Ohio, has five children who receive their health insurance through Medicaid.

It's just before lunchtime at Shirley's Restaurant & Bar on Curtis Avenue. Waitresses serve up coffee and soup while two corner televisions compete with "Perry Mason" and "The Price is Right."Rose Brady, a 30-year-old waitress, is asked what price is right to get you into the middle class."At least in the 20s," she said.And where does the middle class end? "Probably about $28,000," she said. "Probably you're in the upper class, especially if two people are earning that."She is told that some congressional middle-class tax bills would reserve most benefits for those families with yearly incomes greater than $50,000.

Not just the 1 percent invest in stocks. The Democrats would have you believe that the middle class don't get any income from the stocks, so we should double the tax rate on income derived from the stock market. Where exactly do they expect the "middle class" to put their money? Saving to put kids through college, or for retirement? How about those of us who have retired and have a small portfolio of blue chip stocks whose dividends augment Social Security?

The complaint that those of us who frequently refer to the nation's breathtaking disparity in wealth and income and to its 46 million poor are engaging in "class warfare" usually comes from people, like Mitt Romney, who live in the highest end of American class structure. They always throw the red flags. "I think it's dangerous, this class warfare," Mr. Romney said of the Occupy Wall Street protests last fall. Campaigning toward yesterday's presidential primary in South Carolina, he accused Newt Gingrich, a fellow multimillionaire, of sowing "class warfare" with his criticisms of Mr. Romney's legacy at Bain Capital.