In the current political debate over the federal debt, the political rhetoric flies fast around the discussion of ‘entitlements’ which is a catch-all term used to describe the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs.   No matter that Social Security is a self-funded program, it is the cost of these ‘entitlements’ that is being used to justify not only cuts in the federal budget, but as a platform to reshape the dialogue on what the nature of government and its role in our society should be.

What is not included in the word ‘entitlements’, but should be, is tax cuts, used as a mechanism for the systemic, conscious reshaping of the flow of prosperity and wealth in the U.S that has occurred over the last three decades.

In a recent NPR interview, David Stockman, former budget director under President Reagan noted that the U.S. now raises 14 percent of GDP in taxes – the lowest since 1948.     The Bush tax cuts took 1.8 trillion dollars out of the government revenue stream.    (This graph and explanation on the deficit from the NY Times is an excellent visual for understanding the understanding the deficit structure).       As Mr. Stockman points out, federal spending has been at the rate of 24 percent of GDP, and the government has had to borrow against the gap of revenue vs. spending for the last three years.

Discussion or debate on the budget often uses the seemingly common-sense homily of  “living within our means.”   But we have allowed the scaling back of our means, consciously and consistently  and chosen, instead,  to transfer those means to an small segment of the total population, leading to profound distortions in overall prosperity and well-being for the nation as a whole.

To me this distortion is brought into relief when in the same week we can read of the rebounding of the luxury goods market, and commentary on the results of a recent report from the Children’s Defense Fund on the alarming rise of the poverty rate of America’s children over the last decade.

So, why is our tax rate as a percentage of GDP the lowest since WWII?   How does it come to pass that there has been such a profound shift in wealth accumulation to a tiny slice of the population, while an increasing number of the population finds it difficult to have good quality healthcare, stable sources of jobs and income, and affordable access to higher education (leading to long-term economic well-being).

The political debate does not include the notion that we have ‘entitled’  a miniscule percentage of the U.S. population to acquire an enormous portion of wealth –   from 1990 to 2007 alone, the top one percent  1% of the country’s wealthiest individuals’ gain on the national income rose from 15% to 27% — almost doubling in seventeen years.   Please take a moment to consider this set of figures – 1% of the nation’s population gained 27% of the national income.

What entitled this small percentage of the U.S. population to acquire this much of the nations’ prosperity?

This is not just the effect of the Bush era tax cuts alone,  but a turn of events that has unfolded over the last 30 years within a consistent climate of rhetoric that has positioned ‘government’ as a hostile, alien entity  –  from Ronald Reagan’s statement ‘ government is not a problem, government is THE problem’ to Grover Norquists ‘ starve the beast’ philosophy (the beast being the federal government), the general populous has been fed a steady diet of antagonistic thinking about the role of government.

It’s been one big con game – while the citizens of the country have been distracted by this kind of inflamed debate, there has been an a substantive shift in wealth in this country.  In this climate the cost of broad social benefit and security programs, of course, appears to be too significant for the country to bear.

When pundits and political leaders speak of entitlements, they need to include a discussion of a structure of governing that provides so handsomely for so few.

As citizens, we need to articulate dismay and activate for remedy through our representatives, our community engagement, and in exercising our right to vote for leadership that will address these concerns.