The Middle Class Redefined

Government and Politicians always discuss the writ of passage in becoming part of the middle class. We hear it all the time “Everyone needs to be able to have a shot at joining the middle class in this country.” Boiled down into simpler terms, the poor are offered the opportunity to become rich albeit not rich enough to be in the “Tax the rich group.”

It’s a little like the “red neck” jokes. You know you’re not middle class if you get paid the minimum wage. Usually “flipping hamburgers” is substituted for “minimum wage.’ In reality, it doesn’t matter what the minimum wage is raised to, you are still flipping hamburgers. So if the wage is raised, it is still not enough and never will be no matter how high it is raised. The minimum wage will not support a family of 4, it never has and never will, but by God the bleeding hearts on the nightly news think that this is rank with injustice.

Owning a home and two cars with the bank and no savings also is not middle class. You look good, but you’re only two paychecks away from divorce and being homeless. You have all of the trappings of having made it to the middle class and as far as the government is concerned, you are a poster child for the poor who are looking in the window.

IMHO the real middle class comes from a three generation mix of one family, the grandparents, their kids and their grandkids. And the whole thing is predicated on the fact that the grandparents have enough savings to weather the storms of their children. Marriage tends to give the unit structure.

The government is selling the idea of education as a writ of passage into becoming middle class. The same thing happened after the civil war, you became an independent share cropper, working for yourself. And ended up owing your sole, to the company store for forever and a day, and they didn’t care if you were black or white, money is money.

So when Obama gets up and wants a college education for everyone, to allow graduates the ability to join the middle class, how is that going to work? The student loans are a debt that will never be paid by over 70 percent of the applicants. They will never earn enough to pay the debt and support their children at the same time. Notice a college education does not come with a guarantee of a better job with higher pay when you graduate. Especially if you are majoring as a librarian, astronomer, historian or any other degree in liberal arts. Nobody is claiming that the dream won’t work for you, but the odds are stacked against you.

We need to recognize what politics considers the “Middle Class.” It is a carrot on a stick. It is an abstract place we all want to be, and frankly I am only getting there now, when I am almost too old to enjoy it.

It was the middle class that fought England for our freedom from unjust foreign taxation in 1776. Fast forward to today, and we still have someone taxing everything, but there is no foreign power levying usurious taxes an ocean away rather it’s our own Congress. “Middle Class” is a Congressional euphemism for tax payer. You cannot tax the poor, they make too little, you cannot tax the rich; they’ve already paid the tax on what they have earned.

From a personal standpoint, the title, Middle Class means you have made it. The importance of the title means you feel somewhat obliged to pay taxes. The Middle Class is beginning to comprehend the new economic order; the poor deserve more of the wealth generated by the middle class. The real reality is a little like forcing a hooker to give discounts to the poor; she won’t have her heart in it, let alone her body.