It's not just the Great Recession. It's decades of politics and policy that have led to this result. We've been building this state of affairs since the Reagan years when the focus of our national politics, and tax and spending policy, became protecting and expanding the established wealth (of older earners) rather than expanding opportunity for and creating resources to help younger generations create new wealth. When we traded in an understanding of taxation as a necessary transfer of wealth and resources between generations for nursing resentful, misguided notions of taxes as a transfer of wealth between individuals -- from the "deserving" rich to the "undeserving" poor.
The facts are this; in a broadly middle class society (as we once were, but are no longer) the greatest differences in income are determined by age. The "undeserving poor" we've been punishing are the young.
"For young people of the Silent and Boomer generations, progressive taxation and public investment provided the benefits of low cost public resources and low taxes in their low earning/high personal investment years. Higher taxation in their higher earning years wasn't a punishment for success, it was a deferred payment of a public obligation. But those generations, who, thanks to their elders, enjoyed both low taxation and the greatest investment in their economic future (in educational, cultural, physical and economic infrastructure) that any generations of man have ever known in their own youth, voted themselves, in their high earning years, tax breaks instead -- while still expecting to receive gold plated benefits as they aged."
Found this on a comment board. Amazing analysis and spot on to why people hate the rich and republican now, namely because they want to decrease investment for a successful American future.
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