PUBLIC POLICY: Stop Professing Your Love for the Middle Class and Actually Do Something By Prof. OREN M. LEVIN-WALDMAN

Dr. Oren M. Levin-Waldman, Ph.D.

Another State of the Union Address and the middle class is miraculously back in the news. The President wants to lower taxes on the middle class and raise taxes on the wealthy. This, he claims, will redress some of the ill effects of wage stagnation over the years coupled with rising income inequality. The Republicans, of course, all but said that his proposals were dead on arrival. Of course, the President had to know that before he even made these proposals. So why bother? Well to use the middle class as a wedge against the Republicans. To which the Republicans respond that it is his policies and those of the Democratic Party that have hurt the middle class.

And on and on it goes with the same claims, counter claims, name calling, and stale proposals that have been offered for the last 75 years. The casual observer watching this game of tit-for-tat would rightly conclude that neither side really cares about the middle class, ...