SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
mitch mcconnell
5 Facts That Show the Enormity of US Inequality
Well-off Americans have quietly conspired for over 40 years to transfer the riches to themselves, leading to a state of inequality that leaves the entire bottom half of our country with only about 2.5% of total national wealth.
Jul 12, 2025
The Trump administration wants us to believe that lower-income Americans, especially Medicaid recipients, are the biggest drain on the country's wealth. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Well-positioned Americans have quietly conspired for over 40 years to transfer the riches to themselves, leading to a state of inequality that leaves the entire bottom half of our country with only about 2.5% of total national wealth.
Whatever wealth exists among America's poor should not be taken away because of some ignorant prejudice of the rich. Following are some of the insidious effects of greed and blame-passing.
1. The Richest 1% Have Transferred a Third of America's Wealth From the Bottom 90% to Themselves
A Time report, referring to a Rand study, estimated that "the cumulative tab for our four-decade-long experiment in radical inequality... crossed the $50 trillion mark by early 2020."
To put $50 trillion in perspective, total U.S. wealth at the end of 2023 was about $150 trillion.
Elon Musk is leading the prospective trillionaires with over $400 billion at the end of June, 2025.
Yet with all this wealth rising to the top, American billionaires, according to economist Gabriel Zucman, have an effective tax rate of 8%.
2. Taxes Owed on Decades of Stock Market Gains Will Be Wiped Out When the Rich Kids Inherit the Wealth
In a blatant example of a system exploited by the wealthy, the tax code includes a so-called stepped-up provision which allows the super-rich to leave much of their multi-trillion-dollar stock market fortunes to their children with all the accumulated gains magically erased, and thus, in many instances, without a single dollar in taxes coming due.
It is estimated that by the middle of this century anywhere from $84 to $124 trillion in assets will be transferred to heirs, much of which will qualify for the tax-free stepped-up provision. So much for our meritocracy.
3. The Richest 1% Have Enough Money to Buy Almost ALL the Houses in America
A Redfin report explains: "The combined value of nearly 100 million U.S. homes reached $49.7 trillion at the end of 2024, while the combined net worth of America's wealthiest 1% has grown to a record $49.2 trillion."
4. The World's Richest 1% (40% of Whom are Americans) Emit as Much Pollution as Two-Thirds of Humanity
Oxfam summarizes: "The richest 1% of the world's population produced as much carbon pollution in 2019 than the 5 billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity."
5. The Poor Are Being Systematically Diminished
After 40 years of growing inequality, the "Big Beautiful Bill" is about to make it even worse.
Almost 12 million Americans are expected to lose healthcare coverage with the trillion-dollar Medicaid cuts. Major health research cuts are planned for the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most damaging could be the impact on the kids. Even though nearly 1 out of 5 households with children in America experiences food insecurity, the administration is cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by a quarter-trillion dollars over the next decade. A Propublica report states: "The staff of a program that helps millions of poor families keep the electricity on, in part so that babies don't die from extreme heat or cold, have all been fired. The federal office that oversees the enforcement of child support payments has been hollowed out. Head Start preschools, which teach toddlers their ABCs and feed them healthy meals, will likely be forced to shut down en masse.."
And at a time when young students are struggling to deal with the pressures of a social networking society, the administration is cutting over a $1 billion in youth mental health funding.
The poor seem to have nowhere to turn. A Vera report explains: "Almost every state has at least one law that bans activities people experiencing homelessness engage in simply to survive. Laws that prohibit panhandling, loitering, living in vehicles, or sharing food and water in public spaces all discriminate against people experiencing homelessness, as authorities eject them from public spaces, confiscate and destroy their property, and transport them to mass shelters and jails."
The Republican Response
U.S. Vice President JD Vance shrugged off the "minutiae of the Medicaid policy." President Donald Trump agreed that Republicans were "not doing any cutting of anything meaningful."
But just in case the cuts turn out to be meaningful for Americans, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) assures us that they'll "get over it."
In Trump's world of wealth and status, tolerance for poor Americans has turned into an ugly sense of disdain.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Medicaid Defenders in Wheelchairs Arrested Ahead of Senate Vote on 'Betrayal of a Bill'
"If you're zip-tying grandmas protesting losing healthcare maybe you're not the good guys in the story?" quipped one critic.
Jun 25, 2025
Dozens of peaceful protesters including people in wheelchairs were arrested inside a U.S. Senate building in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday while protesting Republicans' proposed cuts to Medicaid spending in the budget reconciliation package facing votes on Capitol Hill in the coming days.
The group Popular Democracy in Action said that "today, over 60 people were arrested in the Russell Senate Building Rotunda in a powerful act of nonviolent civil disobedience" against "cuts to essential social programs like Medicaid" and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Protesters were zip-tied and dragged from the building by police after demonstrators unfurled three large banners inside the rotunda with messages calling on lawmakers to protect Medicaid and other essential social programs. One of the banners read, "Senate Republicans Don't Kill Us, Save Medicaid."
If you’re zip-tying grandmas protesting losing health care maybe you’re not the good guys in the story?
[image or embed]
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 2:51 PM
The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act being pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump would slash federal Medicaid spending by billions of dollars, introduce work requirements for recipients, and impose other conditions that critics say would result in millions of vulnerable people losing their coverage in order to pay for a massive tax cut that would disproportionately benefit wealthy households and corporations.
"Nearly 80% of Americans support preserving and expanding Medicaid, yet this bill would do the opposite—slashing $880 billion from care to fund $4.5 trillion in tax breaks for billionaires," Popular Democracy in Action said in a statement. "Over 16 million people could lose coverage over the next decade if the proposed spending bill passes, and new work requirements threaten to strip lifesaving care from those who need it most."
Popular Democracy in Action said Wednesday's press conference, which preceded the civil disobedience, "underscored the urgent need for Congress to divest from endless wars abroad and invest in our communities at home. Participants have one clear message for Senators currently debating the bill: 'We need to kill this bill, before it kills us all.'"
"Nearly 80% of Americans support preserving and expanding Medicaid, yet this bill would do the opposite."
In addition to Popular Democracy in Action, groups including the Service Employees International Union, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), Debt Collective, Stand Up Alaska, Action NC, Arkansas Community Organizations, and American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) took part in Wednesday's protest, which followed similar past actions in defense of Medicaid.
"Yesterday was the three-year anniversary of the deadly, disastrous Dobbs decision that has literally put our lives on the line," PPFA president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said at the protest. "In this big, bad betrayal of a bill there is a provision to defund Planned Parenthood."
"Half of our patients rely on Medicaid to get access to care. What they would do, is put at risk a third of all of our health centers, and there's nowhere for our patients to go to be absorbed into the system," she continued. "That puts at risk access to contraception, breast exams, cancer exams, wellness exams, access to STI testing and treatment—just to give billionaires a tax break."
"And here's a kicker, for the 1 million patients who rely on that care, 90% of those health centers are in states with abortion access," McGill Johnson added. "So we need to call this what it is: a backdoor abortion ban."
Earlier in the day members of these groups were joined at a press conference by U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who condemned the GOP bill.
"I'm the point person for the Democrats in this fight—and it's the most important fight I've ever been in, because this battle this week is going to determine the future of American healthcare," said Wyden. "Are you for caviar or kids? Mar-a-Lago or the middle class? Hedge funds or healthcare? I know what side you're on—now we have got to make sure that a whole lot of Senate Republicans make the right choice too."
While it is uncertain how many—if any—upper chamber Republicans will oppose the bill, more than a dozen House GOP lawmakers claimed Tuesday that they would not back the Senate's version of the legislation due to Medicaid cuts.
Both chambers of Congress are scheduled to recess for the July 4th holiday next week. Trump is pushing lawmakers to vote on the package before the break. Under reconciliation rules, both chambers must pass identical versions of the legislation.
Most proponents of the bill are determined to pass it with the Medicaid cuts. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that "failure is not an option."
"I know a lot of us are hearing from people back home about Medicaid," McConnell noted. "But they'll get over it."
#WeWontGetOverLosingMedicaidRepublicans don’t GAF about us…📌 Today, Capitol Police are threatening to arrest people in wheelchairs.📌 Yesterday, McConnell said “failure is not an option” and this…
[image or embed]
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) June 25, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Participants in Wednesday's protest vowed to keep battling to preserve Medicaid.
"The stuff we're fighting for, the kind of healthcare, long-term services, housing, well-paid work with paid days off and benefits—those are the things we've fought for for 50 years," said Mike Oxford of ADAPT. "We've been fighting for years... we're not backing down."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'This Is a Start': Senate Democrats Hold Floor Overnight to Protest Vought Nomination
Democrats "should be blowing past McConnell-level obstruction in a way that makes it look like business as usual," said one commentator.
Feb 06, 2025
Democrats took turns speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate into the early hours of Thursday morning in a show of opposition to President Donald Trump's pick to lead the White House budget office and the new administration's lawless broadside against key federal agencies—an assault led by unelected billionaire Elon Musk.
Facing growing pressure to use every tool available to obstruct an administration that they have characterized as authoritarian, Democratic senators are expected to take up all 30 hours of debate on Russell Vought, a right-wing extremist and Project 2025 architect who is poised to take charge of the Office of Management and Budget.
Unless Democrats give in and grant unanimous consent (UC) to end debate—as they've done with other Trump nominees in recent days—a vote on Vought's confirmation won't take place until Thursday evening. As of this writing, the Democratic speeches are still going.
"Americans voted each of us into office to fight for them," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said after speaking on the Senate floor for an hour late Wednesday. "They do not expect us to roll over and play dead."
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) used his floor speech to spotlight what he described as Vought's plan to "gut programs for working families" and "give massive tax giveaways to billionaires."
Watch @SenJeffMerkley lay out Project 2025 Architect and OMB Director nominee Russell Vought’s three-step plan to:
Gut programs for working families
Borrow trillions and run up debt
Give massive tax giveaways to billionaires pic.twitter.com/2oasfZJvfv
— Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) February 5, 2025
For experts and activists who have been urging the minority party to put up a fight in the face of Trump and Musk's destructive rampage through the federal government, the marathon protest against Vought's nomination was a positive sign—but not at all sufficient.
"This is a start but, to be clear, still nowhere close to maximum obstruction," Andy Craig, an election policy fellow at the Rainey Center, wrote on social media. "No UC, on anything. No unrecorded votes, on anything. No waiving rules, on anything. Fight even on adjournments. Quorum calls every time you can. Make every dilatory motion in the books and new ones you just made up."
"If you're not miserable every day with long hours and tedious constant votes, you're not making them miserable, either," Craig added. "Make them miserable."
While Democrats don't have the votes in the Senate to tank Trump nominees, they can severely derail the chamber's day-to-day functions in many ways. The progressive advocacy group Indivisible lists a number of them:
- Deny a quorum to completely freeze Senate business. If Republicans don't have 51 votes on the floor, Democrats can walk out, preventing the Senate from doing anything at all.
- Force Republicans to waste time by making them repeatedly prove they have a quorum instead of passing harmful legislation or confirming extremist judges.
- Make governing a miserable experience for Republicans by keeping them tied up in procedural delays instead of letting them cruise through their agenda.
- Any senator can object to a unanimous consent request, forcing Republicans to take the slowest and most painful route to pass anything.
- Blocking UC forces roll-call votes, debates, and delays on even the most basic motions, eating up hours (or days) of floor time.
- It kills fast-track confirmations. Many of Trump's judicial nominees sailed through last time because Democrats didn't force votes on each one. This time? Make them work for it.
"The easy way to think about this is when you're going and talking to your Democratic senator, you say 'Hey, imagine you are Mitch McConnell in the minority, and then do what that asshole would do,'" Indivisible co-executive director Ezra Levin said at a rally earlier this week.
But Craig argued late Wednesday that Democrats "should be blowing past McConnell-level obstruction in a way that makes it look like business as usual," including by breaking Senate rules.
"Mitch didn't do even 1% of what could be done by a minority determined to keep the Senate grinding in circles getting absolutely nothing done," Craig wrote.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular