I arrived in Iowa late tonight to volunteer again for the Edwards campaign and was startled to find former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on TV telling me that the most important thing right now is not politics but to celebrate the birth of Christ (I am not making this up: that’s a quote). A couple of centuries ago a guy named James Madison wrote a Constitution for this country which included Article VI which states that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for any office or public trust.” As if we haven’t been taken light years away from the vision of the Founding Fathers by our current “faith based” administration, we’re now looking at a Republican frontrunner who makes George Bush look like a religious slacker.

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In an astounding article entitled “Report Says that the Rich are Getting Richer Faster, Much Faster” (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/business/15rich.html?_r=1&oref=slogin), the Dec. 15 New York Times reports that the Congressional Budget Office found that household income for the top 1% of Americans rose 42.6% over the three year period 2003-2005 while the national average was only 10.6%.  But wait, there’s more!  It gets WORSE AND WORSE the less you make, with the lowest increase being in the bottom 20% whose households income rose only 1.3% over those three years.  Of course the Bush welfare plan for the rich (otherwise known as his tax cuts) helped as the average tax rates for the top 1% actually declined while their income was rising, so that the share of their income paid as taxes actually went down as their income was rocketing up.  Good times!

This story was on page C3 of the Times reflecting how important it is in our national consciousness (at least the Times reported it: neither USA Today nor the Wall Street Journal could be bothered to do so).  We’re in the midst of an interminable Presidential race and, with the exception of John Edwards, no one – absolutely no one—is talking about this destruction of any sense of equity in our nation.  Let’s blame it on immigrants: maybe then someone will notice.

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