Is this the society our nation desires? Apparently so.
Data from the Federal Reserve shows that the so-called K-shaped economy in America is alive and well, with low- and middle-income households falling further behind as the richest Americans pull away
The top 1% of households owned 31.7% of all U.S. wealth in the third quarter of 2025, the highest share on record since the Federal Reserve began tracking household wealth in 1989.
Uneven wage growth is also contributing to the divide. Higher-income Americans have seen their wages grow at a stronger clip than other income groups. Bank of America data shows that higher-income households’ wage growth grew at 3% rate in December 2025, compared to 1.5% and 1.1% for middle- and low-income households.
Certainly the wealthiest US citizens have benefited.
That support has resulted in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA). The OBBBA provides long-term certainty by permanently extending the TCJA-era individual income tax rates
Perhaps put a closed sign on the capital and send the representatives home? Of course that puts the final nail the illusion the citizens have voice in our government is run.
Our system recognizes the need for experts to advise Congress on pending laws through the hearings process. How do you keep the wealthy from hiring lobbyists to promote their interests?
We need to return to the high art of thinking jointly, through actual engaged debate and discourse, and rid ourselves of the hordes of poseurs in office. An early step is to revive the ancient but now forgotten suspicion that wealth, popularity, and desire for ease are, if not always opposed to virtue, often dangerous to it. We need to relearn that emotions divorced from reason usually blind us to reality and often lead to disaster.
Good luck with all that.
After all that, well, “Throwing the rascals out” is a perilous but at times rewarding form of socializing.
That ship has sailed.
Our nation is now a corporatocracy. Our political parties are window dressing. In effect there is a corporate-like reorganization of the political field, merging it with economic management. Run by with a well-oiled corporate managerial class.
On a separate note the Oval Office needs a deep virus cleaning. It seems every occupant for the past 25 years has been affected by a regime change virus.
Too late, by 247 years. The first lobbyist was hired by Virginia Veterans of the Revolutionary War in 1792 to lobby for higher benefits.
There have been lobbyists for as long as there has been government - of any sort, including dictatorships. Germany was full of them, and the industrialists made out like bandits, at least until the Allies rolled in and crushed the bandits. I’m sure there were lobbyists in Ancient Rome, although I’ve not researched that.
Some that I have, however, over the year, include Ulysses Grant’s administration, the notoriously corrupt Warren Harding era (“Teapot Dome”) and others.
Hope that “influence” will go away in a democracy is unrealistic. A better use of time would be to try to figure out how to minimize it (ex; allowing endless and unaccountable funding for elections by private parties is probably not the way to go) and get power back in the hands of the people (who, by the way, also do stupid things and act in their own short-sighted self interest often enough to make that not a perfect solution either.)
ETHANOL. One pressure point was about a push by farm state lawmakers for year-round E15 gasoline – to help midwestern corn farmers. “33 percent of all U.S. corn produced is used for ethanol,” said Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA), who held out for promises of action on ethanol by the Speaker.
EARMARKS. Conservatives were unhappy with a number of earmarks in this final package, as they were allowed to offer an amendment to get rid of nearly 1,000 Senate earmarks. That lost on a vote of 291-136.
GOP GRUMBLING. 76 House Republicans refused to go along with the Freedom Caucus, as the earmarks easily survived. “With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?” asked Rep. Keith Self (R-TX).
