The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

I've been watching this debate raging on my television screen over how America got into this economic mess. Am I the only person out there who understands why? It's wages, stupid!!! Our nation's No. 1 export is jobs, and every job that leaves drives wages down on a half dozen other jobs that don't leave. Combine that with the fact that the super rich are taxed at a lower percentage rate than people who actually work for a living. It was Warren Buffet himself who recently reported that he pays about 17 percent income tax, while his secretary, whom he pays $60,000 a year, pays 33 percent.

Do you want to solve our fiscal crisis? It's simple: People who "EARN" eight to nine figure incomes need to pay 50 percent or higher income taxes.

Now, before you kick down my front door to see if I have a "commie flag" hanging in my living room, consider this: People who "make" tens or hundreds of millions, or even billions, per year don't "EARN" that money by working a day at a time, as you and I do. It is procured through control of savings, stocks, bonds, and other ways of monopolizing financial resources both here and abroad. My point is this: the working class people are being squeezed by high taxes, stagnant wages, and run-away inflation. Letting local bazillionaires keep 100 percent of the profits they make by shipping our jobs and industrial base over seas is just going to enable them to do more and more of the same.

Ronald Regan once said, "A rising tide raises all ships." That may be true, Ron; unfortunately, they're all going to China! If the rich won't bail us out with more jobs and higher wages then they are going to have to do it with higher taxes. After all, they have all the money!