Homesteads, Mexico, and Saving the American Middle Class

One of the critical priorities that I will carry with me to Congress, should you entrust me with your vote, is the importance of making sure that every vote I make is done so with the clear intent of benefiting the preservation, the strengthening, and the enlargement of the MIDDLE CLASS.  It is a fact that since America’s founding this country has been the champion of the Middle Class.  This has made America the land of opportunity and the shining beacon drawing those “huddled masses yearning to breath free.”  Traditionally Americans have taken pride in the fact that we don’t have a privileged class of people born to “royalty.”  There has been no group that was privileged simply by the accident of birth.  But we have also taken pride in the fact that America had no permanent under class, a group of people deprived of the opportunity to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.  Part of the American cultural story  has been that we have been a culture that rewarded work and effort.  Here in America if one was willing one could improve one’s lot in life.  This reality is very clearly in danger as currently there are many forces putting pressure on that great middle class of Americans. America was built on principles that created and have sustained that great center that has come to be called the American Middle Class.  Those principles were simple and straightforward: all men are created equal, the value of work, the value of thrift, fairness, educational opportunity, government of the people, free speech and freedom of assembly, access to justice.  These and other values like them helped to shape this great country.

A classic example of how these principles transformed this new country was the Homestead Act signed into law by president Abraham Lincoln in 1862.  Eventually 1.6 million homesteads were granted and 270,000,000 acres (420,000 sq mi) of federal land were privatized between 1862 and 1986, a total of 10% of all lands in the United States.(^{[8](Wikipedia} article on the Homestead Act) As residents of the 4^th district many of you are descendants of people who benefited by homesteading when this was still the frontier. 

One of the most important results of the Homestead Act was its vital role as one of the founding elements in the development of the middle class.  It is important to note that one of the great differences between the development of the United States of today and the Mexico of today was, and remains, the attitude toward how the two governments distributed the land.  In Mexico only a few favored families were rewarded with huge tracts of land.  Often these Mexican land grants were the size of several of our counties in today’s terms.  While here in the United States the government recognized the importance of granting as many people as possible the opportunity to have a part of the “American Dream” and granted only 160 acres per homestead.  This one act distributed significant amounts of wealth to more than a million and a half individual homesteads benefiting millions of people. This has subsequently reached out to their heirs and their heirs.  This is one of those critical differences that has fueled the contrasting growth of the U S economy versus the Mexican economy. 

It was this philosophy of opening doors to allow as many as possible to enjoy working toward that dream of improving one’s life.  Whether it was through a program that sought to reward a person who was willing to work and improve the land, or to make available the best education in the world at costs that were low enough to make it possible for millions of people to achieve educational goals that were not available elsewhere.  It has been at the heart of the American character to open the door to achievement through work, educational discipline, and the entrepreneurial spirit.  If we are to maintain the middle class as a defining part of the American Dream then we must, through our government continue to enact and maintain those laws that foster the middle class. 

It is a fact that over 90 percent of the time, the incumbent in this race has voted against bills that would strengthen the middle class .  As the Republican party has evolved into the party of the wealthy and the privileged the incumbent has maintained a strict party line voting record.  This voting record shows a fundamental lack of understanding what must be done to strengthen America’s middle class.  On the other hand the Democratic candidate in the race represents a party that has equally abandoned the support of those issues that would strengthen and preserve the middle class.  I am an independent because I believe that neither of the two major parties has been supporting the middle class.  I will be that voice for the most neglected sector in American politics today.

A critical part of this is to maintain an environment where we capture the best that capitalism has to offer while controlling those elements of human greed that would seek to misuse our open markets to the advantage of a privileged few.  We must enact and preserve a system of taxation that equitably distributes the burden of maintaining our society.  Likewise those who have benefited the most from the advantages that this society has offered must recognize that they have a responsibility to bear their fair share of the taxation that a sophisticated, modern, industrialized economy requires.  During the last 40 years both major parties have allowed this burden to be shifted unfairly to the middle class.  This is the only portion of our society that has seen an increase in the proportion of their tax rates. 

Please note this excerpt from an article entitled Wealth For The Common Good.  “Taxpayers in the middle--who made more than the bottom 40 percent but less than the top 40 percent--saw an increase in their taxes, paying 15.9 percent of their incomes in total federal taxes in 1960 and 16.1 percent in 2004. Adding insult to injury, "Our children and grandchildren... will be asked to pay back, with interest, the trillions our federal government has been borrowing to offset our loss of tax revenue from wealthy taxpayers."

America’s strength has been directly connected to the dynamics of its middle class.  To maintain our culture and our society in the face of the challenges of the 21^st century we must never loose sight of those values that guided this great nation in creating and fostering the middle class.  As your representative, I will work to preserve and expand the great American middle class.