Bushenomics - the rich get richer

The WaPo notes today that the three richest counties in America are in the DC suburbs, a fact attributed largely to the "enormous flow of federal money into the region through contracts for defense and homeland security work in the five years since 9/1... "

That stands in sharp contrast to the new Census Bureau report on the financial health of Americans. I guarantee the White House and the GOP will trumpet the stats that show median household income rose by 1.1 percent in 2005 and that the poverty level stayed the same.

However, this NYT editorial takes the analysis to the next level and gives us the numbers the White House doesn't want us to see.

But the entire increase [in median income] is attributable to the 23 million households headed by someone over age 65. So the gain is likely from investment income and Social Security, not wages and salaries.

In all, median income for the under-65 group was $2,000 lower in 2005 than in 2001, when the last recession bottomed out.

[T]he share of the population now in poverty — 12.6 percent — is still higher than at the trough of the last recession, when it was 11.7 percent. And among the poor, 43 percent were living below half the poverty line in 2005 — $7,800 for a family of three. That’s the highest percentage of people in “deep poverty” since the government started keeping track of those numbers in 1975.

As for the uninsured, their ranks grew in 2005 by 1.3 million people, to a record 46.6 million, or 15.9 percent.

The economy really is doing great. Plenty of wealth out there, especially for those who have their fingers in the military-industrial till. There's an old maxim -- you gotta have money to make money. It's never been more true. It's a great time to be a rich man in America.

But I find it hard to define an economy that leaves so much money in the hands of a few while 47 million Americans live in fear of becoming seriously ill without health insurance, and millions more are losing ground every day, as good. In fact, I find something inherently inhumane in the model and the outcomes. When productivity is up and real wages are down, it's clearly time for a redistribution of the wealth.