It was only after the reaction to the chintziness set in that the real decision-makers realized we needed to step up to the plate and send some serious help, that it got going.

The real story in today's political scene is the continuation of Bush's history of running companies into bankruptcy and leaving everyone else holding the bag. Our Social Security System has been loaning billions to the general fund for 20 years, getting the equivalent of giant-sized T-Bills in exchange. Bush's plan is to bail out on those bonds by cutting benefits. This is neither fair nor safe, because people with nothing to lose turn into active, dangerous, and violent revolutionaries.

I'm sorry if we Democrats sound like a one-note band, always harping on the horrible state of our political situation, but from where I sit practicing law in my little one-horse office here in south Minneapolis with all these folks who are essentially lower-middle class, I can see them slipping into serious poverty. The most frequent cause for any personal bankruptcy is medical bills.

Divorce, child abuse, and domestic assaults are climbing, due to the frustrations and stress. Resources to help with these issues, even basic education standards, are disappearing. And it's not getting any better.

The middle class in this country is the consciously created result of progressive political thought, ideals, and effort. Re-shaping our tax structure and social codes is going to result in a place very much like 1870 Texas - not a very pleasant place, one in which the wealthy have to be constantly guarded, where the average education level is about third grade. Sort of like China, but with less of a future.

So we keep banging our bells and being unpleasant, hollering how the sky is falling and society's ladder is slipping into the quicksand of abandoned social mores that did indeed call for transfer of income from the very fortunate to those less fortunate.

Wealth inevitably flows towards those who have whichever fortunate combination of genes, luck, and drive results in wealth. Those who have it invariably feel they are entitled to every bit of it, and then some. Human nature.

Unfortunately, wealth trickles upward more efficiently than downwards. Which results in greater likelihood of poverty for almost everyone if you don't have a system that takes something - even if only 25% - from the top and pumps it down to the bottom, where it can work its way up again.

These days, we're looking at less than 5% taxes for the top 10% who own 90% of the country. Combine this with the elimination of the estate tax, and we are creating a generation of people who feel literally entitled to their inherited wealth vs. a much larger group who even more entitled to a fair share of that same wealth.

This is both shortsighted and disaster-prone, because sooner or later we are going to need to defend our country. If the folks doing the fighting go sour, (and it won't be the rich, we're all in serious trouble. The neo-con Republicans currently running the show are literally saying they want to weaken our government "to the point where we can drown it in a bathtub."

The question is, who is going to do the drowning?

David K. Porter
Lawyer
Minneapolis