Winning back the American dream

To the editor:

From 1947 through 1973, production increases were closely mirrored by worker income, effectively tracking each other. Beginning in 1974, as production increases continued, worker income started stagnating, while over the last 30 years CEO pay has risen 700 percent. This practice of trickle-up economics has got to be stopped as Big Business practices its "they make it, we take it" mentality.

For the 30-year time period 1974-2004, the poorest 20 percent of Americans have seen only a 2.6 percent increase in real earnings. The next 20 percent have experienced a 12.9 percent increase. The middle 20 percent, a 23.4 percent increase, followed by the next 20 percent a 38.4 percent increase. The richest 20 percent of the population, in that 30-year period, encountered a 63.6 percent increase in realized income.

It is time for voters to reject the corporate agenda and to replace that prerogative with a socially acceptable contract between America and its middle class. According to the Center for Responsible Politics, corporations outspent labor in the 2004 elections $1.5 billion to $61.6 million, or a ratio of 24 to one.

It is time for the middle class to re-establish itself as the driving force in this country. Deny efforts to continue the exploitation of the American work force with an underground labor supply, whether it be illegal immigrants or Third World operations. Consider the funding of political campaigns by large corporations as an attack on this country's legal, established workforce and know that they are protecting and ensuring their continued exploitation of such.

MARK BAKER, President,

Central Trades & Labor Council of Cape Girardeau