Don't follow the US to inequality - opinion piece

From the Labor side of politics. Why not? We're plastered with Murdoch crap. And finally someone from Labor sums it all up and gets the whole picture. The US has entrenched poverty over generations; people who can't get out of poverty through no fault of their own, forever remain in poverty with little help from the gov to aid them in getting employment. They are blamed by many as being poor because it's their fault, when it wasn't. 

Unfortunate circumstances happen to all people from all walks of life. In some cases when it happens to poor people they haven't the capacity to deal with it, financially being one of the first things to crumble, but not the least. Mental illness is a huge issue; how will we eat? how will we pay rent? will we be safe?

This gov however sees fit to target me. Me FFS. What possible contribution could I ever make to the National pissy little debt? I don't care about the debt. I care about eating and having a roof over my head. Fighting simply for survival, mentally, physically, emotionally, financially. Readers of this blog know the bla......  Why the fuck are they targeting me?

Are they trying to punish me for not being bloody catholic? Passing judgement that I made the "wrong" decisions and I deserve what I get? Isn't being HIV enough? Do they have to throw the book at me too? That's what I feel this gov is on about. 

These are the questions now being asked in the public debate following the Abbott gov's budget disaster (still in progress mind you - like watching a slow train wreck over months). Australia is rejecting the US model, and in abject horror now at what the Abbott gov is trying to do to this country:

Across the Pacific, a decade or more of wage stagnation is one of the most troubling indicators of America’s failure to share the gains of post-war, and now post-crisis, prosperity effectively. 

In one of his most fascinating speeches since leaving the prime ministership, Paul Keating attributes American wage stagnation to the fracture of the binding social philosophy of the US kicked off by the Reagan-era shift to conservatism. Published as the last chapter in his book After Words, the speech argues that this shift is marked most clearly by the radical Republican obstructionism of Gingrich in the 1990s, replicated by the Tea party movement more recently, seeking to cement structural inequality in the political framework. 

Australians are waking up to the fact that the Abbott government, with Hockey at the wheel, is now trying to drive Australia down this discredited economic and political road. Their first budget asks those on low and middle incomes to carry the heaviest load while the wealthiest gain new entitlements; a fact claimed not just by Labor politicians but proven by the independent National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM). 

Judged on their decisions to date, we now have a government that sees inequality as an objective to be met, not a challenge to be overcome. This is appalling in the here and now and devastating for the future. As Miles Corak’s Great Gatsby curve suggests, inequality in one generation breeds inequality in the next, consigning future generations to social immobility. more