by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
As the year in politics closed, Congress and President Obama were arguing over maintaining the Bush-era income tax rates. Conservatives insisted that the top 5 percent of households already accounted for nearly 60 percent of the aggregate tax revenue and that it was suicidal to hike taxes on the job-creating classes.<\/p>\n
Liberals countered that the wages of the middle class have become stagnant over the last decade, and it is time for the wealthy to pay more for others. Meanwhile, both sides talked of American decline and assumed that the federal government was either the problem or the solution.<\/p>\n
These debates were predicated on ossified notions of relative wealth and poverty as calibrated in money, and ignored that such methods of measurement are now archaic in our brave new world. Imagine if just 30 years ago we had dreamed that soon most Americans would have small mobile phones that let users talk or send text messages and photos to anyone in the world for mere pennies per minute \u2014 a veritable revolution in daily life brought about without the aid of a massive Manhattan Project-like federal effort. We have gone from “a chicken in every pot” to a “cell phone in every hand.”<\/p>\n
Could yesteryear’s Great Society have ever promised to nearly all Americans that they would soon have instant information at their fingertips on almost any topic imaginable, from treating migraines to wiring a house to a crash course in Dante’s “Inferno”? Surely the kings, corporate magnates and fat cats of the old Wall Street would have paid millions for such knowledge that is now accorded to almost anyone with a computer at home, work, school or a library, without the need of expensive specialists, scholars or books.<\/p>\n
Today, Americans have cheap GPS navigation systems superior to what jet pilots used 30 years ago. Secret agent James Bond’s gadgets seem pass\u00e9 in comparison to the accessories available on today’s iPhones \u2014 all made available to us without a government program.<\/p>\n
The country tore itself apart over healthcare in 2010. What was rarely mentioned is that dozens of cancers that were not long ago tantamount to death sentences are now treatable. For all the talk of an epidemic of obesity and couch-potato sloth, today’s 80-year-olds \u2014 thanks to new life-saving drugs, and rapid advances in correcting chronic bone, joint, hearing, vision and dental problems \u2014 often resemble yesterday’s 60-year-olds.<\/p>\n
As gas exceeds $3 a gallon in many parts of the country this Christmas, we rail about the rising cost, forgetting that in inflation-adjusted dollars, gas prices are not much more than what we paid three decades ago. Our far more cleanly burning cars get almost twice as many miles per gallon as their predecessors in 1975 \u2014 cutting our real price of gas in half.<\/p>\n
In 1970, I was once given a ride in a plush luxury Cadillac Coup de Ville. Now, a midlevel Malibu, Taurus, Accord or Camry is safer, quieter, more comfortable and replete with a host of standard features that were yesterday’s high-ticket luxury options. I would wager that a basic-model Kia would run more reliably than the vintage Bentleys and Rolls-Royces of Britain’s Royal Family.<\/p>\n
I grew up listening to scratchy vinyl records on a huge awkward needle player. Now, thumb-sized digital music pods at cheaper prices hold far more songs and play them with far better quality. Flying used to be an aristocratic privilege beyond the reach of most of the middle class. Today it is an American pastime. Cruises in the 1960s were synonymous with private yachts; now the middle class enjoys luxury liners.<\/p>\n
Three-bedroom, two-bathroom suburban houses of the 21st century are warmer in winter, cooler in summer, with far more appliances and comforts than was true of the vast mansions of the old rich of the mid-20th century.<\/p>\n
In sum, Americans are richer, healthier and have more options than at any time in their history \u2014 and in ways that do not usually register in our outdated metrics of what constitutes being wealthy or poor.<\/p>\n
Yes, there is poverty still, and tension over relative status and influence. In addition, the good life cannot always be measured by materialism alone, but by peace of mind, security and opportunities as well.<\/p>\n
Yet this Christmas we should all at least give ourselves some credit. In the last three decades, the United States \u2014 through technological breakthroughs, improved worker productivity and the importation of globalized production from abroad \u2014 has achieved a level of material prosperity for its 300 million citizens unmatched at any time in the history of civilization.<\/p>\n
Quite simply, yesterday’s royalty would not make it into today’s middle class.<\/p>\n
\u00a92010 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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About 150,000 households in a state of 40 million people now pay nearly half of the total annual state income tax. The state\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/california\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3312,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/make-the-rich-pay\/","url_meta":{"origin":1009,"position":1},"title":"Make the Rich Pay!","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Last week, President Obama reversed course once again and now wants to raise taxes on the \"rich\" making above $250,000 per year. Obama is in dire need of additional revenue after proposing a $3.8 trillion 2011 budget \u2014 containing the largest deficit in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Taxes"","block_context":{"text":"Taxes","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/taxes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1034,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-not-soak-the-rich\/","url_meta":{"origin":1009,"position":2},"title":"Why Not Soak the Rich","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services For the last two years, $250,000 in annual income has been an arbitrary line in the sand of a renewed class war. Those above it must have their income taxes raised. Those below it are deemed more virtuous and so deserving of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2010"","block_context":{"text":"December 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/december-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":173,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-kingdom-of-fairness\/","url_meta":{"origin":1009,"position":3},"title":"The Kingdom of Fairness","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services We are still borrowing more than $1 trillion a year. Barack Obama has added more than $5 trillion to the national debt in just his first term alone. Such massive borrowing is unsustainable. Someone somehow at some time has to pay it back.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":748,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/can-california-be-fixed\/","url_meta":{"origin":1009,"position":4},"title":"Can California Be Fixed?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's The Corner Recently, I was driving down pot-holed, two-lane, non-freeway 101 near Monterey (unchanged since the 1960s) when the radio blared that on a recent science test administered to public schools, California scored 47th in the nation. As I looked at the congested traffic on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/california\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1860,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/thrashing-the-job-makers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1009,"position":5},"title":"Thrashing the Job Makers","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services A\u00a0year ago Barack Obama inherited a recession brought on by financial panic following the collapse of the housing bubble. The market crash was made worse by Wall Street shenanigans and recklessness at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Job losses followed. 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