Shocker: Life is usually harder when you have less money.
New Study Shows Rich, Poor Have Huge Mortality Gap in U.S.
Why Poverty Leads to Obesity and Life-Long Problems
Poor Americans Hit Hardest by Job Losses Amid Covid-19
One of the biggest alleged excuses for Big Government – is the disparate impact of life on poorer people.
How the Government Can Address Inequality
Government Policies to Reduce Income Inequality
Economic Inequality and the Role of Government
Except the absolute worst way to close the “Wealth Gap?” Have government get involved.
The War on Poverty: Fifty Years of Failure
The Failure of America’s ‘War on Poverty’ in One Chart
The War on Poverty Wasn’t a Failure — It Was a Catastrophe
Study Shows Income Gap Between Rich and Poor Keeps Growing, With Deadly Effects
Because: The Wealth Gap is exacerbated – and filled in – by government. The bigger the government – the bigger the Wealth Gap. And the greater number of people who fall from above the Gap – to below it.
Because government costs are titanic. Not just in money – but in opportunity costs.
As basketball great Charles Barkley once said:
“I’ve never seen a poor person hire anyone.”
When government does stupid stuff like this:
The Top 1,409 Individual Taxpayers Pay More Than The Bottom 70% Combined
It is egregiously unconstitutional (See: The Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause).
And it is government making it much more difficult for people below the Wealth Gap to get jobs and wage increases and thus improve their circumstances. Because government is stealing the money The Rich would have used to hire them and pay them more.
President Donald Trump understood all of this. And composed and enacted his policy panoply accordingly. And his policy panoply – was all about less government.
Donald Trump Celebrates Record Success in Cutting Regulations
Fact Check: Trump Lowered Taxes for Middle Class Americans
Shocker: It all worked.
Trump’s Average Unemployment Rate Is the Lowest in Recorded History
Under Trump, Americans Have Seen Their Best Wage Growth In 40 Years:
“(D)uring the first three years of the Trump presidency, wage growth was off the charts, especially for low-income workers….”
Barely cognizant, utterly corrupt, allegedly prospective President Joe Biden understands none of this. And will impose a Wealth Gap-exacerbating more-government-policy-panoply that is antithetical to improving American lives.
Joe Biden Wants More Government-Run Health Care That Rations Actual Care for Everyone
Joe Biden Unveils His $2 Trillion AOC-Fueled Green New Deal
Biden Admits He’ll Raise Taxes on Middle Class
And as with all things more government? Poor Americans are disproportionately harmed more.
Biden’s Grand Plan for the Internet: Restore Net Neutrality, Create Municipal Broadband
Part of the Wealth Gap – is the “Digital Divide”:
“(T)he gap between those able to benefit from the internet and those who are not.
“Since the 1990s, a potent global movement, including a series of intergovernmental summit meetings, were conducted to ‘close the digital divide.’
“Since then, this movement formulated solutions in public policy, technology design, finance and management that would allow all connected citizens to benefit equitably as a global digital economy spreads into the far corners of the world population.”
Like the Wealth Gap, the “Digital Divide” is just and yet another globalist Communist attempt to grow government. To the point where there is no longer anything left – but government.
“(T)he ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”
“There is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”
Get all that?
Biden’s Addled Brain: Communists Will Be Running the Looming Administration
Everything Biden, Inc. will impose will further eviscerate the private sector – making ever more room for ever more government.
And as always with everything more government – everything will be more awful. And the most awfulness will yet again be reserved for the poorest Americans.
Poorest, Most Rural Areas of Country Hit Hardest
Rural areas of America are often the poorest areas of America.
And speaking of rural – the Digital Divide exists largely in rural America. Because we have a HUGE country – with lots of land to fill with Internet connection infrastructure.
And while a mile line of Internet cable in a city might have hundreds of subscribers defraying the costs to build and maintain – a rural mile line might have five. Our less. So it is these areas that are less likely to get connected.
Thankfully, the free market has delivered for us what we’ll call the Mom and Pop Internet Shoppes. When Comcast and Charter aren’t delivering rural service – little broadband companies are.
And guess what the Mom and Pop Shoppes think is the biggest impediment to their continuing to close the Digital Divide?
Why…it’s government.
C-Span’s “The Communicators” (Host: Peter Slen) interviews all sorts of Internet-type people. They recently spoke with ACA Connects – the association for “smaller phone, broadband, and video providers” to discuss “the issues they face.”
Shocker: The biggest issue they face – is WAY too much government.
The two guests were ACA Connects President and CEO Matt Polka – and Patricia Jo Boyer, Chairman of ACA Connects and President of rural southwest Missouri Internet, phone and cable TV provider BOYCOM Vision.
BOYCOM Vision is a Digital Divide Godsend. They have 4,258 customers. Almost all of them are practicing rural America very remote social distancing.
Everything BOYCOM does to build and maintain infrastructure – costs what it costs everyone else. A mile of trench dug and cable laid – is a mile of trench dug and cable laid. And her TV programming costs are much higher because she’s buying for 4,000 – not forty million.
So what does BOYCOM need – like they need another hole in the head? More government.
In fact, the current amount of government with which they are saddled is already overwhelmingly ridiculous.
“It’s a different story for the rural provider….
“The best thing for us is to – we operate lean and mean, and we understand our business and we understand our communities. We understand the customers we serve.
“And in order for us to do that? The best thing for us is for the government to get out of my way and let me run my business the way it is intended.”
C-Span’s Slen then asked: “Do you find Washington gets in your way?”
“Oh my gosh – how much time you got, Peter? We have office space – figuratively speaking – in our office building just for the federal government.
“Not only do you have the (Internal Revenue Service) IRS and all the public service commissions. But you’ve got the (Federal Communications Commission) FCCs.
“And every time you turn around somebody wants a piece of something for something. There’s regulatory, there’s (Environmental Protection Agency) EPA, there’s Department of Natural Resources.
“(And) we deal tremendously a lot with the Missouri Department of Conservation….We have lots of (government) entities we have to deal with on a daily basis.”
Does this sound like someone easily, breezily dealing with the light touch of government?
No, it does not.
And Ms. Boyer didn’t even mention the absurd lengths local governments go to make their doing business so much more difficult.
Want Cheaper, Better Internet? Limit the Local Government Shakedowns of Internet Providers
And Biden, Inc. is looking to dramatically ramp up the amount of government with which Ms. Boyer and everyone else will have to deal.
Which will harm Americans. Most especially the poor ones.
Under Biden, the Wealth Gap and Digital Divide will get worse – not better.
Because that’s exactly what more government always does.
This first appeared in Red State.