“The Income Gap”: a “Missile Gap” for a new generation

A key “liberal” issue that actually has strong appeal fairly far across the board – centrists, moderates, even moderate conservatives, as well as liberals – is the continuing growth of income inequality. Even Alan Greenspan acknowledged that the widening spread between the rich and the poor, and the rich and the middle class, is a concern. But there is no question about it: it gets worse under Republicans, and has definitely gotten worse under the Bush administration.

But “growth of income inequality” just doesn’t have much ring to it. It’s a mouthful, sounds technical, and also prompts the counter-charge of trying to force “equality” instead of “inequality” – i.e., it’s something that only the far left liberals, the proto-socialists, are concerned about.

For a bumper-sticker and sound-byte society, we need something simple that captures it. Back in 1960, John Kennedy made a lot of campaign headway over the so-called “missile gap.” It may not have been real, but it was short and simple. “Income gap” does the same thing, plus it happens to be real. If you are liberal, you talk about the “exploding income gap between the rich and the poor.” If you want to be moderate, you talk about the “exploding income gap between the very rich and the middle class.” Both are correct, of course, even if the imagery is somewhat different.

Conservatives, of course, will claim there is nothing government can or should do about it. It’s globalization and the education premium and all that. The press will channel that view. The answer of the moderate liberal is that it is a proper function of government to make sure everyone can fight fair and square for their fair share of the pie. We can set a minimum standard for wages that is not below the poverty level, we can make sure the poor and middle class aren’t paying an unfair share of the cost of government, we can stop gutting the labor laws like Republicans have been doing for 30 years, we can make sure that unscrupulous company management can’t raid their workers’ pension funds when they mismanage the company into financial trouble, and we can make sure nobody ever has to worry about losing a life’s savings due to a health crisis. We can also present a vision – the great paradox of a free market economy that Democrats understand and Republicans just don’t get: when everyone can fight fair and square for a fair share of the pie – when the rules are not tilted too far in favor of the extremely wealthy like they have been under Bush -- the pie gets bigger for everyone.

So remember: it’s “the income gap” (comma, stupid!)