The United States is a democratic society in which every person has an opportunity to grow, invest, and become rich. However, Sarah Glazer in her chapter “Wealth and Inequality” suggests that these opportunities appear to be occurring less often nowadays as the income gap between the rich and poor is growing exponentially. According to Thomas Piketty, a professor of economics, there is an increasing economic inequality in American society today, such that invested money is growing much more than income driven money; so the rich who own the investment money are growing wealthier, while the rest of America, who are trying to make their stagnant income keep up with their daily living expenses, is becoming more destitute. Emmanuel Saez, professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley says that the richest ten percent of Americans make up half the income in the United States.   Moreover, the top one percent richest had an income rise of 31 percent after the most recent recession, compared to the other 99 percent of society that had an income gain of less than one percent. Thus the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. This reflects a lack of opportunity for those who are starting out with less- a finding that is incongruent with the values of our democratic society.

Professor Hacker of Yale University says that the middle class has not grown because of government policies that protect the rich. This would suggest that one way to remove such injustice is to tax the rich of society such that they pay their fair share of income tax. I am not advocating that their tax rate should go up to a very high level so that it discourages income growth, but rather that the rich should pay the full tax dollar amount associated with their tax rate. The government should ensure that there are specific fair tax rates for every income level and there should be no loopholes or tax breaks that enable one to avoid paying or reducing the rate of one’s taxes. Many of the rich, although taxed at a higher bracket than the poor, end up paying fewer taxes than low and middle income families because they either hide their income altogether or use deductions and loopholes that either help them avoid paying any taxes or reduce their tax rates to a much lower level. In contrast, those who have less income don’t have the advantage of having investment money that enables them to reduce the amount of taxes they pay. I would propose a fair tax system, one with income-driven tax rates, that ensures that people fully pay their taxes; there should be no tax deductions allowed because they provide a much greater advantage to the rich who often shelter their money and thereby pay fewer taxes. This appears to me to be a more democratic policy which taxes everyone fairly based on income and does not allow the rich to unfairly avoid paying their due.