Chapter 10 of the CQ Reader centers around inequality and the distribution of wealth in our country. The United States of America is one of the most unequal countries in the world, despite being among the wealthiest. The difficulty of so many issues facing America today is partisanship. Even the inclusion of Paul Krugman, an economist who should be a valid source in his own right, is qualified as being “liberal economy Paul Krugman”. The man is a Nobel Prizewinner and columnist for one of the most revered papers in the country, and yet his opinion comes down to whether he is a liberal or conservative.

It seems as though decreasing inequality is increasingly just a “liberal” fantasy, and that conservatives are all for augmenting the plight of the poor and working class and letting upper class people coast. I understand that this textbook of issues was created at the time of the 2016 very contentious election, but to continuously make reference to “Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders” or “Democrat Hillary Clinton” really detracts from what is supposedly the objective here: giving a view on the issue of inequality.

“Conservative economists and some liberals” discuss the history of the middle class. Why does it continuously come back to partisanship. The issue with the social sciences like economics and sociology are that so often everything seems politicized. Inequality should be an issue that all have concerns with, as it involves every single person in America regardless of where one is on the social class totem pole, and yet it is constantly grounds for debate. Instead of arguing about solutions, the apparent Schrödinger’s cat issue of the problem even existing is continuously thrown about as much as a football.

This is both a liberal and a conservative issue, both the issue itself and how it is dealt with. So much of the discussion of inequality focuses on finger pointing and blaming others, rather than offering any actual concrete policy goals to combat this. How am I supposed to take this seriously as an unbiased discussion of both sides when both sides are constantly labeled and it’s not difficult to tell who was consulted more?