Is the American Dream DOA?

As summer starts to fade, the national political machine starts to heat up.

Republicans are now gearing up to take aim at President Barack Obama's administration, and they are hopeful that they will take back the White House and guide the country in the direction they see fit.

Here's a news flash. I seriously believe neither party gets it. America – Land of the Free, Home of the Brave – ranks among African nations in its level of wealth inequality.

We have liberals who will stress the importance of the safety net of social programs to catch the many millions of Americans who are now more then ever falling through the cracks. Conservatives preach the philosophy of more freedom for the wealthy to grow their wealth with the hope that that wealth will move through society.

The bottom line is neither party is bold nor in touch enough to realize the growing disparity of wealth and quality of life in the United States is a threat to all of our ways of life. The age-old ideal of working your way into the American Dream and of this being the land of opportunity is dead. The bottom-most tier in this country has ZERO wealth. The intermediate-level tiers – the supposed "middle class" – has between 12 and 16 percent of wealth. The wealthiest of Americans now occupy the top .01 percent of America's population and own a staggering 84 percent of America's wealth.

They pay lower taxes than any other Western nation and have influences similar to kings and dictators in less developed countries. Many have heard Warren Buffet's thoughts on the way that the wealthy are taxed, but what was more poignant was his statement that "everyone in this country owes their good fortune in some way to the rest of the country." Say something like that around a member of the Tea Party and you might be accused of treason.

We are living in a society where the head of Goldman Sachs lobbied for relaxed regulations to create an expansion of wealth never seen in the history of the world. This same Wall Street CEO had a yearly salary of $35 million. When the housing bubble burst, and Wall Street along with the global economy began to tank, this CEO was nominated to be the secretary of the Treasury by George W. Bush. To be able to assume the office, he had to sell off his shares of Goldman stock, which netted him $535 million. Thanks to the Bush administration's elimination of the high end capital gains taxes, this man – Henry Paulson – wasn't required to pay 1 cent of taxes on this incredible gain of wealth. Paulson's major accomplishment as Treasury secretary? He got the TARP bill passed to bail out Wall Street with taxpayer money.

The bottom line to this issue is we have to regain some semblance of equal wealth in this country. My generation will be the first in nearly 70 years that will not be better off than their parents. We send out kids to college and rack up insane debt doing so, so they can earn a degree to flip burgers. Meanwhile, the ultra-rich have access to our political system so they can keep the system permanently tilted to their favor.

The snappy comeback to any discussion to wealth redistribution by many conservatives is "socialism" and "this isn't Europe." I'd kill to have the wealth distribution of Sweden – a thriving Euro economy (and the girls are pretty cute). If we can't recognize that fixing issues of wealth inequality in this country is a critical issue, we will be doomed to be the era that killed the American Dream. I never thought I'd envy Europe.

Share your thoughts and observations about the wealth gaps in America. This is always an open forum.