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warfare from the top down. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans received
30 percent of the tax cuts; the next 19 percent got 43 percent of cuts—mean-
ing that the top 20 percent got 73 percent of the cuts. The “middle” quin-
tiles got about 25 percent of the tax breaks, leaving about 1 percent for the
bottom quintile, or the poorest 60 million Americans.
If one looks at the cuts in terms of actual cash, the numbers are equally
dismal. The Lowest quintile, those 60 million or more mentioned above, saved
about $1400 between 2003-2012, or about $160 a year. The middle quintile
saved about $10,000, or a little over $1000 annually. But the fourth quintile
saved $16,000, while the top quintile saved $62,000 per year. The top 1 per-
cent, however got the lion’s share of cuts, saving over $500,000 over that
9-year period. Shown another way, those who had incomes less than $10,000
a year got $349 in savings over that period, or under $40 a year. The group
making $100-200,000 meanwhile paid about $40,000 less in taxes; those in
the $200-500,000 range paid $75,000 less; incomes between $500,000-1 mil-
lion had tax bills that were $190,000 below their previous rates; and those
making more than $1 million annually paid $1.2 million less, or $110,000 a
year. Not only did the wealthiest individuals get substantial tax cuts, but the
corporate tax rate by 2011 stood at 15 percent, less than half that of the
Reagan years, which had been the gold standard for corporations getting tax
cuts. Those enormous tax cuts, of course, meant that the rich would have
more money while the rest of America was stuck in neutral or even did worse.
Today, the top 1 percent of Americans own 42 percent of the nation’s financial
wealth; the next 4 percent own 30 percent, and the the 6th through 10th per-
cent hold another 13 percent—which adds up to 85 percent of the financial
wealth owned by just the top 10 percent of Americans. Those in the next 10
percent range [the 11th through 20th percent of wealthholding] have 11 per-
cent. The bottom 80 percent, again over 250 million Americans, have 5 per-
cent of the national wealth.
With such a massive disparity of wealth, and so much cash being held in
so few hands, those at the top of the economic pyramid, the “haves,” needed
to find places to put their money as again there was a surplus of capital.
Investors had been wary since the tech bubble of the late 1990s burst and the
shocks of 9/11 caused a recession, so the Fed kept interest rates low to
encourage borrowing and investment. Still, the aftermath of the terrorist
attacks and the wars in the Middle East led to a general sense of caution