Paradigm shifts change our economic future

The current emphasis on cutting government spending rather than increasing taxes is a paradigm-shifting event in the United States. If successful this movement, coming on the heels of the Great Recession, will probably push the national economy into a double-dip recession in late 2011.

This paradigm shift is also exposing a rift in the American social fabric. Over several decades, the reduction of marginal tax rates for the wealthiest Americans has widened the income gap for U.S. citizens. Rather than leveling the playing field, it has created a high ridge of the wealthy and a broad plain of middle- and lower-income…