Spreading the wealth would be ‘finest kind’ for most Mainers

Something I read recently smacked me between the face and the eyes, as the Maine saying goes.

Truly, the information was startling and left me stunned, kinda like being struck by heat lightning, which is pretty far-fetched, but if it occurred, it wouldn’t be lethal but shocking nonetheless.

Here’s the zap, courtesy of Bill Moyers in a speech June 3 in Washington, sponsored by the Institute of America’s Future. Read into it what you wish, but here’s the summary that should leave you “head over teapot,” if you exhaust another Maine expression.

What Moyers reported was this: “The average real income of the bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers – that’s a heap of people – fell by 7 percent between 1973 and 2000.”

That statement was akin to slapping my cheek with a slimy wet cod.

Around these parts, we’re used to the disparity between Mercedes SUVs and Chevy pickup trucks; or between the McMansions – as they’re dubbed now in some silly nomenclature fad – and the family homes Mainers have lived in, repaired, added onto and refurbished, all with pride and economy. Or even, between the turn-of-the-century, shingled summer cottages and these contemporary shorefront homes dotting the coast from Kittery to Calais.

Obviously, this snapshot is a microcosm of a much, much bigger picture.

Enter Bill Moyers’ scenario. “You know the story,” he says. “For years now a relatively small faction of American households have been garnering an extreme concentration of wealth and income as large economic and financial institutions obtained unprecedented levels of power over daily life. In 1960 the gap in terms of wealth between the top 20 percent of and the bottom 20 percent was 30-fold. Four decades later it is more than 75 fold.”

Are we numb as a pounded thumb, as another Maine saying goes? There used to be a “dreamland” Americans aspired to.

To the contrary, what Moyers describes is a “neverland” where those dreams aren’t heard, let alone realized.

Moyers interviewed people in Pennsylvania but he well could have been recording many Mainers and their views today:

“They don’t ask to get rich. “They want a job that pays a living wage.

“They want Social Security to be there in their old age, for their own sake and so their kids won’t be burdened with their care.

“They want a simple, comprehensive health care system.

“They want their livelihoods and the fate of their communities to be taken into account as the elites in government and corporations measure profits, economic growth … .”

As Mainers might say, that would be finest kind. As Maine author Bernice Richmond said in her book, that would be “right as rain.”