● White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making
By Nicholas Carnes
Essay by author via NewsObserver.com
On both sides of the aisle, the vast majority of our lawmakers come from the most privileged slice of American society. If Barack Obama, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell sat down to talk about how to solve the budget impasse, no one at the table would have a net worth under $1.7 million.
And they aren’t alone. Working-class jobs – manual labor and service-industry positions – make up a majority of our labor force, but people from those kinds of jobs make up less than 2 percent of Congress. Meanwhile, millionaires – who make up less than 5 percent of the country – control all three branches of the federal government: They have a majority in the House, a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate, a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court and a man in the White House.
