51-28A Where to get the money to start fixing American inequality

Jesse Jackson ran a strong populist campaign for president in 1988, advocating bold new policies and programs to address inequality. This prompted establishment skeptics to scoff, “Where ‘ya gonna get the money?” Jackson answered directly: “Get it from where it went.”

He meant from corporations and the rich, which had long been rigging the economic system and government policies to shift income and wealth from the workaday majority to themselves. Thirty years later, that shift has become an avalanche: Just three men – Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett – now own more of the nation’s wealth than the 165 million Americans who make up the bottom half of our population.