I agree with the wealth is earned. This country needs a good work ethic. I started with nothing and have earned a lot. Bottom line is, are you happy, healthy and have a family that loves you? If your answer is no, in my book you are still poor. Second, there sure are a lot of people born into wealthy families that never worked a damn day in their life, and because of that they think they are smarter and better than those with less. You come into this life naked and all you take with you is your character, not a trailer loaded with cash. One true friend or one loving child is worth millions, stick that x factor into your comprehensive study that probably cost thousands of dollars of research money to compile. That wasted research money could of helped city employees with Christmas bonuses. I also question the accuracy of this study. So if the top 2% own 50% of all household wealth and the poorer bottom half owe 1%, that only leaves 49% for teacher and government employees. If you don’t know how to laugh you have nothing:)

Not really, income is earned. Wealth is riches obtained through retained income or it may be inherited, stolen, won etc. There is a school of thought that says that we should tax wealth rather than income, thereby distributing it more equitably.

The argument is very strong where millions are born into poverty and very few are born into obscene wealth.

The idea that wealth should be re-distributed is shocking to most Americans because we are conservatives.

ANDY ROONEY:
Democrats are liberals who believe the people are basically good, but that they need government help to organize their lives. They believe in freedom so fervently that they think it should be compulsory. They believe that the poor and ignorant are victims of an unfair system and that their circumstances can be improved if we give them help. Republicans are conservatives who think it would be best if we faced the fact that people are no damned good. They think that if we admit that we have selfish, acquisitive natures and then set out to get all we can for ourselves by working hard for it, that things will be better for everyone. They are not insensitive to the poor, but tend to think the poor are impoverished because they won’t work. They think there would be fewer of them to feel sorry for if the government did not encourage the proliferation of the least fit among us with welfare programs.

ROBERT S. MCELVAINE:
Most liberals never lost sight of the potential for evil in big government. They have consistently opposed government power in matters of personal and political belief. Liberals are not unconcerned with economic liberty, but they have come to believe that the common good requires that social justice be given a higher priority than absolute economic freedom. Conservatives are—and always have been—on the other side of both questions. They are much more prone than liberals to limiting personal and political liberties, but they place the freedom of an individual to do as he pleases in the economic realm at the top of their concerns. Social justice has held a lower priority for conservatives, from the days of Alexander Hamilton when they favored strong government as a means of protecting their economic privileges to the days of Ronald Reagan when they see government as an instrument of social justice and therefore a threat to their economic position.