Like the gap between the fastest racers and the average runners, the gap between rich and poor in America continues to expand, risking a fundamental change to the nature of the American experiment in self-rule. Figures just released reveal the widest margin yet between wealthy and poor in the 25 years since such statistics were first compiled.
For society at large it is a disquieting trend, as is the entrenched posturing of the two major political parties caught up in the on-going debt-ceiling debate. Being a government of, by and for the People, we are fated to how well we prepare ourselves to be stewards of our mutual destinies. Today, with constituencies so markedly separate and unequal, without a moderating middle-class to bridge the divide, neither side seems capable of providing the leadership required by enlightened democratic rule. After 235 years, we may well have found the limits of the Founding Father’s grand design.
