The Inner Party and Democracy Essay Example

In the dystopian 1984, George Orwell writes a cautionary tale where the government is in complete control, the majority of the population lives in poverty, while the inner-party lives in indulgence, and democracy does not exist. Today, in America our major staples are economic mobility and democracy, but what if the people are not as in control as they are led to believe. Do money and social class play a role in our democratic system? According to the federal reserve, the top one percent of Americans owned sixteen times time more wealth than the bottom fifty percent of the American population. In June 2021 it was documented that the top one percent controlled forty-one trillion dollars while the bottom fifty percent only controlled short of three trillion dollars. At first glance, this may or may not sound like a problem to anyone. Usually, people are pretty split on whether or not it is ethical for a small group to own much more money than an exponentially larger group. But people are missing the bigger picture on why this is a problem. The tip of the iceberg is taxes. In 2021, a team of IRS analysts recorded that the top one percent are responsible for roughly about thirty-six percent of all uncollected taxes a year and would add up to one-hundred and seventy-five billion dollars which are five percent of all federal revenue. Now obviously this can create problems for many Americans when the government doesn’t receive the funds they need. Not to mention, that middle-class taxpayers often pay more in taxes than the top point of one percent. So how do they get away with this and why should we be worried? One of the major reasons this can happen is because the one percent’s income is much more difficult to track. With the majority of Americans, there is a clear income stream with lots of third-party reporting. This makes sure that all low and middle-income earners are paying their fair share and are actually only accounting for only 1 percent of misreported income. As for the top one percent, they rely on income streams with little to no third-party reporting, this is usually through proprietorships or rent. This is further exacerbated by the government simply not being equipped to track sophisticated tax evasion. Over the years, there have been many budget cuts and the technology is becoming more and more outdated. So the solution would be to increase the budget to better check the top one percent and make sure they’re paying their taxes. This would ultimately be up to mostly congress and the president. This is where democracy finally comes into play. In America, there are two major parties: the Democrats and the Republicans. Theoretically, this gives everyone a fair chance to decide what happens in America on a fiscal level. Over the years there have been many “far-left” career politicians who have promised major tax reforms, but there hasn’t been much change. This can be explained by a tactic called lobbying. A lobbyist is someone who represents a person, business, or organization and their sole purpose is to influence politicians. This can be good or bad. In this specific case, these lobbyists are representing major corporations and are throwing massive amounts of funding to politicians to influence their legislation and budgets. This is ultimately why many budgets include lots of tax breaks and why tax bills never seem to follow through. Now the largest misconception is that only republicans work with these kinds of lobbyists and are fully responsible but that is simply untrue. In fact, on average Democrats receive more money than Republicans from lobbyists and have been caught in many scandals on unethical lobbying practices. Now, this is just barely scratching the surface of how lobbing is truly changing democracy and how the one percent is intertwined with government. But, this does lead to my conclusion that no matter what party you vote for, corporations have found a way to manipulate and bribe politicians into protecting their money. And as corporations expand there’s no telling just how much more influential they can be. At worst, our government will just be the one percent and they can call themselves the inner party.