I believe the ruling class in America is the cause of our ballooning debt, over-taxation and slide into European-style statism. I believe the ruling class is not the rich but:

The public employee unions that have burdened all Americans for the sake of providing job security and Cadillac benefits for a small minority that have greater job security, better benefits and often much higher salaries than their private-sector counterparts. Government workers' salaries increase with the help of government officials whose job security is then paid for with campaign contributions and election day foot soldiers.

Permanent incumbent elected officials and unaccountable senior civil servants who cycle after cycle remain fixtures of bad behavior, feeding the unions' appetite for more workers and benefits the public cannot afford.

Executives who rewrite the rules of the free market in their favor in collusion with these unaccountable government officials using American taxpayer funds for what should be a completely private enterprise.

For all the work to bring about equality in America, little has been done to prevent these three segments of the population from being treated as if on a higher station than others.

"An elective despotism is not the government we fought for."- Thomas Jefferson

Wayne Farber

Bellingham