Is the growing gap between the poor and wealthy a fitting subject for public policy? Perhaps its more important to ask whether the nature of American democracy right now allows for it to be considered by elected leaders if the public wants it to be. Is the economic imbalance so drastic that it minimizes political equality? Robert Reich, who was Clinton's Labor Secretary, thinks so.
Here's a telling passage: ". . . the wealth of the Wal-Mart founders' family that year [2005] was estimated at about the same ($90 billion) as that of the bottom 40 percent of the US population: 120 million people."
