The Long View

From Economic Principals.  First, expectations of the future:

Some of what is going to happen over the next ten years is obvious. Global warming is going to be affirmed by experience. Human embryonic stem cell research will go forward, despite challenges in the courts.
Some is only slightly less obvious.  Social Security will be restored to actuarial balance through a mix of mild tax increases and benefit cuts.  Medicare will be preserved and, perhaps, extended through a second health-care statute.  The 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board, established by the Affordable Care Act, will gradually morph into a Health Care Fed, a geographically decentralized organization with provider input engineered into the system at every level.
The harder problems that will become apparent in the next ten years have to do with the inequality that is growing all around the world.

Then, what he expects is the answer for economic inequality:

I belong to a luncheon club whose smartest member is a longtime investment manager whom I have observed for many years, He walked out of the room after a global tour d’horizon talk the other day and said on the sidewalk in front of the building, “The only things that can possibly address inequality of a magnitude that will soon be judged to be unacceptable in this country are much higher levels of taxation on the well-to-do and a negative income tax for the poor.”  I hadn’t heard it put so simply or succinctly before, but in the circumstances I was convinced instantly that he was right.
A “negative income tax” is a euphemism designed forty years ago to avoid what otherwise might have been called a “guaranteed annual wage,” when even Milton Friedman endorsed the idea.  Call it a “disability benefit” if you prefer.  We’ve learned a fair amount since then about how to entice workers to take low-paying jobs through earned income tax credits.
Some income floor beneath which citizens are not permitted to fall is the next frontier of social policy. Universal health care was the most recent skirmish in an ongoing campaign. The US will do fine in its economic competition with the newly industrializing world as long as its social fabric doesn’t become irreparably frayed. This is the world for which we are heading, and the sensible thing to do is to prepare for it.

It amazes me that Republicans are pushing for greater inequality, and Democrats can't adequately arouse voter concern about Republican policies.  It further amazes me that people I know who are not well-to-do are actively cheering for the rich and against the government and any sane progressive tax policy.  I had a guy on Facebook tell me that increasing dividend taxes is just theft by the government.  I'm certain that I make much more in dividends (and overall income) than he does, yet he is fighting to lower my taxes, while I want them to go up for the good of the country as a whole.  At this point, I am resigned to the fact that future policy may be terrible for the country, but I may benefit greatly.  I hope that isn't the case, but about 40-45% of the middle class seems to be working for their own destruction, just to spite brown people who are even poorer.  Dumbasses.