In case you haven't noticed, over the past two decades the people in Washington who write the laws have turned your life into a spin of the roulette wheel―actually, an endless series of spins of the wheel that begin with day care and end with retirement (if you can afford it), and affect everything in between. Overall, Washington has structured the game just as any gambling house would, so there are a few winners but a lot more losers. It's why many of us are falling further behind the harder we work, why our debt dwarfs that of our parents, why some of us receive world-class medical care and others almost none, why some can afford college but for others it has been priced out of reach, and why the wage gap between rich and poor has started growing again. In 1992 the 400 individuals and families with the highest income in the U.S., according to tax returns filed with the IRS, received on average $12.3 million in "salaries and wages." By 2000, the latest year available, that figure had more than doubled, to $29 million.
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