The difference between "Mr. Smith", and Cruz, is that "Mr. Smith" was actually concerned about the country, and the people, not this shell game legislators are playing today. If Cruz was concerned about the people he could have filibustered the following:
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/unemployment-rich-poor-gap-96845.html
WASHINGTON — The gap in employment rates between America's highest- and lowest-income families has stretched to its widest levels since officials began tracking the data a decade ago, according to an analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press.
Rates of unemployment for the lowest-income families — those earning less than $20,000 — have topped 21 percent, nearly matching the rate for all workers during the 1930s Great Depression.
U.S. households with income of more than $150,000 a year have an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent, a level traditionally defined as full employment. At the same time, middle-income workers are increasingly pushed into lower-wage jobs. Many of them in turn are displacing lower-skilled, low-income workers, who become unemployed or are forced to work fewer hours, the analysis shows.
"This was no 'equal opportunity' recession or an 'equal opportunity' recovery," said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. "One part of America is in depression, while another part is in full employment."
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10711
Since the early '80s, recoveries have become progressively unequal. During the '90s expansion, 45 percent of income gains went to the top 1 percent. During the Bush economy, the top 1 percent increased their income share to 65 percent. And in the current recovery, the top 1 percent have managed to capture the entirety of income growth.
http://www.businessinsider.com/95-o...the-top-1-heres-what-that-really-means-2013-9
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf
Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States (Updated with 2012 preliminaryestimates) Emmanuel Saez, UC Berkeley September 3,2013
What’s new for recent years? 2009-2012: Uneven recovery from the Great Recession
From 2009 to 2012, average real income per family grew modestly by 6.0% (Table 1). Most of the gains happened in the last year when average incomes grew by 4.6% from 2011 to 2012.
However, the gains were very uneven. Top 1% incomes grew by 31.4% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.4% from 2009 to 2012.
Hence, the top 1% captured 95% of the income gains in the first three years of the recovery. From 2009 to 2010, top 1% grew fast and then stagnated
from 2010 to 2011. Bottom 99% stagnated both from 2009 to 2010 and from 2010 to 2011. In 2012, top 1% incomes increased sharply by 19.6% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 1.0%. In sum, top 1% incomes are close to full recovery while bottom 99% incomes have hardly started to recover.
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/09/16/the-top-5-grabbed-most-of-the-americas-gains/
A new
chart from the Economic Policy Institute, using data from NYU Economist Ed Wolff, shows that more than 80% of the nation’s wealth gains between 1983 and 2009 went to the wealthiest top 5%. The top 1% gained 40% of the nation’s total wealth gain, while the next 4% gained 41.5%.
The share of wealth held by the bottom 60% dropped 7.5%.
Put another way, the top 1% gained an average of $4.5 million per household, while the next richest 4% gained $1.2 million.
http://www.epi.org/publication/the-ceo-to-worker-compensation-ratio-in-2012-of-273/
The CEO-to-Worker Compensation Ratio in 2012 of 273 Was Far Above That of the Late 1990s and 14 Times the Ratio of 20.1 in 1965
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/05/29/the-rich-and-famous-at-the-farm-bill-trough/
These examples are not exceptions but the norm. The USDA’s
Economic Research Service reports that two-thirds of the farms with income exceeding $1 million annually received government payments averaging $54,745 in 2011. Meanwhile, just 27 percent of farms with income of less than $100,000 received payments—averaging just $4,420 in 2011.
The top recipient of subsidies in the EWG data base is Riceland Foods, Inc., self-described as “the world’s largest miller and marketer of rice.” It collected $554,343,039 between 1995 and 2012. According to
news reports, Riceland reported sales of $1.16 billion during 2011–2012, the fifth consecutive year of billion-plus revenues for the company.
Members of Congress and their families routinely collect subsidies as well. For example, Lynda L.
Lucas, the wife of House Agriculture Committee chairman Frank Lucas (R–OK), collected $40,613 in payments for their farm in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma. (Lucas has served on the Agriculture Committee since he was first elected in 1994. He became chairman in 2011. Lynda Lucas has received four payments between 1999 and 2003, a fifth in 2007, a sixth in 2011, and a seventh in 2012.)
Likewise, the Iowa
family farm of Senator Charles
Grassley (R–IA) has collected $955,192 in taxpayer subsidies from 1995 through 2012. (Grassley served on the Agriculture Committee since 1992. The Grassley farm has received payments each year from 1995 to 2012, according to the EWG.)
The payments have proved irresistible even to environmental groups that openly criticize the impact of subsidies on land use. For example, the
Nature Conservancy accumulated a whopping $4,795,786 from 1995 through 2012 despite its own
findings that such payments promote the conversion of natural habitat to cropland—threatening wildlife in the process. The
National Audubon Society collected $932,801 from 1995 through 2012, according to the EWG