The biggest problem in America today

Is it the war in Iraq? High gas prices? The effects of global warming? The continuing plague of the American League's designated hitter rule?

Some would argue -- and on any given day, I might agree -- that it's the steadily growing gap between rich and poor, a.k.a. income inequality. A new story published today by that bastion of left-wing thought the Wall Street Journal only bolsters this perception. As the rest of the nation simmers in a frying pan of rising food and gas prices, a sluggish economy and a wave of foreclosures, how's the other half -- er, 1% -- doing?

Better than ever. According to IRS data obtained by the WSJ, "the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income in two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929." At the same time, "the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years."

In other words, if you get the sense that the rich are in fact getting richer while everyone else struggles to stay afloat, you are not a whiner engaging in class warfare, but rather an objective observer of a measurable phenomenon. The question now is, what are you going to do about it?