•January 25, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

President Donald Trump faces a real conundrum in trying to meet the expectations of his white, high school-educated supporters. They want a bigger slice of the economic pie while Trump’s fellow one percenters want to see their taxes cut.

The incoming chief executive cannot satisfy both aspirations in our very slow-growth economy where wealth re-allocation is almost a zero-sum game. That is, to provide more for the low-skilled means taking something away from the wealthy to do it.

I am fascinated by this age-old conflict between labor and capital. That is, who should have how much of our overall wealth, and why?

Since the 1970s, more wealth has been going to the one percenters who control the capital and relatively less to those who catapulted Trump’s campaign to the presidency.

As a result, the 16 percent of us with $100,000 or more in income pay 80 percent of income taxes, according to the Pew Research Center.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.