A Question of Fairness

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This week, NOW examines A QUESTION OF FAIRNESS:
In the United States, the idea that anyone can succeed is a vital part of our national identity. But today, the middle class is shrinking, the gap between the rich and poor is widening, and the American dream is at risk. What's behind the growing disparity that's creating a two-class society?
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A QUESTION OF FAIRNESS
On Friday, November 21, 2003, A QUESTION OF FAIRNESS, a special edition of NOW WITH BILL MOYERS, analyzes how the politics of the privileged is jeopardizing America's economic future. The program traces the roots of the growing economic inequality in the U.S. and illustrates the sometimes forgotten human toll of government policies that favor corporations over individuals through three compelling stories.
First, NOW examines NAFTA's role in the impending extinction of a cherished American way of life in the story of a once-thriving Pennsylvania mill town and the hardworking residents plunged into the desperate ranks of the working poor in WINNERS AND LOSERS.
Then, NOW reports on the tangible human costs of financial deregulation laws passed in the late 1990s by corporate-friendly politicians and the WorldCom collapse that stole the future away from so many individual investors in REWRITING THE RULES.
Finally, NOW tells the tale of the best intentions derailed by corporate greed in a profile of a Republican governor's thwarted bid to reform the nation's most regressive tax system and level the playing field for Alabama's poor in TAX JUSTICE.
"Essential to the soul of democracy is the question of fairness. Absolute equality is impossible, but can a country with great extremes between rich and poor be fair? This is an extraordinarily complicated story, and in this hour we analyze some of the examples of how real people are affected when the see-saw of economics tilts so far in one direction," says Bill Moyers. "We live in a political economy, and viewers of this report will see how what happens to America on the economic front can often be traced through what happens out of sight, behind a closed door in some political corridor of power."
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NOW WITH BILL MOYERS continues online at PBS.org (NOW). Log on to the site to for information on executive pay in relation to the average worker; for updates on the WorldCom scandal; for a job re-training resource map; for an evaluation of the state of American unions; for a comparison of an average family's tax rate to 10 of America's corporations; and more.