The Decline of RomeThe Decline of RomeWealth, Selfishness, Excessive Lifestyles?Is America following in its footsteps today?Wealth, Selfishness, Excessive Lifestyles?Is America following in its footsteps today?

Problems in the Roman EmpireThe upper class in the Roman Empire was known as the senatorial class.

This class controlled the senate, bureaucracy, along with almost all the wealth.

Privileges of the Senatorial Class

In the Roman Empire, it was the rich that didn’t pay taxes.

Since they had the majority of the power, they either collected money from other people, or relied on friends or relatives in the government to tell them when taxpauyers were coming.

Problems with Anti- socialism?

While some of these senators made approximately ten to twenty million dollars each year in gold, the majority of the Roman Empire was going bankrupt.

It only makes sense that when the poor people are paying taxes and the rich are not, that there will be a significant gap between the rich and poor.

McCain Vs. Obama

Whose recovery plan seemed to be following the Roman Empire?

John McCain’s plan

John McCain’s plan is known as the “trickle down economics” plan.

In this plan, through laws and taxes we would keep money in the upper class in hopes that they will spend this money giving companies more money, and therefore providing more jobs.

Barack Obama’s plan

Barack Obama’s plan is known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

In this plan, we would put an extra tax on those people making over $250,000 each year, and give a tax cut to 95% of American citizens.

Main problem with each Plan

John McCain’s plan: In this plan, the rich continue to get richer while many of the poor may still suffer. This provides a greater risk of the rich/poor gap widening.

Barack Obama’s plan: Many people have accused this plan of being socialist.

Answer:

Based off of the problems shown with the two plans, which can you conclude is more closely following the Roman Empire’s footsteps?

John McCain’s plan

In John McCain’s plan the power is held by the rich, and the rich are wanting to keep their money if not gain more!

This may cause a problem in America through anti-socialism similar to that we had in the Roman Empire.

Who do you think said these words?

"The budget should be balanced, public debt should be reduced, the treasury should be rebuilt, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed.”

Answer:

Roman Philosopher: Cicero

Cicero’s QuoteAs we can see, this is a speech that sounds very similar to one we might hear today from President Obama.

This gives us the idea that the Roman Empire was seeing many of the same problems that we are seeing today, and based on the fact that they fell we can conclude that they did not listen to their philosopher.

Our Conclusion

We were able to conclude that because we adopted Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we are taking steps to avoid following in the Roman Empire’s footsteps.

Some Problems America faces similar to those that the Roman Empire Faced:

National Debt

$11,050,512,524,943.96! If you divided this debt between all American citizens, each citizen’s share of this debt is $36,121.89.

Budget Defecit

Example today:

Today in America, selfishness, excessive lifestyles, and upper-class advantages are still causing problems in America.

A.I.G.

In 2008, A.I.G. was going bankrupt due to poor decision making.

The government decided to give them a $150,000 bailout.

Not long after, $165 million dollars were given out in bonuses.

Fair?