On Tuesday’s episode of the NPR show, “The Daily,” New York Times reporter Jonathan Weisman offered a powerful summary of the Democrats’ original vision for the proposed 10-year, $6 trillion “human infrastructure” bill being debated in Congress.

“What the Democrats had in mind,” he said, “was a government program that would give the working class and the middle class access to the kinds of benefits that white-collar workers and the affluent take for granted.”

He went on to describe how these benefits would transform the lives of working people at all stages of life, enabling them and their children to permanently improve their standing on the American social and economic ladder. Included in the original proposal were:

• Paid family leave for pregnant women and new parents.

• Financial subsidies to make childcare more affordable.

• Free pre-K education for all children.

• Monthly payments to lift families out of poverty or allow a parent to stay home and care for children.

• Free access to community college for all.

• Lifelong skills training for workers who want to change jobs or who lose their jobs to technology.

• Healthcare for Americans not covered by an employer plan or Medicaid.

• Medicare beginning at age 60, including vision, hearing and dental benefits.

The proposal also contained several programs to protect Americans from the effects of climate change, including tax incentives for developing new technologies, upgrading the electric grid, and converting power plants to renewable energy sources.

Other provisions would improve Americans’ health, including money to fight the opioid crisis, prepare for future pandemics, and reduce maternal and child deaths. The plan would also enable Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies, reducing drug costs for all Americans.

Polls have shown that every item on this list is favored by large majorities of Americans. If we had a functional democracy, the passage of such a bill would be a foregone conclusion.

So why has it run into so many roadblocks? Why have the Democrats had to pare it down to $3.5 trillion ($350 billion per year) and most recently to less than $2 trillion ($200 billion per year)?

Much of the press coverage has focused on concerns about how much the bill might add to the national deficit. The reality is that the Democrats’ plan includes provisions to pay for every item in the bill, so it would not add a single penny to the national debt. Most of the money would come from higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy, plans that are supported by huge majorities of Americans.

So where’s the problem? This is where politics comes into play. Rich people and corporations don’t like this plan because it would shift money from their pockets to those of working people, reducing their share of the American income pie. Republicans don’t like it because, despite their newfound populist rhetoric, they have a long history of protecting the rich at the expense of everyone else.

Working Americans know from experience that most of the benefits of economic growth over the last few decades have gone to people at the top of the income scale. Government statistics support this opinion.

From 1970 to 2018, the percentage of American income going to middle-class households fell from 62% to 43%, while the share going to upper-income households increased from 29% to 48%. The proportion going to corporations increased by 50% during the same period. Meanwhile the maximum tax rate for wealthy individuals was cut from 70% to 37% and the tax rate on corporations from 49% to 21%.

In short, there has been a massive redistribution of wealth in this country over the last four decades, with money being transferred from the pockets of working Americans to those at the top through tax cuts for the rich and program cuts for the rest of us.

Republicans accuse Americans who want to see more money going to the working class of promoting “class warfare.” The reality, however, is that rich individuals and corporations (and their Republican backers) have been waging “class warfare” on ordinary Americans for decades. As multi-billionaire Warren Buffett put it in 2006, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Republicans also claim that putting more money into the hands of rich people and corporations will promote economic growth since the money will be used to create jobs and increase worker pay. But study after study has shown this “trickle-down” model of economics to be false. The best way to create jobs in this country is to put more money into the hands of working people whose spending will cause more goods to be made, thus creating more demand for workers.

The real reason why Republican leaders don’t want to shift more money to workers is that they and their lobbyist friends are doing quite well under the present system and don’t want it to change. They don’t want others to get ahead if it means that they will lose out. It’s time for American workers, regardless of party, to call for an end to this charade. Nothing will change until we do.

(Chris Stanley of Allegany, N.Y., is a retired professor of theology at St. Bonaventure University.)