From PRI, Public Radio International and KCRW Santa Monica, this is To the Point.

Income redistribution, basic fairness or class warfare.

Hello again, I'm Ormanalny, and this is To the Point from Public Radio International.

The daily look at the issues Americans care about most. The gap between rich and poor has been growing fast. Under the

Bush tax cuts, the bottom fifth of wage earners get 20 bucks a year. 118,000 goes to millionaires.

The Obama budget says wealth is not trickling down, and that raising taxes on the top

three million families will help economic opportunity to trickle up.

Republicans call that class warfare. We'll hear a debate today. We'll also look at other factors that cause economic dislocation, technology, changes in the workforce, and increased anxiety.

On reporter's notebook later on, are the days of giving defense

contractors a blank check? Really? Over? First, here's the news.

Support for To the Point comes from subscribers of KCRW Santa Monica and from the Public Radio

International Program Fund, whose contributors include the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine

T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, dedicated to the idea that all

people deserve the chance to live a healthy, productive life. Information at gatesfoundation.org.

Hello again, Warren Alney, back with To the Poet. The Obama Budget and Tax Plan would shift

America's wealth from the top down.

Is it time to close the gap between the rich and the poor, or would increase taxes stifle growth by removing incentives for the wealthy to keep on working?

Are there other causes of income inequality? That's our subject today.

On reporter's notebook, President Obama has promised a crackdown on defense contractors. Is he up to the job? First, this news update. One of the hallmarks of the last administration was the restriction on human embryonic stem cell research. Here's how former President Bush explained it.

Without crossing a fundamental moral line by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage

further destruction of human embryos that have at least the potential for life.

Today, as he promised in last year's campaign, President Obama lifted the Bush restrictions,

...