OXFORD — Why do we let politicians and the press get away with this? It will be our undoing unless we wise up.

For the last several years, we’ve been told with increasing fervor that rich people are America’s problem. If only they’d end their miserly ways, we would have a better state and nation.

During the same time, we’ve also been told it’s all those poor people (as if only poor people profit from government largess) who are dragging us to ruin.

Such divide-and-conquer tactics work well in electioneering. It was certainly the storyline in November, with all the comments that “Republicans sign the front of checks; Democrats sign the back.”

But it’s to the everlasting shame of the media that we don’t expose this thinking for the sheer stupidity it embodies.

America needs more rich people. Mississippi is in especially short supply.

Rich people have the capital to invest in ideas that lead to jobs and more wealth for them and their employees.

That’s a good thing.

Too, rich people are far more choicy in where they put their money. Sure, some of their ventures fail and when they do they take the losses. Contrast that to the batting average of state government when it tries to pick winners and losers. Taxpayers face the $21 million loss for the beef plant at Oakland and now a $28 million loss for a solar equipment firm in Senatobia.

And most importantly, rich people don’t just invest their money in making more money for themselves. Quite the opposite. Look around you, there isn’t a town anywhere, small or large, where rich people haven’t funded parks, performing arts centers, sports facilities. They fund youth leagues, donate choir robes and scholarships. Indeed, most of the “plusses” in communities are thanks to rich folks.

No doubt there are rich people who feed on their own greed, who are hard-hearted, mean-spirited and who cheat on their tax returns. But even they support a lot of jobs building their mansions and luxury cars, dining in high-dollar restaurants, buying expensive clothes and visiting resorts.

If government isn’t going to own and run everything (Russia and China have both already tried and abandoned that notion), then some people will become rich. Deal with it. And don’t punish them for their success.

Now for the poor.

Are there leeches? Yes.

Are there generations of families in Mississippi and elsewhere whose only skill is gaming every type of state, federal and federal-state program for every type of benefit and living pretty good while doing it? Yes.

But there are also those who, through no fault of their own, are dependent. Others have transitional needs. Don’t punish them, either.

To bash the rich for being rich or to blame the poor for being poor and leave it at that — which is how discussions most often begin and end these days — is to pretend the state and nation have problems that can’t be fixed.

And that’s just not true.

There are solutions.

There are solutions that don’t require taking away Richie Rich’s yacht and don’t require tossing granny out of the rest home and into the gutter.

But they cannot be achieved through sweeping generalities or, very often, through the standard, one-size-fits-all remedies government seems to prefer.

Solutions will require backbone, however. And that’s something missing in government. It will require telling a farmer who had a profitable year that he doesn’t get a fat check as a price support. It will require telling a person that he can’t use illegal drugs while on public assistance. It will require permanent elimination of any shopkeeper from the food debit card program for cheating. And the same for any doctor or clinic caught padding the Medicaid and Medicare charges.

Solutions will require government to be miserly and show some respect for the dollars that appear, as if by magic, from the paychecks of workers as well as dividend income of those fortunate enough to invest.

All the blather about blaming the rich or blaming the poor is just that — blather. So find a rich person and offer a hug this holiday. Do the same for someone who is poor. It’s not the fault of either that we’re on the edge of a “fiscal cliff.”

We’re on it because people trusted to manage the money taken from the public have not been good stewards for a long, long time.

They want us to look at each other. We need to be looking at them.

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Charlie Mitchell is a Mississippi journalist. Write to him at Box 1, University, MS 38677, or e-mail cmitchell43@yahoo.com.