Rich get richer: Should we penalize them?

The Congressional Budget Office just released a report that shows rich Americans are getting richer faster than other classes of people. The report shows that the top 1% of Americans (in terms of household income) had a 43% income growth between 2003 and 2005, while lower income Americans only had single digit percentage growth.

The report goes on to say that the top 1% of America families had over 18% of total income, which was up from 14% in 2003.

But is life really this simple? The statistics tell us something about the way families earn money, but they don't even come close to telling us the whole picture. The numbers can't begin to tell us why this is happening... how the classes are growing their incomes, where their money is invested, how their values influence their income, or what their family priorities are in general.