A United Nations independent expert presented a searing indictment of the wealth gap in the United States, saying that “contrasts between private wealth and public squalor abound” and that the Republican tax plan “is essentially a bid to make the U.S. the world champion of extreme inequality.”

The recent statement by Philip Alston, U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, follows his two-week visit to Alabama, California, Georgia, Puerto Rico, West Virginia, and Washington D.C.. Based on the fact-finding mission, he said, “The American Dream is rapidly becoming the American Illusion as the U.S. … now has the lowest rate of social mobility of any of the rich countries.”

Regarding the tax plan Congress is considering, Alston said, “The dramatic cuts in welfare, foreshadowed by the President and [House] Speaker Ryan, and already beginning to be implemented by the administration, will essentially shred crucial dimensions of a safety net that is already full of holes. It is against this background that my report is presented.”

While noting that he “saw much that is positive,” Alston detailed everyday situations across the nation that indicated how residents’ fundamental rights are trampled upon:

In a bulleted list of indications that outcomes in the U.S. are at odds with idea of “American exceptionalism,” he noted, among other things, that

• U.S. inequality levels are far higher than those in most European countries;
• U.S. infant mortality rates in 2013 were the highest in the developed world;
• America has the highest incarceration rate in the world;
• In terms of access to water and sanitation the US ranks 36th in the world.

The country, he said, is international outlier in that it insists human rights “do not include rights that guard against dying of hunger, dying from a lack of access to affordable healthcare, or growing up in a context of total deprivation.”