{"id":96,"date":"2009-10-05T01:58:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-05T09:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=96"},"modified":"2009-10-05T01:58:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-05T09:58:00","slug":"inequality-must-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2009\/10\/05\/inequality-must-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Inequality Must Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part of the legacy of the Reagan\/Bush\/Bush years was \u201ctrickle down economics\u201d.  It never  trickled.  It gushed.  And it wasn\u2019t down.  It was UP.  This is the only GOP program from the last forty years that actually succeeded in the manner they intended.  This is the policy I call No Millionaire Left Behind<\/font><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Wealth<\/a> Not long ago, liberals were insisting that income inequality was America\u2019s most serious economic problem.<\/font><\/p>\n

Now there are more immediate crises: A 9.8 percent unemployment rate, a yawning budget deficit. But the inequality issue hasn\u2019t gone away. <\/font><\/p>\n

The latest census figures show the gap between the wealthiest Americans and everybody else widening \u2014 rather than shrinking, as some economists expected \u2014 during the crash of 2008. An August report from Bank of America\/Merrill Lynch suggested that middle-income Americans, buried in real-estate debt, will have to wait much longer than the rich to see their finances rebound. <\/font><\/p>\n

This landscape will put liberalism to the test. Since Ronald Reagan was elected nearly 30 years ago, Democratic politicians have promised that their program could reverse the steady post-1970s growth of income inequality without sacrificing America\u2019s economic dynamism. <\/font><\/p>\n

But having promised win-win, they may deliver lose-lose. In the short run, Barack Obama could preside over an America that\u2019s more economically stagnant and more stratified\u2026<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

\"Tom070108-2\"<\/a> The graph is one I made myself using Excel.  2004 data is the most recent I could verify.  It\u2019s much worse now.  At first glance, it appears that the pie has three pieces.  It has four.  Do you see that little line, just to the left of the green slice?  That\u2019s not a dust spot on your screen.  It\u2019s the tiny portion of US wealth that the bottom 40% of us share.  That has to change.  The US economy is now a pyramid in which the capstone has become so heavy it\u2019s crushing the base.  Even the most cursory glance at this graph clearly shows were we need to go for the resources needed to restore some measure of equity.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the problem.  The rich are not represented solely by one political party.  They have two, and the Democrats are included.  Now don\u2019t think for a minute that I consider the Democratic party equal to the Republican party.  The difference in degree is huge.  While Democrats quietly sneak some preferential treatment for the rich into legislation, the Republicans gleefully wrest every possible penny from the middle and lower classes to provide socialism for the rich.  But Democrats need to be on notice that the people of this nation put them into power to make changes that benefit we the people, not the beneficiaries of almost 30 years of GOP hegemony.  If they sell out, as Baucus has on health care, we need to replace them in the primaries.<\/p>\n

Although they don\u2019t come close to the Republicans for pure evil greed, the Democratic party is still a swamp, a swamp it\u2019s our job to drain.  Are your waders ready?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part of the legacy of the Reagan\/Bush\/Bush years was \u201ctrickle down economics\u201d.  It never  trickled.  It gushed.  And it wasn\u2019t down.  It was UP.  This is the only GOP program from the last forty years that actually succeeded in the manner they intended.  This is the policy I call No Millionaire Left Behind. Not long […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","category-politics","category-19-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}