08.07.07
It’s Ronald Reagan’s Fault
From today’s column in Common Dreams from Thom Hartmann, Roll Back the Reagan Tax Cuts.
Our bridges are falling apart (among other things), and its Ronald Reagan’s fault.
That may be oversimplifying a bit but it’s definitely the “conservative” movements fault and he is their saint. There are so many other things that have fallen apart or are falling apart since the Reagan revolution it’s hard to keep track. Health care, wages, good paying jobs, education, etc.. (see list below). The simplest way to put it is, that it’s been a war on the middle class for the last 30 - 35 years now.
Thom’s columns are always excellent with history. It’s a hard one to except because the whole thing is so good. He starts with FDR’s creation of a vast middle class in this country which was brought about by fairly taxing the uber-wealthy, of which he was one. The destruction of what FDR created, of course, has been the crusade of the “conservatives” ever since. Thom finishes by explaining that just rolling back what this Bush has done is not nearly enough to fix what Americans electing of mostly “conservatives” has done over the last three decades. We must roll back all the way to what St. Ronnie did:
And Bush, following closely in Reagan’s footsteps, is making things worse. As Senator Bernie Sanders pointed out at recent hearings for the confirmation of Bush’s new nominee for the Office of Management and Budget:
Since Bush has been president:
- over 5 million people have slipped into poverty;
- nearly 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance;
- median household income has gone down by nearly $1,300;
- three million manufacturing jobs have been lost;
- three million American workers have lost their pensions;
- home foreclosures are now the highest on record;
- the personal savings rate is below zero - which hasn’t happened since the great depression;
- the real earnings of college graduates have gone down by about 5% in the last few years;
- entry level wages for male and female high school graduates have fallen by over 3%;
- wages and salaries are now at the lowest share of GDP since 1929.
The debate about whether or not to roll Bush’s tax cuts back to Clinton’s modest mid-30% rates is absurd. It’s time to roll back the horribly failed experiment of the Reagan tax cuts. And use that money to pay down Reagan’s debt and rebuild this nation.
Those numbers are truly despicable. Wages lowest since, as Thom calls it the “Republican Great Depression” of 1929. It took a great Democratic and Progressive leader to fix that one and it will take the same thing again. Hopefully one of th eight can become that leader.