The real triumph of the right has come in shaping the national conversation around the size of government and the budget deficit – thereby diverting attention from what’s really going on: the increasing concentration of the nation’s income and wealth at the very top, while most Americans fall further and further behind.But the commitment to deficit-reduction, even in a depression and a week recovery, seems to be heavily ingrained in today's Democrats. It needs to change.
Continuing cuts in the budget deficit – through the sequester or a deficit agreement — will only worsen this by reducing total demand for goods and services and by eliminating programs that hard-pressed Americans depend on.
The President and Democrats should re-frame the national conversation around widening inequality. They could start by demanding an increase in the minimum wage and a larger Earned Income Tax Credit. (The President doesn’t’ even have to wait for Congress to act. He can raise the minimum wage for government contractors through an executive order.)
I'm ready for the end of "Obamaism," i.e., conservative economics married with an obsessive pursuit of "bipartisanship" with the Republicans as though it were an end in itself.
Tags: austerity economics, us economy
1 comment:
I share your frustration. The steadily increasing rate of capture of society's wealth by the top (what ever number you like) percent is The Single Biggest Problem the world faces, the root to which most of the other problems can be traced as there is simply not enough money left over to care for everyone else.
My biggest disappointment in this regard has been the lefty blogosphere. For over a decade I have been working with the Daily Kos community to do some good in this life, but in the past couple of years it has been taken over by a gang of irresponsible narcissists. After the NSA spying scandal broke they were too busy squabbling and settling scores to bother putting together a response, and now they are squandering another season in lieu of assembling a coherent response to the threat of chained CPI cuts to Social Security.
With enemies like these, the Goopers needn't trouble win elections. They can simply walk in and steal the White House spoons any time they like.
It drives a man to distraction, it does.
And keep up the good work - I have been reading you for years, although I am not often motivated to comment.
Post a Comment