BushAllen Economics Fails Once Again...Unless You're Mega Rich

Evidence?  For starters, since 2003, under BushAllen economics, median real wages actually have FALLEN by 2 percent, even as worker productivity has INCREASED.  Even worse, "the value of workers+óGé¼Gäó benefits has also failed to keep pace with inflation,"  And then, as we all know, there's the problem of "high energy prices and rising health care costs,"  That, by the way, is according to none other than Bush Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., who nonetheless claims that the it is "neither fair nor useful" to blame the Bush Administration or the Republican Party for this situation. Oh yeah?  Well what about all THIS evidence, Mr. Secretary?!?
*Huge BushAllen tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans, a pittance (if anything) for everyone else.  You don't think that has SOMETHING to do with the situation described above?  Duhhh.

*Massive giveaways and favors of all kinds to big corporations, like ExxonMobil.  Not surprisingly, as real wages reach their lowest share of GDP since 1947, corporate profits are the highest THEY have been since the 1960s!  But no, that has absolutely NOTHING to do with government policy.  It's sort of like the bumbling, incompetent Sargent Schultz from Hogan's Heroes always said: "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!"

*Government failure to raise the minimum wage or to rein in skyrocketing health care costs have not helped matters for 99% of Americans.  Oh well, at least Big Pharmaceuticals and WalMart love it!

*The invasion of Iraq, which has contributed to gas prices at $3 per gallon. That has taken a bite out of most Americans' pocketbooks.

*Globalization, including "outsourcing" and an overall "race to the bottom" as American workers try to compete with semi-slave labor in China.  What has BushAllen economic policy done to address this, except to kowtow to the Chinese and fail to provide the tools - world class education, portable and affordable health care - Americans need to compete?  How about some FAIR trade agreements for a change, not the so-called "free trade" which allows countries like China to undercut us by maintaining no labor, human rights or environmental standards.

*Continued attempts to cut America's most Progressive tax, the Estate Tax.  As BushAllen and Company know full well, repealing what they cleverly and cynically call the "death tax" wouldn't hurt the dead, only the living - except for the few thousand super-rich families who would benefit.  The rest of us? We'd be left to pick up the tab.

*Hundreds of billions of dollars spent on a futile war in Iraq, a war that has absolutely NOTHING to do with "international terrorism," but everything to do with neo-conservative fantasies of a "new Middle East," Big Oil fantasies of equity stakes in Iraq's oil reserves, an Bush fantasies about kicking some ass against a weak adversary (while still not smashing Al Qaeda or capturing Osama "Dead or Alive" bin Laden).

We could go on and on, but here's the bottom line: the economy may be growing overall, but it's not benefiting the vast majority of Americans - as in, almost all of us.  Perhaps that's why, according to the New York Times, "Americans disapprove of President Bush+óGé¼Gäós handling of the economy by wide margins and that anxiety about the future is growing."  Perhaps it's also why the vast majority of Americans feel that "things in this country are heading off on the wrong track." 

This time, the vast majority of Americans just so happen to be right.  Now, let's see whether they take corrective action by sweeping the "supply siders" and "trickle downers" - George Allen, Tom Davis, Frank Wolf, and all the rest of this sorry lot - from office in November and replace them with representatives who actually care about people like them more than about the mega rich and big corporations.

P.S.  Tomorrow, Jim Webb will give a major policy speech and will most likely touch on these subjects, one year after Hurricane Katrina made clear that BushAllen only care about the super-rich, not about 99% of Americans like you and me.

Comments