Krugman: The Great Degrader

[liberalmike27]

39. What I Hate

About this and generally looking at the Bush administration as some sort of point of demarcation where it all went to sheit, is that in truth I think we all know the worst things happened way back during Reagan, perhaps some during Nixon, and even McCarthyism and its failure represented a shift in thinking, a group beginning to look at gains by lower-level working Americans as Communist.

Certainly if we're going to blame anyone, let's go with Reagan. I think a lot of people wanted to blame Bush because they didn't want to wrap Clinton into that period. But we all know he went along with Welfare "reform." It's always a bad thing, when Republicans use the word "reform," because they'll come as close to truncating whatever goes with the word as possible, it essentially means "cut."

Clinton also favored us with banking "reform," (again) and signed it into law. I think the congress could have and did have enough votes to override his veto, but he should have made some noise, pounded the bully-pulpit with that one. Clinton also kept ushering in the trade-agreements. Yep, remember how when GHW Bush tried to get them passed, and we said NOOOOOO, but when Clinton was elected, all of the "democrats can do no wrong," crowd jumped on board and said "OK, if Billy C. says it, it must be OK. Here we are now, down the line, 35 million jobs away, debt growing for not collecting the taxes those good jobs once paid, path to the American Dream now overgrown and nearly impassable for a lot of folks who used to try to work their way to the top in these jobs.

So in hating Bush, let us not forget all of the stepping stones of the last 35 years, and sadly the fact that Obama is looking ever more like just another stone, in a long path of destruction, let us not forget the fact that it is, it was, it will always be a slow movement. We've gone from the New Deal, to the Raw Deal now, all the rift of issues once conquered are now back in full, wage theft, joblessness, low pay, no power for workers. A sixth of us are in or near poverty, and the rich have so much as to nearly be the elite crew in the Hunger Games.