Democratic Governors in California and New York Looking to Put Final Squeeze on Middle Class

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/149613/democratic_governors_in_california_and_new_york_looking_to_put_final_squeeze_on_middle_class

Cuomo and Brown are attacking the notion that the public policies we choose, the public goods we provide, can create better lives -- the core of America’s middle class.


A bit over a half century ago, in the years right after World War II, the United States delivered up onto the global stage something the world had never before seen: a mass middle class.

For the first time ever, a majority of a major nation’s people had “disposable income” -- real money left over after paying for basic food and shelter.

Two states, New York and California, would serve as geographic bookends to this colossal achievement. The duo offered “ordinary people,” as historian Kevin Starr has chronicled, lives unimaginable anywhere else in the world.

Activist government made those lives possible. Government-subsidized loans raised new middle class suburbs from potato fields and sugar beet acres. Tax dollars funded new infrastructures in energy, water, roads, schools, and parks

“California’s children, swarming on all those new playgrounds, seemed healthier, happier, taller,” as Atlantic editor Benjamin Schwarz has noted. “A sweet, vivacious time.”

A time we may never see again. The two newly elected governors of New York and California, both Democrats, have essentially declared America’s mass middle class ancient history.

More at the link --

[Johonny]

1. I don't think Brown refuses to raise taxes on the rich

I think the law as stated makes it impossible for him to do so. Word is they plan on trying to push back on the extremes of anti-tax California law.

[white_wolf]

3. Am I right

in assuming that anti-tax law is another legacy Ronnie?

[Johonny]

5. most passed through voter props

so the residence did it to themselves.

[mike_c]

6. no, Prop 13 was enacted during Jerry Brown's second term....

Prop 13 is the lynch pin that keeps California's fiscal dysfunction together.

[leveymg]

2. The Kool-Aid was formulated, manufactured and distributed by the GOP. The current governors are now

being forced to drink it, but that doesn't make them alone responsible for the fact that the wealthy are undertaxed, the states have bleeding budgets, and the middle-class is relatively overtaxed and up against the wall. The GOP will not raise taxes on corporations and the rich. Period.

So, why blame Brown and Cuomo?

[Kalyke]

4. ...because we MUSN'T tax the uber-rich.

:eyes: