Bushwhacked Americans

The economy was starting to sour long before the collapse and Republican recession.  Often the first thing companies cut is research, and since that was my field, my job disappeared in 2006.  I don’t blame the company.  I was the best paid worker with my job description in the area, and within six months afterward, the company lost their two largest clients, both of whom I serviced.  When people asked what happened to my job, I said it was Bushwhacked, GW Bushwhacked.  I’m not alone as this article by Diane Francis shows.

To find most of the blame for America’s unsustainable fiscal situation, one need go no further than George Bush’s presidency.

The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 for higher income Americans have totaled US$2.9 trillion, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. (This includes mortgage interest deductibility for two residences of up to $1 million apiece.) The two Bush wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, have cost at least US$1 trillion. And the bailout, caused by non-regulation of Wall Street and mortgage brokers, cost trillions more.

So why did American voters this fall hand over control of the House of Representatives to Republicans and Tea Party representatives? Why would Americans remain unperturbed about the shifting of the tax burden from high-income to low-income? Why are there no protests demanding military budget cuts?

These questions are pertinent as Congress and the White House cobble together another budget. But public opinion is starting to shift.

In April, a surprising poll by GlobeScan revealed disenchantment with America’s sacred cow, the free market system itself. Some 59% of Americans in general agreed "strongly" or "somewhat" that the free market was the best system. While still a majority, the point is this response was down from the 80% of Americans who agreed "strongly" or "somewhat" that the free market was the best system back in 2002. Even more significantly, support for the system among "poor" or low-income Americans, a class that has jumped in size, fell from 76% to only 44%.

This shift was inevitable because tax cuts for very rich do not trickle down… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

Now I would not say that the free market economy that is to blame.  It is Republican abuse of the free market system.  Republicans want to make the entire economy free market, but all modern democratic republics are a mix of capitalism and socialism.  Grocery stores, for example, do fine as free market entities.  But some parts of our economy do best when socialized.  We have socialized police protection, firefighter protection, education, highways, and health care for retirees.  Frankly, health care for all should be socialized, as in Medicare for all.

Also as much as Republicans claim to believe in free markets, they do not allow them to function freely.  Instead they stack the deck by providing a huge welfare benefits for the very rich and criminal corporations, picking the pockets of the poor and middle classes to do so.  Then the poor and middle classes, with resources so depleted, are on their own with Republicans telling them they have free enterprise.

To provide a level playing field in which free markets can serve public needs requires three things.  First, the Republican upward redistribution of wealth must be stopped.  Second, no market can be free unless regulated sufficiently to prevent abuse.  Third, much of the wealth that Republicans have redistributed upward must be recovered and returned to its rightful owners: the poor and middle classes.