In Terms Of Education, Meaningful Jobs, Health Care And Infrastructure, How Do We Stack Up Vs The World ?
Over the past quarter century or so, the American Dream for most blue collar workers has all but disappeared. How do we as a Nation stack up vs other industrial countries in terms of meaningful jobs, health care, education and infrastructure ?
Under Reagan, Bush Sr. and current Pres Bush, what was done to keep America viable and competitive with the rest of the world ?
Tags: Care, Education, Health, Infrastructure, Jobs., Meaningful, Stack, Terms, World
June 30th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
From the end of WW2 up until the late 1970s to early 1980s, America had more people moving into the middle class than at any other time in our history. It took Reagan, Bush Sr. and current President Bush all of 2 terms each to dismantle that progress. After Reagan took office and started the movement to bust labor unions and deregulate certain industries, our country has steadily been on the decline.
In 1980, Jimmy Caner’s last year as president, the federal government spent a whopping 27.9% of “national income” (an obnoxious term for the private wealth produced by the American people). Reagan assaulted the free-spending Carter administration throughout his campaign in 1980. So how did the Reagan administration do? At the end of the first quarter of 1988, federal spending accounted for 28.7% of “national income.
Despite what some may believe, Presidents Ford and Carter did more to cut government spending than Reagan ever did. The only thing Reagan did was redirect the money to his “friends” !
July 1st, 2009 at 1:54 am
When Ronald Reagan took office, the US had the highest standard of living in the world. Now we are about no. 15. We were the biggest creditor nation, now we are the biggest debtor nation, and we’re so far in debt, and our debt is growing so out of control that our currency is losing its value.
The Republicans, and to some extent even the Democrats, gage success by how well the top 1% do, how profitable corporations are, and how much money is contributed to their campaigns. Money has gotten so important in politics that we no longer have elections, we have -auctions-. And since both parties get their funding from the same sources, it’s hard to imagine their agendas will be all that much different.
Just in the area of health care. You hear conservatives say all the time that we have the best health care system in the world. This is because the top priority of our health care system is profit, return on investment, and yes, our system generates the most profits of any in the world. But in other countries, profit is just a means to an end, the top priority of their health care system is HEALTH CARE.
It’s been almost a religious tenet for years with the Republicans that government regulation of business is bad. These last few days we are seeing why regulation is necessary. Too much is as bad as too little, but obviously some is necessary. But to listen to Republicans talk these last few days, I really don’t think they’ve gotten the message. Both parties are almost irretrievably corrupt, but what kind of self-deception and masochism does it take to vote for McCain after all he’s done, after all his party has done? Being a millionaire, McCain looks around and says ‘Hey, it looks great to me!’
July 1st, 2009 at 7:00 am
Basically, we suck. The one ace we have up our sleeve is good old, avaricious, greedy, unfettered capitalism. It is at once both a source of tremendous disparity between those at either end of the economic scale and about as level a playing field as can be made in an empire of over 250 million people.