The biggest irony of the last three decades is that the football field of American politics has moved to the right just as most Americans have slid downward. Ever since Ronald Reagan first peddled the snake oil of trickle-down economics, the rich have received a steadily larger share of the economy’s gains -- now the largest in over a century -- while the typical working American has lost ground. Executive pay is now 350 times that of the typical worker. Wall Street is still rife with insider trading and conflicts of interest. Meanwhile, real median family incomes continue to fall, even with two people at work (the typical family of the 1950s and 1960s could do well with one breadwinner); the typical college graduate is now saddled with debt (public higher education in the 1950s and 1960s was free); job security is gone; pensions are withering away. Yet we may be witnessing the rebirth of progressive politics: The person who is likely to win tomo...rrow’s race for mayor of New York by a large margin has focused his campaign on that city's savage inequality, and has promised to raise taxes on the wealthy in order to fund better schools for the children of families who aren’t. Progressive initiatives against gerrymandered districts and voter suppression are moving toward ballots in 28 states.
Living wage initiatives are moving forward in 22 cities and 14 states. Democratic and independent candidates for 2014 are speaking out for higher taxes on the rich to support equal opportunity for the rest. Whoever is the Democratic candidate for president in 2016 will have to offer a plan to return this nation to the shared prosperity we had before Reagan, and rescue our democracy from the scourge of big money.
The biggest irony of the last three decades is that the football field of American politics has moved to the right just as most Americans have slid downward. Ever since Ronald Reagan first peddled the snake oil of trickle-down economics, the rich have received a steadily larger share of the economy’s gains -- now the largest in over a century -- while the typical working American has lost ground. Executive pay is now 350 times that of the typical worker. Wall Street is still rife with insider trading and conflicts of interest. Meanwhile, real median family incomes continue to fall, even with two people at work (the typical family of the 1950s and 1960s could do well with one breadwinner); the typical college graduate is now saddled with debt (public higher education in the 1950s and 1960s was free); job security is gone; pensions are withering away. Yet we may be witnessing the rebirth of progressive politics: The person who is likely to win tomo...rrow’s race for mayor of New York by a large margin has focused his campaign on that city's savage inequality, and has promised to raise taxes on the wealthy in order to fund better schools for the children of families who aren’t. Progressive initiatives against gerrymandered districts and voter suppression are moving toward ballots in 28 states.
Living wage initiatives are moving forward in 22 cities and 14 states. Democratic and independent candidates for 2014 are speaking out for higher taxes on the rich to support equal opportunity for the rest. Whoever is the Democratic candidate for president in 2016 will have to offer a plan to return this nation to the shared prosperity we had before Reagan, and rescue our democracy from the scourge of big money.
No comments:
Post a Comment