One of the favorite current GOP/TPer memes ~
~ the last paragraph snaps everything into perspective! ~ Sooz
Why Hasn’t Obama Fixed the Income Gap?May 26, 2015 | Posted by: Bruce Lindner
The 1950s—1960s: unparalleled economic expansion and job growth. Tax rates for the top earners under Ike, JFK, LBJ and even Nixon ranged between 70% and 90%. The post-war middle class was an economic dynamo of production and consumption.
1980s: Enter the “Conservative Movement.” Reagan cuts top tax rates touting “trickle down” theory. Top rates now under 30%. Economy falters, unemployment skyrockets to 10.5%. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, minorities suffer disproportionately. Reluctantly, Reagan increases taxes elsewhere, the economy perks back up. Conservative cult of Reagan worship still barf-worthy three decades later.
1990s: Bill Clinton raises top tax rates to nearly 40%. Economy once again soars. Clinton oversees the longest sustained period of job growth in decades. Leaves incoming Cheney/Bush administration with a plump budget surplus which they promptly piss away.
2000s: Boy genius President George W. Bush thinks that where Reagan went wrong was that he shouldn’t have raised taxes at all. So it’s trickle down time 2.0. He drops the top rate to 33%, hands two massive tax cuts to the top earners, fails to fund them, wages two wars and doesn’t pay for either, pushes through prescription drug bill written by (and for) the drug companies, puts that on credit too, housing bubble bursts, home prices go South, Detroit goes bust. Deficit balloons like Limbaugh’s waistline at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
• Dick Cheney tells Bush: “Remember what Reagan taught us. Deficits don’t matter.”
2008: The Great Recession begins—U.S. economy has stalled—America bleeds 775,000 jobs per month. Everyone suffers EXCEPT the wealthy, whose share of the pie increases dramatically. The top 1/10th of 1% richest Americans suddenly own a quarter of all wealth, while wealth declined nearly 7% for everyone else. Median net worth of upper class Americans was 40 times than that of the average working class American when Bush stumbled into power, increasing to 90 times higher when the Obama tax increase battle began.
2008: Barack Obama elected. On Inauguration Day 2009, Obama’s first day in office, GOP leaders plot in private to finalize plans to oppose everything he does, no matter how much damage is done to the nation.
2009: With zero support from GOP, the new President signs stimulus package. Economic bleeding slows. Detroit rescued, along with over 1 million American jobs. A second “Great Depression” is staved off. Obama pushes Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy. Congress moans like a rusty siren but eventually acquiesces in a “deal.” By 2015 the deficit is cut by two-thirds from where it was in 2008.
SIDEBAR: Cat catches 100 million Republican tongues simultaneously!
The economy has rebounded for everyone except the lower and lower-middle classes, while the rich continue to get richer almost exponentially.
• Congressman Paul Ryan insists: “Cutting tax rates for the wealthy should be a higher priority than raising the child tax credit for middle class and low-income Americans.”
May 2015: The GOP asks why Barack Obama hasn’t done more for the middle class, insisting THEY are the party who can best restore it.
So the party that conspired to destroy the first African-American President’s legacy on day one, that’s been openly courting industry over labor for the better part of a century, who refers to the unemployed, the downtrodden as “takers,” as “moochers,” as that “47% who believe they’re victims,” who’ve been legislating on behalf of Charles and David Koch, who ignore and undermine social programs in inner city neighborhoods, who gerrymander districts to suppress the will of the electorate, who manipulate polling places in minority neighborhoods on behalf of their candidates, who seat Justices that empower the wealthy at the expense of the poor, who push through bills that rob from the destitute for the sake of billionaires, who introduce legislation harmful to the environment, to women’s interests, to minority interests, to the interests of peace, stability, to national and international unity for 60 goddamn years…suddenly wants to know what Barack Obama’s gonna do about the income gap that they themselves created?
You can’t make it up!
http://www.blue-route.org/blog/blog/economy/hasnt-obama-fixed-income-gap/
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