Thirty years after the Republican Party somehow managed to trick the American people into embracing the notion of trickle down economics, the hard data now shows us that nothing ever did trickle down. In fact, the data reveals that trickle down has harmed 90% of the American people.
For six of the seven indicators, the average annual growth rate between 2001 and 2007 was below the average growth rate for the comparable periods of other post-World War II economic expansions.
Notably, this expansion was among the weakest since World War II with respect to both overall economic growth and growth in fixed non-residential investment. These two indicators should have captured any positive "growth effects" of the tax cuts.
The labor market also was weaker during the 2001-2007 expansion. Both employment growth and wage and salary growth were weaker during this expansion as a whole than in any prior expansion since the end of World War II.
The 2001-2007 expansion outperformed the average post-World War II expansion in only one area: corporate profits, which grew much more rapidly than average.
Gee whiz. I sure hope, for their own sorry sakes, right wing Republicans have decent health care coverage. I mean, at the rate at which they are blowing fuses and blood vessels over literally everything proposed by President Obama, good health care coverage sure is necessary for one's survival in avoiding and overcoming strokes and heart attacks.
OK, so the latest hysteria emanating from the right has to do with a speech President Obama will make to school children about staying in school, working hard to achieve good grades and taking personal responsibility for one's actions. This should be music to a parent's ears, especially in Texas where we have the highest number of school dropouts and our schools rank second to last nationwide.
But oh no, au contraire and God forbid, should a child work hard to stay in school, earn top notch grades, graduate with honors and gain acceptance in a top tier university.
It seems that the right has plenty of problems with staying in school, at least according to comments posted by on-line readers of the The Houston Chronicle.
Some object to Obama speech to students
According to the right President Obama will "indoctrinate" and "brain wash" students.
About?
Getting good grades? Taking responsibility?
No one howled when President G.W. Bush read to school children on the day our nation was horribly and ruthlessly attacked.
Nick Anderson, the Houston Chronicle, 9/3/09.
And where were these very same wingnuts when President George H.W. Bush spoke to school children at the eve of his campaign in 1992?
I guess a little ol' indoctrination and spin is harmless when it comes from a really rich white guy.
Throughout the years, from the Reagan Administration through 2008, we've heard a lot of talk about compassionate conservatism. According to conservative conventional wisdom, it is entirely possible for a state and/or federal government to be fiscally conservative without, at the same time, disenfranchising those who are economically disadvantaged and others who are vulnerable, like the children of the poor.
The reality? When conservatives talk about compassion they are reading GOP talking point memos. The real GOP imperative:
Kiss up to special and corporate interests. Kick down the everyday constituents.
I guess Ronald Reagan thought he embodied compassionate conservatism when his administration deemed ketchup a vegetable in the public schools' federal lunch programs. What's wrong with poor kids eating a paste comprised mostly of salt and sugar with nil nutritional value? It has a vegetable kind of product added to it. Let them eat a salt/sugar paste with artificial coloring.
Reagan's budget cuts, especially those involving social programs, effectively dismantled all safety nets for the nation's poor.
When George W. Bush ran for the Presidential office in 2000 he promoted himself as a compassionate conservative. His tax cuts would produce more jobs. Life would be good for all.
I watched the U.S. Senate debate on the stimulus package on and off on Saturday. Bored, frustrated and disgusted, I finally had enough. I've seen this old washed up rerun before. It has been playing in a crumbling 50-year-old movie house that should have been condemned a very long time ago. As if in a black and white movie with scratched and uneven sound, the Republicans, bad actors that they are, droned on and on, spouting their old failed ideologies and dark aged policies. The Party is mired in centuries old mindsets and technologies and it seems unable or unwilling to see or move past the mid 20th Century.
Where energy is concerned Republicans want to continue to drill for an economically and globally volatile and finite resource. It should be glaringly apparent, thank you, that we needed to develop new, less finite and green energy resources, e.g. capture it from the wind and sun, at least 30 years ago. Somehow Republicans forgot about the 1973 energy crisis and oil embargo. They obviously fail to recall the long lines at the gas stations.
The Republican whacko trickle down economics does not work and yet Republicans continue to consult its 101 textbook. The reality of the trickle down voodoo magic that failed during the Reagan Administration and has proved a catastrophe under W., is now on a rampage, wielding a devastating wrecking ball throughout the U.S., and other countries, too, destroying jobs, homes and retirement accounts 24/7. 600,000 jobs were lost last month alone. There is no is in sight for the relentless wrecking machine. It is on an almost unstoppable and insatiable roll.
Interesting, I got this from a total stranger. Cool!
"I'll try to find ya some and I'll bring 'em to ya." - the Sarah Palin interview with Katie Couric, on John McCain's deregulation record, September 24, 2008
So, they want to name an education building after the man who wanted to abolish the Federal Department of Education....
Push to name building after Reagan gets controversial "I can't escape the irony of naming a building for a man who wanted to do away with the (federal) Department of Education," said Garcia spokesman Paul Mabry, who relayed her opposition to the board.
"President Reagan had a thin social agenda and did very little for education," added the Rev. Salvatore DeGeorge, pastor of St. Patrick Catholic Church. "This is sort of like naming a Babe Ruth soccer stadium."
The irony, of course, was lost on none, save those from the Ronald Reagan Republican Women's Club who showed up in support. "He was such a great president and such a great Christian and man," said club member Patrice Henderson. "From everything I've read - and I've read a lot of books about Ronald Reagan - he was the education president."
But not the federal education president. Not only did he advocate abolition of the education department, he slashed federal spending on K-12 education by half. Many conservatives today lament that subsequent Republicans have reversed course and loosened the purse strings, especially in the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act.
"Today's federal education system and corresponding bureaucracy is not part of Reagan's legacy," said Dan Lips, education analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Earlier this year they named the Department of Education building in Washington for Lyndon Johnson. For better or worse, that made sense, because federal education policy still reflects the Great Society goals."
