This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
The conservative argument of the last 30-40 years boils down to this: "Hey look at this big pile of seed corn. Let's eat it!"
Almost 30 years after the "Reagan Revolution" our infrastructure is crumbling around us. Since the Reagan-era tax cuts we have been deferring maintenance of (and never mind modernizing) our infrastructure, and as a result have become less competitive in the world economy.
Meanwhile our economic competitors, countries like China and India, have been building infrastructure like crazy. Other countries are investing, educating, improving public services because they know these things make the economy explode later. A major component of China's stimulus was infrastructure and public services -- including public welfare -- because of the economic benefits that come later.
Now for those countries it is later, while for us it's just becoming too late. Their investment is paying off while we're having trouble paying off the accumulated Reagan/Bush tax-cut debt.
How did we get here?
Public infrastructure is the roads, courts, education, etc. that enable an economy to prosper. We got ourselves out of the Great Depression with a big investment in public infrastructure. The government taxed the wealthy and built or improved modern roads, bridges, post offices, courthouses, shipyards, schools and other public structures that enabled business to take off.
And then business took off. The idea was, of course, that business would give back some of the returns to keep that process going. But instead the big companies and wealthy families funded a conservative propaganda machine that convinced people to let them just keep it. Look at this chart from 14 Ways A 90 Percent Top Tax Rate Fixes Our Economy And Our Country:
You can clearly see that the money that should have been invested in maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure instead has gone to a few wealthy people at the top of the food chain. (We're the food.) And of course, we all can clearly see the results of this in today's economy. They ate the seed corn, America is crumbling.
Now, here we are later and we are seeing the result of the Reagan Revolution. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Infrastructure Report Card estimates that we are $2.2 trillion behind just on maintaining the existing infrastructure, never mind modernizing. Please click through and explore what ASCE is saying there. (Conservatives -- there are lots of pictures!)
What do we do?
The answer is obvious. It is called public investment. Ask the big companies, the banks and the wealthy to pay back some of the incredible amounts of money they have been piling up as a result of the past investment that We, the People made in building that infrastructure that enabled the economy to boom. Use that money to invest in maintaining and modernizing the infrastructure so that the economy can again thrive for all of us.
We can employ the unemployed and bring our infrastructure up to par at the same time. There is a lot of work that needs doing and we have a lot of people out of work.
The payback will be enormous. The economy will explode. And we can build sustainability into the process this time.
What is in the way?
The problem now is that the corporate/conservative propaganda machine has gone way past talking people into cutting taxes for the rich and cutting back on public spending for infrastructure and our people. Now they have become very extreme, convincing a number of people that government spending - We, the People spending on the common good - and government itself - We, the People making the decisions for ourselves - is the wrong approach. They believe that any government at all is "socialism" -- run for the benefit of all of us -- and that all public services must be "privatized" -- meaning run for the benefit of a few. They believe it is wrong, even immoral to have public schools, public transit, public health care, regulations that restrict what companies can do to consumers or the environment, etc.
They have the megaphone because they have the money. We have to confront this head on.
More to come!
This is another story of a wealthy few selling off the country's people and future. This is another story of gains for a few at the expense of the rest of us. These stories are becoming all too common. This is the Reagan Revolution coming home to roost, and I will continue to write about the terrible price we are paying and will be paying for a long time for the failed experiment in conservative ideology.
Previously: Finance, Mine, Oil & Debt Disasters: THIS Is Deregulation
Next: Reagan Revolution Home To Roost - America Drowning In Debt
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what else can the failure in iraq and afgainistan be attributed too. big government programs dont work.
we should have opened this up to a bid contract with specific goals and a specific time frame or they dont get paid
"when the truth is found to be lies"
jefferson airplane
First the internet replaced talk radio
as the cesspool of misinformation
now it is Fox News
Never has, never will. It's wasteful... and for the most part, it's also irresponsible.
But as recent disclosures prove, there's massive abuse of this superior knowledge and relationships. Not only is there outright fraud larger in dollar amounts than ALL of the fraud of human kind in the last several thousand years perhaps, AND nepotism is rife in supposedly public companies, and no doubt in Washington. There is no question that the public trust had been misplaced. Question is what people can do when BOTH dominant parties appear now be "owned" by the oligarchs, and checks and balances had been defenestrated.
* e·lit·ism or é·lit·ism (-ltzm, -l-)
n.
1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.
Listening to conservatives complain about the economy is like listening to an arsonist whine about water conservation.
When Republicans still believe the biggest lie of all, that they are the party of small government, how can you expect to disabuse them of all the other lies they believe in?
If the facts are telling us something that is in conflict with our beliefs, perhaps you need to adjust your beliefs. An intelligent citizen will, a Republican will not.
A fiscal conservative should always vote democrat. Conservatives ALWAYS run up the deficit and then democrats have dig us out of their mess.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/is_our_tax_system_helping_us_create_wealth.pdf
Figure that for each dollar the vast majority had to spend after taxes in 1961, the vast majority in 2006 had that buck and four more dimes after income and payroll taxes.
And at the top? Now, that’s a different story.
For every dollar those at the top had after taxes in 1961, they had $27.70 in 2005.
For many, the reality is that two jobs produce the same or a smaller after-tax income than just one job did three and four decades ago.
Facts that sum up how the wealth distribution became even more concentrated between 1983 and 2004, in good part due to the tax cuts for the wealthy and the defeat of labor unions:
Of all the new financial wealth created by the American economy in that 21-year-period, fully 42% of it went to the top 1%. A whopping 94% went to the top 20%, which of course means that the bottom 80% received only 6% of all the new financial wealth generated in the United States during the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s (Wolff, 2007).
You rule.
"It takes a republican to sh*t in the drinking water"
"Since the Reagan-era tax cuts we have been deferring maintenance of our infrastructure, and as a result have become less competitive in the world economy."
Then we had the Bush era tax cuts for the rich, and elective wars, while raiding our social security funds and digging us deep into debt.
The "neo-con movement" has been behind this disaster for the last 30 years, and they need to fess up to their sins, and reform themselves. Learn from the mistakes, adjust, and fix it. They have ruined our economy, our industries, our jobs, and our way of life.
It is time to pay back the people of America. It is time to re-invest in America. It is time for the rich to stop hoarding their wealth and working against the interests of American people.
If not, this country will eventually break down, and then there will be complete chaos and anarchy - your money will not do you any good then, it will be too late.