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Bush to Working America: Let Them Eat Hedge Funds |
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If Bush were running for president in 2008 and his opponent asked an audience, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” the hands of the richest 1 percent in this nation would shoot up. But not the hands of the millions of America’s workers who make this nation’s economy hum, and who are not even seeing their wages keep up with productivity, let alone seeing economic improvements.
New data came out this week showing home foreclosures jumped 93 percent in July from last year, even as U.S. workers earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year they had to make ends meet with less money. But that’s just part of the story. As The New York Times reports:
The growth in total incomes was concentrated among those making more than $1 million. The number of such taxpayers grew by more than 26 percent, to 303,817 in 2005 from 239,685 in 2000.
These individuals, who constitute less than a quarter of 1 percent of all taxpayers, reaped almost 47 percent of the total income gains in 2005, compared with 2000.
So what does the Bush White House have to say about the nation’s income growth concentrating among the very richest while the majority of Bush’s tax breaks went to those making more than $1 million? This information, said White House spokesman Tony Fratto
“is not a very interesting story.”
As political commentator David Sirota writes of this comment:
To them, it is just an annoying distraction from their bigger goal of manipulating the labor market through immigration and globalization policies specifically designed to drive wages down even further.
The Democratic Caucus’s Senate Journal offers an excellent roundup this week on how America’s middle class is struggling under the Bush economy.
- Americans Are Working Longer, But Wages Are Lagging.
- Real Median Family Income Is Falling.
- 37 Million Americans Live in Poverty.
And over at The Agonist, Numerian dissects the reasons why we feel so poor—and sees a
consistent decline in the savings rate in the United States, confirming to some degree the economic theory that incomes are growing very slowly while costs are rising rapidly.
Numerian goes on to explain why most of us will not be able to depend on equity or real estate investments for our future, and how our balance sheet is fundamentally different from those of the wealthiest 100,000 Americans, whose comfortable retirement is assured. Numerian concludes:
The average consumer will never have enough investment income to offset their real estate costs and the high rates imposed on consumer borrowing.
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Some of the media is finally catching up with what John Edwards has been saying for years. There are two Americas. There is the tiny group at the top who are thriving…. and all the rest of us. I agree with Edwards that we’ve got to make changes so that average working Americans can have a good life and grow their savings and own their home. It is frightening that so many working middle class families just scrape by. President Bush creates fear that our economy cannot survive all of the changes that Edwards believes we need. We’ve got to push fear aside and build up our working middle class again. This is the real engine of our economy. We need a much higher minimum wage, healthcare for every American, an end to preditory lending, trade deals that put the American worker first, incentives to bring new industries to both urban and rural areas, new energy sources that create plenty of new American jobs while helping the environment, and real educational opportunities for all of our children. Edwards wants to close the tax loopholes on our largest corporations and finally charge them a fair tax. President Bush is considering giving them more tax breaks. It is time to put the Republicans out of office, and let Edwards and some of the other Democrats who support middle class Americans make some changes.
It is truly amazing at least one of our Democratic Presidential canidates has married themselves to corporate America to the extent you can not tell the difference between her views about corporations and Bush’s.
She has and still does support the favored nations trade status which China enjoys.
She has and still does endorse the provisions of NAFTA amoung several other trade agreements which do not have worker of environmental protections written into them and have led to the exportation of millions of middle class American jobs.
She has and still does take contributions from the pharmicutial companies as well as Murdock from FOX NEWS fame.
She supported a immigration bill which would have allowed the importation of workers into tech and construction feilds while not protecting the wage standards of American workers.
She has and still does have close association with companies who’s only business is the out sourcing of tech jobs to India
She was a member of the board of directors for Wal Mart and is still a close freind to Sam Walton.
So don’t let her recent love affair with labor fool you - if she gets the nomination she will turn he back on us and embrace corporate America because we are to dumb to vote against a Democrat and that is what it will take for her to get the cross over votes she needs to win the White House. And don’t fool yourself if she sits down behind that desk in the oval office she will pay her dept to the corporate lobbiest before she helps labor - that is the way she has done business her whole life - just like Bush.
No we are not doing better. Since 2000 I’ve seen union work dissapearing as more and more animation work leaves the country. A lot of the work goes to Canada, where the NAFTA agreement alows them to take our work, but not have to hire Americans due to a provision that exempted the Canadian film industry from having to hire Americans. As a result our film industry in America has seen many of our jobs dissapear, a giant sucking sound to say the least.
In this light I present my latest political cartoon for Labor Day, 2007. See it at my website;
http://www.whatnowtoons.com
I don’t think anyone is doing as well as they did 10 years ago, at least not the people I know. The problem is that this country is run by people who hate most Americans. The only people they really care about are the ones who have become elite status symbols of the extremely wealthy. The rest of us are merely an ends to their greed, and sadly, quite dispensable. We simply cannot win, and will not win, until we get the crap that calls themselves ‘leadership’ out of our government. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE NEED TO WAKE UP. We cannot rely on a few noble, enlightened individuals to completely change things. We need everyone to want a better life and make the effort to do something about it!!!!