Harold Meyerson: U.S. wealth moving in wrong direction

The tea party movement recognizes something has gone terribly wrong with our country causing a loss of widespread prosperity but overlooks the root causes of this decline. Harold Meyerson explains what really happened to the American dream:

U.S. wealth moving in the wrong direction
October 29, 2010
By Harold Meyerson

As battle cries go, the tea party’s “Take our country back” is a pretty good one. It’s short and punchy, and it addresses a very widespread sense that the nation that Americans once lived in has changed, and not for the better.

When the tea partyers get around to identifying how America has changed and to whose benefit, however, they get it almost all wrong. In the worldview of the American right — and the polling shows conclusively that that’s who the tea party is — the nation, misled by President Barack Obama, has gone down the path to socialism.

In fact, far from venturing down that road, we’ve been stuck on the road to hyper-capitalism for three decades now. The tea partyers are right to be wary of income redistribution, but if they had even the slightest openness to empiricism, they’d see that the redistribution of the past 30 years has all been upward — radically upward. From 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 per cent of Americans — effectively, all but the rich — increased from 64 per cent to 65 per cent, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Because the nation’s economy was growing handsomely, that means that the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 per cent was growing, too — from $17,719 in 1950 to $30,941 in 1980 — a 75 per cent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.

Since 1980, it’s been a very different story. The economy has continued to grow handsomely, but for the bottom 90 perc ent of Americans, it’s been a time of stagnation and loss. Since 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 per cent has declined from 65 per cent to 52 per cent. In actual dollars, the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent flat-lined — going from the $30,941 of 1980 to $31,244 in 2008.

In short, the economic life and prospects for Americans since the Reagan Revolution have grown dim, while the lives of the rich — the super-rich in particular — have never been brighter. The share of income accruing to America’s wealthiest one per cent rose from nine per cent in 1974 to a tidy 23.5 per cent in 2007.

Looking at these numbers, it would be reasonable to infer that when the tea partyers say that they want to take the country back, they mean back to the period between 1950 and 1980, when the vast majority of Americans encountered more opportunity and security in their economic lives than they had before or since. Reasonable, but wrong. As the right sees it, America’s woes are traceable to the New Deal order that Franklin Roosevelt, working in the shadow of the even more sinister Woodrow Wilson, imposed on an unsuspecting people.

In fact, the New Deal order produced the only three decades in American history — the’50s,’60s and’70s — when economic security and opportunity were widely shared. It was the only period in the American chronicle when unions were big and powerful enough to ensure that corporate revenue actually trickled down to workers. It marked the only time in American history when, courtesy originally of the GI Bill, the number of Americans going to college surged. It was the only time when taxes on the rich were really significantly higher than taxes on the rest of us. It was the only time that the minimum wage kept pace (almost) with the cost of living. And it was the only time when most Americans felt confident enough about their economic prospects, and those of their nation, to support the taxes that built the postwar American infrastructure.

Since the ascent of Ronald Reagan, though, America’s claim to being a land of opportunity has become a sick joke. Unions have dwindled; colleges have become unaffordable; manufacturing has gone abroad; taxes on the rich have plummeted; and American infrastructure has decayed.

But the country the right wants to return to isn’t the America that the Greatest Generation built. Judging by the statements of many of the Republican and tea party-backed candidates on next Tuesday’s ballots, it’s the America that antedates the New Deal — a land without Social Security, unions or the minimum wage. It’s the land that the Greatest Generation gladly left behind whey they voted for and built the New Deal order.

All of us should want our country back, but that country should be the more prosperous and economically egalitarian nation that flourished at the time when America was not only the world’s greatest power, but also a beacon to the world.

Harold Meyerson is editor-at-large of American Prospect and the L.A. Weekly. (Washington Post)

http://news.guelphmercury.com/Opinions/Editorials/article/710528

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/26/AR2010102605216.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Nyles Kendall: Republicans out of touch with working class

Writing in the Arizona Daily Wildcat, Nyles Kendall exposes the anti-working families agenda of the Republican Party:

Republicans have been riding a wave of increasingly favorable public opinion for the past two years, but their anti-working class agenda will lose them votes at the ballot box this November.

In an interview on MSNBC's "The Last Word," host Lawrence O'Donnell asked Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to specify the amount of the federal minimum wage.

After attempting to change the subject and accusing O'Donnell of "trap playing," Steele, unable to answer the question, declared that the minimum wage was irrelevant, a slap in the face to the country's estimated 980,000 minimum-wage workers.

Steele's days as chairman of the RNC are numbered. He will have plenty of time to learn about the relevance of the federal minimum wage while waiting for his weekly unemployment compensation to kick in.

But Steele is not alone in his indifference to the plight of America's minimum wage worker. Several Republican Senatatorial candidates seemingly agree with the chairman's statements.

Rand Paul of Kentucky, Linda McMahon of Connecticut and Washington's Dino Rossi have all entertained the idea of adjustments to the federal minimum wage. John Raese of West Virginia believes it should be abolished altogether. "I profess that (the) minimum wage be eliminated and we operate on the laws of supply and demand just like we did before the depression," the wealthy businessman said at a candidate forum last month.

Alaskan Tea Party candidate Joe Miller has even suggested that the federal minimum wage is unconstitutional. If he had paid attention in high school civics, he would be aware of the fact that its constitutionality was affirmed in 1941, nearly 70 years ago.

In recent months, Republicans have provided an ailing Democratic Party with plenty of political ammo. Democrats have used Steele's recent statements to hammer the theme that Republicans will repeal the minimum wage. This strategy will undoubtedly prove advantageous this November, given that the Republican Party's base is overwhelmingly blue-collar.

Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich added insult to injury last week, urging Republican candidates to portray Democrats as the party of food stamps, a program which currently serves 37.9 million Americans.

Such rhetoric alienates the independent voter as well as the nearly 50 million unemployed people struggling to make ends meet in the current economic recession.

According to a survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, nearly two-thirds of Americans favor increasing the minimum wage to at least $10 an hour. 51 percent of the survey's respondents identified themselves as Republican.

The party's unequivocal opposition to the federal minimum wage, like its intent to extend the Bush tax cuts, only lends credence to the argument that Republicans are far too accommodating to the wealthy.

The federal minimum wage was established in 1938, at the height of the Great Depression, in order to ensure a "minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general wellbeing." Reducing or eliminating the minimum wage in a recessionary economy is not only economically unsound but immoral.

The Republican Party, far too concerned with serving the interests of corporate bankers and multi-millionaires, has once again proven that it is abysmally out of touch with America's working class.

http://wildcat.arizona.edu/perspectives/republicans-out-of-touch-with-working-class-1.1687255

Lee Fisher is the clear choice for Ohio voters concerned about jobs and the economy

Cuyahoga Falls, OH ~ “I will not only be a vote for fair and balanced trade [in the U.S. Senate],” said Lee Fisher, Ohio’s Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate, “I will be a tireless advocate for fair and balanced trade.”

The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) held the Ohio Senate Candidate Forum at the Sheraton in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio this morning. Candidate Lee Fisher (D) attended and answered voter questions. Candidate Rob Portman was invited but declined to attend due to scheduling difficulties. Mr. Portman did send a surrogate to make a statement and take voter questions back to campaign headquarters.

Fisher accused Rob Portman of helping cause the trade deficit, manufacturing decline and job losses when Portman was U.S. Trade Representative in the Bush Administration. “Rob Portman repeatedly chose not to do anything about currency manipulation when he was in a position to take action,” Fisher said.

Fisher also said that he supports HR 2378 which the House of Representatives passed on September 29, 2010 to neutralize foreign government currency manipulation. He favors tax credits for manufacturing in America to offset foreign value added taxes. Fisher further said he supports the TRADE Act which would evaluate past trade agreements for efficacy and plot a course for a new trade policy that would balance trade.

“We appreciate Mr. Fisher’s support for balanced trade,” said Michael Stumo, CEO of CPA. “The Great Recession was caused in large part by ill-conceived trade policy at the federal level. We are dedicated to educating candidates, voters and elected officials so they make smart decisions on future trade policy.”

Other speakers at the event were Jacki Adams (Northeast Ohio Campaign for American Manufacturing); Bruce Cain (Xcel Mold & Machine, Canton, OH); Peter Yoder (Yoder Agriculture); John Wagner (Tri-County AFL-CIO); Joe Logan (farmer and CPA Co-Chair for Agriculture); and Tim Burga (Ohio AFL-CIO).

“Voters need to know where their candidates stand on trade issues to make intelligent decisions on November 2,” continued Stumo. “Ohio has been particularly hard hit with job and manufacturing losses caused by federal trade policy. Only by a single-minded focus on balanced trade can we achieve full employment and sound growth for our manufacturers and farmers.”

Levin and Donnelly show leadership on manufacturing and trade issues

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman and Michigan Representative Sandy Levin and Congressman Joe Donnelly of Indiana held a roundtable discussion about trade and manufacturing issues at Mack Tool and Engineering in South Bend. Also in attendance were representatives from Nucor, Reliable Metalcraft, Value Tool and Engineering, and the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

One of the most pressing concerns for Hoosier manufacturers voiced by attendees was the advantage Chinese competitors gain from that country’s unfair manipulation of their currency.

Supported by Donnelly and Levin, H.R. 2378, The Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act, passed the House of Representatives by a broad bipartisan vote on September 29 and seeks to level the playing field for our small businesses by targeting exchange rate misalignment between the U.S. Dollar, Chinese Yuan and other major trading partners in order to reduce the unnatural comparative advantages that command economies like China’s can use against market economies.

“It’s past time to crack down on Chinese currency manipulation. It is estimated that China’s continued undervaluing of its currency has already cost 55,000 Hoosier jobs, with 6,000 of those in north central Indiana alone,” said Donnelly. “I will continue to work in Congress with leaders like Chairman Levin to fight against Chinese currency manipulation and other unfair trade policies that are bad for Hoosier businesses and bad for working families.”

A report by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and the Economic Policy Institute conducted a study examining job loss due to currency manipulation and found that 6,000 jobs have been lost in Indiana’s Second Congressional District. China undervalues its currency by anywhere from 15 to 40 percent, keeping the prices of its exports artificially low, undercutting the market for American-made goods, and forcing American businesses to close.

“U.S. workers and businesses can compete if the playing field with China is level, and I am proud to have worked with Joe Donnelly to get this landmark legislation to safeguard U.S. industries and U.S. jobs from China’s currency manipulation approved by the U.S. House,” said Rep. Sander Levin, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means. “Standing up for U.S. jobs and forcing China to play by the rules is vital to Indiana and throughout our nation’s manufacturing base.”