I found this article by Robert Reich on the web today. In the article, he complains: “Face it: The national economy isn’t escaping the gravitational pull of the Great Recession.”
That’s because the real problem has to do with the structure of the economy, not the business cycle. No booster rocket can work unless consumers are able, at some point, to keep the economy moving on their own. But consumers no longer have the purchasing power to buy the goods and services they produce as workers; for some time now, their means haven’t kept up with what the growing economy could and should have been able to provide them.
That’s fine. Indeed, that’s why I voted for Obama. Under George Bush, the rich had gotten richer. The poor got richer, as well; but as I was explaining to my father last spring the income disparity widened considerably during the 25 year period (1983-2008) in which conservative/capitalist policies had taken root in the American mind during the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush era. I thought that Obama had a plan for dealing with the issue of income disparity.
It turns out that he did not. Or rather his plan was to allow the slide in income to continue while promoting more fairness in the distribution of income.
Reich’s article bespeaks the poverty of solutions offered by the left. The Obama administration has no other plan for bending income back to a more equitable curve than to take income from people who create jobs (those earning over $250K) and redistributing it to the rest of the country.
This will inevitably kill job growth, which will depress the economic power of the consumer, leaving more control of the economy in the hands of the wealthy.
That’s not what I voted for in 2008, and neither did the independents, who have quickly shifted to the Tea Party (they still deeply distrust the Republicans, who squandered their 1994 election victory). The Tea Party is made up of a healthy contingent of people who are pushing for permanent tax cuts for the wealthy, because they now represent the last hope for the struggling economy in the face of diminishing income for the middle class.
That is not the only solution to the problems we face as Americans, but it is in my opinion a better solution than Reich offers. Education in America is hopelessly left-leaning and liberal. That’s why I got out. Pouring more resources to education appeals to Obama’s base (and to his past; Bill Clinton also shared the idea of extending education to everyone with Obama; as I think about it every President has a good education; there are no more self-taught Presidents like Lincoln), but it leaves out the entrepreneur, the people who have to learn business on their own because economics is not taught as part of the general education curriculum.
Offering insurance plans to ease the burden of income loss–another expense that Reich places on the consumer and which he proposes on the basis that it won’t cause the government to spend any money–without a plan for generating income is a terrible solution to a continuing problem of diminishing economic returns.
In the absence of a better solution from the Obama White House–and there is no reason to believe that they will offer one in time to save the midterm election from a historic defeat–the Tea Partiers seem to have the upper hand. That makes me sad, but Robert Reich will have to come up with a better plan if he wants me to go along with him on his plans for economic redistribution of a diminishing supply of wealth.