When sociologists and other cultural analysts try to explain why and how Americans are tolerant of our new status as one of the most unequal developed nations -- one in which the huge disparity between rich and poor is growing yearly -- they tend to explain that Americans are optimistic. Even the poorest have believed that they, too, could achieve the "American dream" of being prosperous.
Now a dose of reality may change all that. We may be on the verge of getting deeply uneasy about the wide gap between rich and poor. According to a survey by The Hill, the "American dream" has faded.
Just one in every four voters in 10 battleground House districts says the American Dream is “still there for everyone,” while four in 10 say the dream exists “only for some people,” according to The Hill 2010 Midterm Election Poll. ...
... The survey of likely voters in competitive congressional districts, conducted for The Hill by Penn Schoen Berland, offers a snapshot of the electorate as concerns over the pace of economic recovery dominate the midterm campaign. It comes as Republicans hammer Democrats over the soaring national deficit and debt, warning that exorbitant federal spending will leave the next generation of Americans weighed down by a heavy financial burden.
It's more important than ever that Democrats hammer back, pointing to the historical truth that Republicans have been responsible for exorbitant federal spending and for the absence of opportunity for the great majority of Americans. Even as we are trying to crawl out of an economic hole dug by the Republican party, we are still forced to carry the burden of debt created by Republicans.
David Stockman, Reagan's OMB director, has been laying it on the line.
The Republicans abandoned their old-time fiscal religion in favor of two theories, which I think are now proving to be both wrong and highly counterproductive and damaging.
One was monetarism, which said let the dollar float on the international markets. Let 12 men and women at the Fed decide whether to raise or lower interest rates, and use the Fed to try to run this massive economy. What they've done instead is run the printing press; they've flooded the world with dollars. The whole monetarist policy has been a mistake.
The second thing was the perversion of supply side. Yes, there was a good idea that in certain circumstances, lower tax rates will encourage economic activity and savings. But when you make it a religion, when you make it a catechism and you say you cut taxes no matter what the circumstance, what the season, what the condition, then I think the whole idea has been perverted.
By getting off track over the last 30 years, the Republican Party has basically given up its historic view that the key thing was financial discipline, financial responsibility, and that we had to live within our means.
