Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
I was born in 1950. The America of the 1950s and 1960s was prosperous for many (although not all) Americans. We had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the planet.
First there was the Vietnam War. It was extremely expensive, causing deficit spending, and spurring inflation. It cost 58,000 young American lives and many thousands more lives that suffered long term physical or emotional damage.
Nixon precipitated our present health care crisis by overturning the regulation that had previously forbidden health care from being a profitable concern. The biggest cause of personal bankruptcy became medical debt.
Then there were the “trickle down” economic policies of Ronald Reagan. The principles of John Maynard Keynes were abandoned and programs helping the poor were curtailed. Taxes on the wealthy were sharply reduced. Subsidies for higher education were sharply curtailed. Higher education became so expensive that millions of college graduates are burdened with a lifetime of debt that they can never pay off. Many of them can’t afford to leave their parents’ basement, let alone get married and raise children.
The New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt instituted a number of banking regulations including the Glass Steagall act which separated commercial from investment banking. The Clinton Administration overturned this act. Lack of regulations on banking and real estate led to the crash of 2008, in which millions of Americans lost their jobs and their homes.
George Bush started two long term and unnecessary wars which caused thousands of American deaths, injuries and long term psychological damages to soldiers and vastly increased the federal debt. His tax cuts were also a large factor in increasing the federal debt.
Do tax cuts for the wealthy improve the economy? History shows that the answer is a resounding NO. The wealthy hoard the money or invest it abroad. Nothing has trickled down. The vast bulk of the wealth has flowed up to the already wealthy. We can expect the same results from the Trump tax cuts.
We are now in a situation where the middle class has been eroded to the point where fully fifty percent of American households live paycheck to paycheck with no savings at all. For these households a $500 auto repair bill can make them have to choose between paying the rent and utilities or putting food on the table.
Our wars and our economic policies that serve only the desires of a small clique of billionaire oligarchs are what have destroyed America.
'Merica
First there was the Vietnam War. It was extremely expensive, causing deficit spending, and spurring inflation. It cost 58,000 young American lives and many thousands more lives that suffered long term physical or emotional damage.
Nixon precipitated our present health care crisis by overturning the regulation that had previously forbidden health care from being a profitable concern. The biggest cause of personal bankruptcy became medical debt.
Then there were the “trickle down” economic policies of Ronald Reagan. The principles of John Maynard Keynes were abandoned and programs helping the poor were curtailed. Taxes on the wealthy were sharply reduced. Subsidies for higher education were sharply curtailed. Higher education became so expensive that millions of college graduates are burdened with a lifetime of debt that they can never pay off. Many of them can’t afford to leave their parents’ basement, let alone get married and raise children.
The New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt instituted a number of banking regulations including the Glass Steagall act which separated commercial from investment banking. The Clinton Administration overturned this act. Lack of regulations on banking and real estate led to the crash of 2008, in which millions of Americans lost their jobs and their homes.
George Bush started two long term and unnecessary wars which caused thousands of American deaths, injuries and long term psychological damages to soldiers and vastly increased the federal debt. His tax cuts were also a large factor in increasing the federal debt.
Do tax cuts for the wealthy improve the economy? History shows that the answer is a resounding NO. The wealthy hoard the money or invest it abroad. Nothing has trickled down. The vast bulk of the wealth has flowed up to the already wealthy. We can expect the same results from the Trump tax cuts.
We are now in a situation where the middle class has been eroded to the point where fully fifty percent of American households live paycheck to paycheck with no savings at all. For these households a $500 auto repair bill can make them have to choose between paying the rent and utilities or putting food on the table.
Our wars and our economic policies that serve only the desires of a small clique of billionaire oligarchs are what have destroyed America.
'Merica
