Are You Better Off Now Than You Were 30 Years Ago?

[Joanne98]

A week before the election in 1980, Ronald Reagan asked, during a debate, whether Americans felt they were better off than they had been four years earlier when Jimmy Carter was elected to the presidency. Reagan, who is said to have nailed down the election with that line, ushered in a new era of lower taxes for the wealthy, ballooning federal deficits, and massive deregulation.

John McCain likes to say he was a footsoldier in the so-called Reagan revolution, which was indeed a revolution, though not in the way McCain imagines. Reagan and his followers rejected the New Deal/Great Society view that government has an important role to play in helping people get through hard times, in providing a safety net for those who would otherwise be on the streets, in giving people not born to affluence a fair shot to get ahead. The Reagan ethos was a crude re-hashing of 19th century Social Darwinism, used to justify unrestricted, everyone for him or herself, free market capitalism. Reagan denounced mythical “welfare queens” who were supposedly driving Cadillacs paid for with government largesse, and promoted an “up from the bootstraps” philosophy that ignored the reality that people don’t start life on equal terms. Cutting taxes was the remedy for every problem, magically said to actually result in increased revenues (though George H.W. Bush briefly described the theory as “voodoo economics”).

For the past 30 years, Republicans have attacked every government program under the sun (apart from the military and corporate subsidies) as wasteful, or creeping socialism, or both. “Big government” became some of the dirtiest words in politics, and it it was political suicide to support any tax, whatever the purpose or scope (as Walter Mondale learned in 1984). Similarly, the ideal of unfettered free markets was elevated to the level of dogmatic certainty; no serious politician could dare to question this organizing principle of political discourse.

Republicans have had the chance to put their theories into practice, having held the White House for 20 of the past 28 years under (apart from the first President Bush) take no prisoner presidential administrations who rammed their budgets and changes through. The results? Huge deficits (broken only by the Clinton interregnum when deficits were turned to surplus), stagnant wages and a declining standard of living for the overstretched middle class, 50 million Americans without health insurance, millions of seniors who have to keep working in otder to make ends meet, millions of others (of all ages) who have to turn to bankruptcy. When crisis mounts–whether it’s Hurricane Katrina or the current financial meltdown described by Alan Greenspan as a once in a century crisis, government is incapable of anticipating or responding. That is a direct result of the Republican philosophy of deregulation–the free market is supposed to solve every problem, and government’s first task is get rid of “red tape”. As McCain put it for his entire career prior to this week, the answer is always smaller government, less regulation-which sounds great, until disaster strikes and everyone, even McCain, is clamoring for government help.

Barack Obama is rightly framing this election as a referendum on the failed Republican philosophy that has dominated the past three decades. When John McCain maladroitly suggested that, if he were president, he would fire SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, Obama shot back that in 6 weeks, American voters can vote out “the whole trickle-down crowd”.

That’s what change really means this year: trading in the failed Republican philosophy of deregulation and smaller government at every turn for the kind of competent, reasonable government we had in the 1990s. This is really a debate over the role of government. McCain, his hero Ronald Reagan, and his entire party, have been deriding and rejecting government for three decades. It turns out that sometimes we need government, and massive deregulation has a downside. Now that it comes time to clean up from the wreckage of this failed non-governance strategy, it’s hard to believe voters will go with McCain, no matter how vehemently he insists that his overnight conversion to the role of populist regulator is for real.

The question Obama should ask Americans is: are we better off than we were in 1980, when the Republicans philosophy of less government and less regulation was launched? They have had their chance, and we are seeing the bitter fruits of their failure in the current financial meltdown. Obama is simply calling for a return to common sense, for a rejection of the theory that cutting taxes for the wealthy is the solution to every problem and that less government is always the right move. There are very real problems to be solved–health care, the mortgage crisis, the failure of financial deregulation. We need government to address these problems. The answer cannot be more of the same.

http://www.theseminal.com/2008/09/18/are-you-better-off-now-than-you-were-30-years-ago/

[Union Thug]

1. In 1978, my father was a union printer. We were a single income family..

...four kids and a dog. My parents owned their home (well, on a mortgage), and while we did not have new cars, we had decent 5-7 year old cars to ferry us around. We had medical and dental insurance as part of the union contract and while we weren't 'well-to-do,' we were comfortable.

Try that today.

I should add that by the late 80's (the darkest moments of the Reagan/Bush years), my father's union job was gone, health benefits were gone and the family was eating government cheese.

'nuff said?

[Vanje]

2. 30 years ago , my back didnt hurt

I made the same wage per hour then that I do now.

I shit you not.

[LiberalEsto]

3. In 1978 I was part of a DINK couple

DINK = Dual Income, No Kids

As journalists, neither my first husband nor I made big salaries. But combined, we earned enough to save up for a down payment on a house, new dining room furniture, new bedroom furniture, and a trip to Europe. We owned zero credit cards and had no debt except for the mortgage payment.

Today, I've been married for 26 years to my second husband, and am much happier, but we're flat broke. We're paying huge student loans for both daughters, along with tuition, room and board for our younger one, who is still in school. As of right now we've got $46 in the bank, and almost nothing for retirement. The Fannie Mae stock in my husband's 401 K is just about worthless now.

[Warpy]

4. When I got out of high school in the 60s

and I had a full time job and part time college, my barely above minimum wage allowed me to live in a one bedroom apartment by myself in the south. I could go to a doctor when I got sick, pay for my own food and clothes, and have enough left over for tuition, books, and the rare party.

Had I been male, that job would have been part time, but the lifestyle would have been the same.

By the end of the 70s, I needed a roommate (spouse) so that both of us could afford a one bedroom apartment, buy our own clothes and food, and hope like hell we didn't get sick enough to go to a hospital because we no longer made that kind of money.

It has gotten worse, not better.

This is what conservatives do, hold down wages and destroy services.

Any questions?

[FiveGoodMen]

5. No. 30 years ago there was hope for the future.

[Dervill Crow]

7. You said it so well. nt

[Dervill Crow]

6. Hell, no. I don't even want to expand on that thought because it's too depressing. nt