Reaganomics Is Dead. Making That Case Will Win The Election & Usher In Long Lasting Change {Updated}

[Joanne98]

by kloris
Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 07:31:16 AM PDT
Everyone (including me) seems to agree that the candidate that "connects" with the average voter on the economy and convinces them their solution for its problems are correct will runaway with this election.

John McCain, with his reputation as a maverick (once debatably true, not even close nowadays) and his deathbed conversion to regulator is running around saying he's going to tweak the system: fire his friend and philosophical soul mate, the SEC chairman, get rid of "greed" on Wall St (what a joke, there'd be no one left), add a regulation here or there, and apply some other miscellaneous band-aids.

What John McCain has not done, and could never do, is argue for fundamental change in our reigning economic philosophy, the one that has gripped this country for decades, defined the "norm" and kept the Republicans in power: Reaganomics with its belief in unruled markets, unlimited deficits, unpatriotic tax cuts for the rich and unproven, trickle down benefits for everyone else.

While Obama realizes the opportunity, there are better examples out there of ways he can seize it.

kloris's diary :: ::
It's clear from his New Mexico speech yesterday, that Obama is starting to make the case for something fundamentally different: "The last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed". While he's getting better at talking about how his change is not just one at the margins like McCain advocates, Obama still has a way to go to get to a level of understandability that any American can relate to. And gut level understandability, when combined with the bad economy and fear of what might happen next (or could have happened ... imagine if Social Security had been privatized like McCain wanted) is what will put the final nail in the Reagonmics coffin. If played correctly by Obama, he has a chance to discredit the Republicans on the economy as badly as the Neocons now are on foreign policy ... for now and long into the future.

{UPDATE} Looking at the comments I realized I should have been more explicit: I did not mean to say Obama should literally go around dissing Reagan. I chose the term Reaganomics with the Kos audience in mind as a short hand way to convey what policies Obama should now go around and diss.

It is in that spirit that I offer the following two, better-than-New-Mexico ways to get the idea across. First, there's Rep Barney Frank, Chairman of the Senate Financial Services Committee, who did a pretty good job in only 100 seconds:

A true understanding of the free market and of capitalism understands the role for regulation and if you do not have appropriate regulation, if you do not have a good set of rules within which the activity can be conducted you get the kind of problems you have now. It's an irony, by totally abstaining or virtually totally abstaining from any kind of involvement in the market they created a situation in which they are now more deeply engaged in the market in an financial entanglement with the market than the liberals ever wanted to be.

Continued>>
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/19/10921/7569/491/603617

[Ian David]

1. Reaganomics was just the cover story for The Shock Doctrine and Fascism. n/t

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

2. We need the second coming of FDR. His name is Barack Obama.

Sanity must be restored to this nation.

[Ishoutandscream2]

4. Exactly. The Dems are going to have to save the country again

FDR got us back on track and, with Truman, was able to give us what we used to call the American dream. Now, 30 years of Reaganomics has brought us back to the dark days of the late 20's and early 30's. History repeats itself.

[kenny blankenship]

3. I regret that I have but one K&R to give for this post

"imagine if Social Security had been privatized like McCain wanted"

Hey people! Mr. Integrity POW wanted to give all your retirement money AND your safety net to Wall Street's CROOKS. You'd be eating out of garbage cans. It's a point of distinction that's true for "McChange" and his whole fucking, immutably greedy and reckless party. It's a devastating contrast and goes right to the core of the difference -or what should be the difference- between Old Man "McChange" and his party of gangsters on one hand and Barack Obama and the Democrats on the other. The Era of Reagan MUST DIE.

If we can't make this point FINALLY, in this year, with all the fruits of Reaganism dropping and putrefying all around us as they are, then we deserve to lose. If a Republican wins a single election, like for county supervisor down in Pighump, Alabama, then we've done something wrong. It should impossible to win as a Republican.