Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2012, Progressivism, The United States | Tags: A Modest American Dream, Scale Down—Bur Don't Give Up, The Power of Government
Remember the soaring promises — “this was the moment—this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.” and —”in this moment — let us reach for what we know is possible. A nation healed. A world repaired. An America that believes again.”
Not any more. The American dream has dwindled, shrunk. It’s more modest. You can hope for a job, a house, a college education for the kids, health care, maybe a little money for retirement — with government help, of course. That’s how Obama describes today’s American dream.
“Mr. President, James Kunstler writes, you are presiding over an epochal contraction, not a pause in the growth epic. Your assignment is to manage that contraction in a way that does not lead to world war, civil disorder or both. Among other things contraction means that all the activities of everyday life need to be downscaled including standards of living, ranges of commerce, and levels of governance. ‘Consumerism ‘ is dead. …The wealth of several future generations has already been spent and there is no equity left there to re-finance.”
Let’s call it poverty-chic. Collaborative consumption. Sharing, bartering, renting, swapping assets. A new American dream — a new reality. Today’s 2012 Economic Report of the President attempts to bury the statistic that roughly 11 million working-age Americans have been excluded from the country’s formal number of 13.75 million unemployed Americans.
In 2000, 64.4 percent of working-age Americans had formal jobs, either full-time or part-time. It slid to 63.0 percent in 2007. The recession (remember this is the very worst since the Great Depression) ended technically in May 2009, but by October of that year, the ratio of working-age Americans gainfully employed hit a low of 58.5 percent. The official unemployment figures — the U-3 number — includes only those unemployed who have looked for a job in the four weeks before a sample is taken. It doesn’t include those who have given up looking or who have quit the workforce entirely.
The recession technically ended in May 2009. One might think that the policies being pursued weren’t successful, and it might be a good idea to try something else. Well, Obama’s view of the country is pretty sour as well. Fred Barnes has gathered together a view of the president from his budgets and his speeches. Obama believes:
America is an unjust and deeply unfair country. “The basic bargain that made this country great has eroded,” Obama said at Osawatomie. “Hard work [has] stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success.
Obama is unconcerned about the looming debt crisis. His budget has a $1.3 trillion deficit, and the debt is growing past $16 trillion into a real danger zone.
Government spending is better at spurring the economy than private investment. …“As a nation, we’ve always come together, through our government, to help create the conditions where both workers and businesses can succeed.” The key phrase was “through our government,” which for Obama means Washington-directed programs, not incentives for private investment.
When the rich get richer, the middle class and poor get worse off. Obama often mentions the middle class and the poor one after the other. He doesn’t claim a cause and effect. But the implication is there’s at least a correlation. You don’t get prosperity for the few without declining prospects for the many. Obama doesn’t believe in a growing economic pie.
Conservative, free market economics is a plague. Obama describes it as an economic system that tells Americans, “You’re on your own.” In his view, it consists of cutting taxes for the rich and gutting regulations of every kind.
Do read the whole thing. Obama is not a frustrated moderate or a pragmatist, nor is he a well-intentioned but weak politician. He is a left-wing progressive who rejects the mainstream political and economic ideas of post World War II America.
Those soaring phrases, ” a nation healed,” a “world repaired,” “the moment when we came together to remake this great nation.” Some thought he meant that he wanted to fix the quarrels in Washington. He meant to remake the nation. If he’d told us that his idea of “remake” was to shrink, contract, downscale and make more modest, things might well have turned out a little differently. Well, I don’t buy it, and neither should you.
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