Sorry, but it's not possible to do more than very marginally, temporarily, improve economic conditions as long as we refuse to have a legitimate/non-punitive welfare system. This is something the more economically successful countries have figured out. When a you fall without a safety net, you crash to the ground. With each economic downturn, more fall into poverty; when conditions sort-of improve, fewer are able to climb back out, so the number of very poor keeps growing. The abundance of mandatory workfare labor, paid minimum wage or less, has served as a "captive" temp help workforce, saving our corporations billions of …
All 10 comments by...
dhfabian
-
-
Where America has actually gone backwards is in the area of economic/social policies. We watched as our government ended aid for our neediest in order to (A) help cover the costs of annual tax "relief" for the rich; and (B) to create an instant Third World workfare workforce here in the US, and America yawned with utter indifference. The progressive community in the US yawned with indifference. Ironically, President Clinton's welfare "reform" policies were enacted in the year that we celebrated the anniversary of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and even the progressive community was indifferent to the fact …
Posted to Love and Revolution
-
Once again, Mr. Sirota hits the nail on the head when he points out how much we've become a "winner take all" society. Sadly, even the progressive community in the US has somehow lost track of the socio-economic issues that have created the disaster we have today. Few have cared about not only the loss of certain fundamental legal rights for our poor, as a result of welfare "reform", but about the very real suffering and hopelessness of our poor today. They don't seem to grasp our welfare "reform", by turning the poor into a bottom-wage temp help workforce without basic …
Posted to Columbine Questions We Still Don’t Ponder
-
I didn't cry, but just acknowledged that "things could be worse." I was encouraged early in the campaign, when Obama strongly criticized the old "trickle down economics." This has been a disastrous strategy for the poor -to-middle classes. Then, within a couple weeks of the election, Obama "clarified" that his social agenda for the poor consists of ... you guessed it, "trickle down economics." It makes sense, in a hopeless sort of way. A whole generation has been born and reached adulthood since the Reagan years, when the campaign to raid public welfare funds began in earnest. This generation has had …
Posted to The Difference Between Hope and Change
-
The poverty in much of rural Wisconsin is severe, yet we don't have massive immigrant labor here. If there really is a problem of too many migrant workers in a particular area, the answer is to require companies to comply with the law, imposing harsh penalties for those who don't. But our economic crisis has little to do with our economic crisis. On illegal immigrants taking jobs, one must fill out a job application form which requires information about citizenship. The employer is required by law to verify this information. If they don't they are breaking the law, and yet I …
Posted to Blue Collar, Bare Cupboards
-
Infant mortality rates among America's poor significantly increased as a direct result of welfare "reform", to the point of surpassing that found in most Third World countries. When will those legislators who are responsible for welfare "reform" be held accountable for the resulting deaths?
Posted to Equating Stillbirths with Murders
-
Maybe you need to be over 50 to understand the differences between pre- and post- Reagan America, and to see how the Reagan administration has caused such tremendous damage to this country. Things that define the Reagan legacy: Some of the worst economic disparities in the Western world; the use of economic measures to censor the news media and turn it into a political spin machine; the highest infant mortality rate among all modern nations, coupled with a rapidly declining life expectancy for America's (rapidly increasing number of) poor; the destruction of the "social safety net" by allowing corporations to loot …
Posted to The Enduring Lies of Ronald Reagan
-
There is always a large turnout when a celebrity dies. Even Stalin had a magnificent funeral. During Carter's administration, when a person needed help, it was available. Our "failed welfare system" enabled over 80% of recipients to work their way off welfare in under 5 years, moving up to the middle class. The general economy saw a cyclical downturn, but instead of heaping billions of dollars of welfare...er, I mean "tax cuts"...on the wealthiest 1%, the nation Carter administration began investing in the education and job skills training that enabled the poor to escape poverty. And the depth and breadth of …
Posted to The Enduring Lies of Ronald Reagan
-
Nope, not making it up. I don't recall ever saying that Carter was a great president, although he is a very a good man. He was a showman, unlike Reagan, nor did he have that quality of celebrity that Americans tend to value above integrity and competence. A successful ad campaign leads to high sales, regardless of quality and value. We were a little more naive back then, when it came (what has come to be called) "the selling of the candidate". We are STILL paying for the deficit spending of the Reagan Era. What did Reagan do that had any …
Posted to The Enduring Lies of Ronald Reagan
-
What we need to keep in mind is that the US puts more money into its health care system than any othe nation, and yet comprehensive health care is now available to a small and rapidly shrinking portion of the population. Malpractice lawsuits have been blamed for these incredibly high costs, and yet a surprisingly small portion of money actually goes into payments to those who won malpractice lawsuits. Our out of control medical costs aren't due a single factor, but a range of factors that includes wildly high costs for medical training. Controlling these costs is vitally important. Sound medical …
Posted to Victory in the Medicare Drug War?
- Joined March 22, 2006
- Last Visit November 16, 2009
Other Profiles
IN THESE TIMES COMMUNITY MEMBERS
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
Ignoring Outrage, Obama Set to Expand Pentagon Presence in Colombia
- 9.
- 10.
RSS Feed