Are You Better Off Now Than You Were 28 Years Ago

28 years is how long the Milton Friedman paradigm has ruled American economics--when rich people get richer, they spend more money on boats, condos and stuff, and so the blue-collar folks who make boats and condos will see an increase in their personal economies. Don't tax capital gains, because rich people will pull their money out of the markets, and businesses will not be able to invest in projects that create new jobs. Trickle-down economics it was called. Or voodoo economics by some.

Well, here we are twenty-eight years later, and it turns out Milton Friedman and the Republican status quo that has ruled in Washington and Wall Street in the generation since Ronald Reagan is definitively ... wait for it ... WRONG! Wrongity-wrong-wrong! So wrong they are begging for the government they hate so much to step in and save their WRONGITY ASSES.


How much wronger can Republicans be? Their fiscal policies, even when done correctly, turn out to be WRONG. Their social policies have attempted to thwart every basic human rights advancement, from equal rights for Americans whose skin is not white, to Americans who love others of the same sex, to Americans who have been violated by rape and do not want to carry the rape-conceived embryo to full term. Until the wrongity-wrong Reagan revolution, human rights in this country had moved forward; Republicans believe in moving backward, taking away your basic rights, including--but not limited to--talking on the phone without fear of being wiretapped.

Um, ask any woman who was raped, this is WRONG. Ask any black American, Islamic American, gay American, any American who talks on the telephone, this is WRONG ... as it was when businesses put up signs that said "Irish need not apply." WRONG. Republicans today stand for an America that is WRONG, that bears no resemblance to the one codified in our Constitution, in which the Bill of Rights are not little niceties that can be swept away because Dick Cheney deems there is a one percent probability that someone, somewhere, might possibly die. Not that his solution will prevent it--still, it's deemed unpatriotic to oppose him. You know what's patriotic? Defending the Constitution, that's what. You know what Cheney has done? Undermine the Constitution. Not very patriotic. In fact, the opposite of patriotic, by any reasonable definition.

Back to fiscal policy, during the reign of George II, the wealth of the top one percent of Americans holds forty percent of the wealth, which means a dramatic decline for the average middle class American. The rich got richer by a 56.3% surge, according to Dallas News. And Mr McCain wants to enhance their tax cuts. Yeah, regular Americans got a microwave oven, and a two-car garage in the last 28 years, but they got them on credit.

So, who's lying to the American people--Mr McCain and Sarah "I am a joke" Palin, who want to change things without changing them, or Mr Obama, who maybe--just maybe--has a shot at turning away from the Bush years, since he, y'know, didn't vote in favor of Bush's policies over 90% of the time ... Wrongity-wrong-wrong.