This election is clear cut

the Demicratic solation favors the middle calls. 

The Republicans offer the 1 per cent solution. The Democrats favor the middle class.

One business person explained it this way. The tax cuts at the end of the year are nice, but it is a disaster when your business loses customers.

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How about a nice punch in the middle class gut?

This idea would really help the middle class, wouldn't it?

It would be akin to having your leg amputated for an ingrown toe nail.

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Middle Class Exit 'Lost Decade' With Little Hope: Pew Report

"Things aren't looking great for America's middle class, and they know it.

A significant share of the middle class say it will be a long time before they recover from the severe shocks of the past 10 years, dubbed "The Lost Decade" in a Pew Research Center report released Wednesday.

"There's not a lot of good news for the middle class," Rich Morin, senior editor at the Pew Research Center and a co-author of the report, told The Huffington Post. 'The middle class has shrunk in size, it's declined in income and in wealth, and has lost a little bit of that characteristic faith in the future that defines Americans broadly, but particularly the middle class.'"

The fracturing of the middle calls started with the Reagan era and Bush finished the job with his tax cuts for the affluent, and the ownership society which created the great recession.

If you think Mittens can fix the problems the GOP created, think again. The GOP has been tied up in an ideological straight jacket since the Reagan era.
See Middle Class Exit 'Lost Decade' With Little Hope: Pew Report:

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Center for American Progress: Making Our Middle Class Stronger

Some of the policies that are advocated will:

• Ensure middle-class families pay only 15 percent of their income to send their children to college
• Reduce the cost of saving for retirement by nearly half, compared to a typical 401(k) plan
• Lower mortgage payments for millions of families by an average of $2,600 a year
• Restore 500,000 teaching jobs
• Create more than 2 million jobs rebuilding and upgrading our infrastructure
• Guarantee workers access to paid sick days and maternity leave
• Increase access to higher education and job training Ensure that workers receive the overtime pay and benefits they deserve
• Help non-college-graduates gain credentials that boost pay by as much as $225,000 more than comparable job seekers during their lifetimes
• Save middle-class consumers thousands of dollars annually on health care and limit the risk that illness will send them to the poorhouse
• Reduce the cost to parents of quality preschool

See a summary of the article at http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/08/pdf/middle_class_policies_execsumm.pdf

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West Wing Week : "Let's Agree To Do What We Agree On," 7/13/12

Published on Jul 13, 2012 by whitehouse

This week the President signed the MAP-21 Act to extend funding for transportation and infrastructure projects and stopped student loan interest rates from doubling. He also urged Congress to cut taxes for the middle class, while the White House announced the 2012 Save Award initiative, and played host to a Google Plus Hangout.

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HK Cartoons: The Private Sector is Doing Fine

The private sector is doing fine but it is not creating new jobs.

It is the middle class that is suffering because of the economic downturn.

The average American family's net worth dropped almost 40% between 2007 and 2010, according to the Federal Reserve.

Family net worth dropped from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010.

Most of the drop is attributed to the drop in real estate prices.

sources:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/11/news/economy/fed-family-net-worth/index.htm
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WH Weekly Address: Passing the Buffett Rule So That Everyone Pays Their Fair Share

Published on Mar 31, 2012 by whitehouse

President Obama calls on Congress to pass the Buffett Rule, a principle that ensures that millionaires and billionaires do not pay less in taxes as a share of their income than middle class families pay -- as a matter of fairness.

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Al Jazeera English:The downward mobility of the US middle class

by Robert Reich

Robert Reich

"Berkeley, CA - January's increase in hiring is good news, but it masks a bigger and more disturbing story - the continuing downward mobility of the middle class in the US.

Most of the new jobs being created are in the lower-wage sectors of the economy - hospital orderlies and nursing aides, secretaries and temporary workers, retail and restaurant. Meanwhile, millions of US workers remain in jobs only because they've agreed to cuts in wages and benefits. Others are settling for jobs that pay less than the jobs they've lost. Entry-level manufacturing jobs are paying half what entry-level manufacturing jobs paid just six years ago.

Other people are falling out of the middle class because they've lost their jobs, and many have also lost their homes. Almost one in three families with a mortgage is now metaphorically underwater, holding their breath against imminent foreclosure."

See the compelte article at: The downward mobility of the US middle class - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

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WIN: UAW plans protest against Michigan Governor's plan to abolish collective bargaining right

3/6/2011
By Doug Cunningham

United Auto Workers President Bob King says workers everywhere must rise up against a coordinated national attack on collective bargaining rights for workers.

The UAW and allies will rally in Lansing March 14th to protest Michigan Republican Governor Synder taking away collective bargaining rights for 70,000 home health care workers. The UAW is also protesting a slash and burn budget in Michigan that takes from working families and gives to the rich and corporations.

King: “There is an agenda, there’s a strategy, bein’ done across America by the Republican Party to destroy the middle class in America.

And if we don’t stand up and fight this – whether it’s in Michigan or Wisconsin, Ohio or any other state in the union we’re not gonna have a middle class. We’re not gonna have workers havin’ the democratic right to freedom of association, freedom of speech, And that’s what bein’ a union is part of. We believe very strongly that budgets are moral documents. Don’t say that you care about families and then pass budgets that destroy families.

source: Workers Independent News

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WH Blog: A Living-Room Discussion with Middle Class Families

Posted by Jared Bernstein on September 28, 2010 at 6:52 PM EDT

Yesterday, Vice President Biden visited the home of Bob and Lorie Cochran in Manchester, New Hampshire for a discussion on the economy and other issues that are important to middle class families.

The Cochrans were kind enough to host a small group of their neighbors and other families from Manchester.

You might have seen the President leading similar discussions over the last few weeks – it’s all about hearing directly from the American people about how things are going on Main Street and the concerns they’re facing as they sit around their kitchen tables.

We’ve been calling these events “backyard discussions,” but the weather didn’t cooperate yesterday.  It started raining as soon as we arrived in New Hampshire, so we all had to move inside to the Cochrans’ living room.

Vice President Joe Biden attends a Middle Class Task Force event at the home of Lorie and Robert Cochran in Manchester, New Hampshire, September 27, 2010. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann) 

Fortunately, the grim weather didn’t put a damper on our conversation.  After some brief opening remarks by the Vice President, we launched right into a great discussion, with the audience asking about the steps we’re taking to create jobs and get our economy moving again.

The Vice President took the opportunity to discuss our agenda for creating jobs, including more tax cuts for small businesses that want to expand and hire, infrastructure investment to build on the momentum of the Recovery Act, preserving tax cuts for the middle class, making college more affordable, and reducing health care costs while protecting health care consumers.

As you’d expect in a political season in a highly politically engaged state, other questioners asked about the upcoming midterm elections.

And on that subject, Vice President Biden stressed the stark choice voters will face on November 2: will we continue moving forward, building on our economic progress, making sure that insurance companies and banks are playing by the new rules of the road, and pursuing a policy agenda focused on the prosperity of the middle class?

Or will we hit reverse and go back to the failed, discredited economic policies set that got us into this mess? 

Will we rescind and repeal the progress we’ve made to end abuses by insurance companies and big banks, stop rebuilding America’s vital infrastructure, and go back to slashing taxes for millionaires and billionaires with no regard for the fiscal consequences?

From where we stand, the choice is clear.  Vice President Biden ended the conversation by stressing just how high the stakes are, and how important it is that every American citizen stays engaged in this debate in the weeks ahead.

From what I could tell as I looked on from the kitchen, no one disagreed.

Jared Bernstein is Chief Economic Advisor to the Vice President


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The White House Blog: GOP holds Middle Class Tax Cuts Hostage

Posted by Jen Psaki on September 20, 2010 at 06:00 AM EDT

In an oped for the Wall Street Journal this morning, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor took the Congressional Republicans' commitment to holding middle class tax cuts hostage to a new level by pledging to fight any effort to extend them without an extension for the top two percent of the wealthiest Americans.

Here’s what Cantor and the Republicans are holding hostage: a tax cut for all Americans on the first $250,000 of their income. Under the Obama plan, every middle class family would receive the immediate certainty and comfort of knowing their tax cuts were permanently extended.

Every American making more than $250,000 per year they would receive a tax cut on the first $250,000 of their income. And for income above that amount, this change would leave their tax rates at or below the rates that existed when President Clinton was in office and when the economy created 23 million jobs.

And here’s what they’re holding middle class tax relief hostage for: having our nation borrow $700 billion that we can’t afford to provide an average tax cut of $100,000 to millionaires and billionaires.

This tax cut would be, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, just about the worst way to jump start our economy and help create jobs. That is why the President remains focused on strengthening the middle class to help grow the economy.

Former staff director of the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation Ed Kleinbard told Bloomberg that the (Republcans's) definition includes not just "part-time Web designer[s]" but also "investor[s] in a hedge fund" and "partner[s] in a law firm with a billion dollars of revenue."

Bloomberg notes that the president, who, last year made $5,623,690, most of from book sales and  George Soros, the billionaire, would benefit form the extension of the Bush tax cuts. 

Because these realities are pretty hard to defend, Mr. Cantor is forced to make tired claims about the impact on small businesses that are simply not based in fact. This isn’t about small businesses the way most Americans think about small businesses. By Eric Cantor’s definition half of the wealthiest 400 people in America would qualify as small businessmen.

The reality is that only about 1-3 percent of the top income earners in the US are small business people.

Let’s be clear—even Eric Cantor’s colleague, John Boehner acknowledged that more than 97% of small businesses will get a permanent tax cut under the Obama plan, and beyond that many of the “businesses” that fall into the top 3% are not small businesses at all. In fact, the individuals the Congressional Republicans are referencing as small businesses include virtually every partner at major corporate law firms and billionaire hedge fund managers -- not exactly mom and pop stores or startup businesses.

If Eric Cantor was really focused on small businesses he would push his Republican colleagues in the House to support the Small Business Jobs Bill that would give eight new tax cuts to small businesses. The bill finally that passed the Senate last week would give essential assistance to small businesses and the President is looking forward to signing it into law as soon as the House passes it.

And let’s just be straight: time after time for the last 20 years that well-funded special interests and Congressional Republicans have fought together to ignore the deficit and keep lower taxes for the very most-well heeled Americans, they have always disguised their argument as concern for small business and small business jobs.

It’s time for Mr. Cantor and the Congressional Republicans to stop letting partisan games get in the way of giving middle class families the long-term relief they need.

Rightrdia suggests that the Democrats should raise taxes on the affluent. That is how FDR got the country through the Great Depression!

Jen Psaki is Deputy Communications Director

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Businesses claim they are not hiring because of slow consumer spending

With consumers slow to spend, businesses are slow to hire
CHICAGO -- Corporate profits are soaring. Companies are sitting on billions of dollars of cash. And still, they've yet to start hiring or make major investments.

Many Democrats say the economy needs more stimulus. Business lobbyists and their Republican allies say it needs less regulation and lower taxes.

But here in the heartland of America, senior executives say neither side's assessment fits.

They blame their profound caution on their view that U.S. consumers are destined to disappoint for many years. As a result, they say, the economy is unlikely to see the kind of almost unbroken prosperity of the quarter-century that preceded the financial crisis.

Why is consumer spending flagging. A lot of this has to do with Supply Side economics that have weakened the middle class. Cenk Uygur was conducting an MSNBC interview. The interviewee pointed out that he used to be focused on tax cuts until he realized his business couldn't make a profit without customers buying his product or services. 

Supply Side (SS) economics is really blind to importance of consumers to business. The Republican tax breaks are essentially a  subsidy to large corporations and small businesses that assume the businessman are selling the products and services to consumers. Tax breaks to middle class and low income earner under SS economics is modest.

Tax breaks are pointless if profits drop. In addition, Moody's Economics conducted a study which shows that permanent and temporary tax cuts are far less stimulative than food Stamps and unemployment compensation that provide purchasing power to consumers and are quickly rolled back into the economy.

According to the Washington Post, senior executives said they see Americans for years ahead paying down debts incurred during the now-ended credit boom and adjusting spending to match their often-reduced incomes.

Again we have an oversimplification of the problem. The Federal Reserve completed a study that showed the Supply Side Reaganomics devastated the middle class. One third became affluent and the other two thirds reversed or treadled water.

The fate of the middle class did not improve greatly during the Clinton years either.  Bush finished off the middle class during his eight year presidency with his 'tax cuts' that doubled the deficit.

During the  Bush inaugural address , he stated:

“This is an impressive crowd: the Have's and Have-more's. Some people call you the elites. I call you my base.”

It is is an impressive crowd. The top one per cent Americans now haul in 50 per cent of the income and own 90 per cent of the wealth. The only thing would fix the American economy would be huge tax increase on the affluent. This is essentially what FDR did during the Great Depression and World War 2. The top US income earners were in the 90 per cent tax bracket. 

Can the US work its way out of the Great recession. This is doubtful. Banks make their profits by moving paper around and most of the industrial base of the US has been offshored.

Will Democrats have the balls to tax the affluent? That is also doubtful. Most Democrats think even a 40 per cent tax on top income earners is risky.

Executives see little evidence that the economy is slipping back into recession. But they describe a business environment in which sales come in fits and starts and their customers can't predict what they will want to buy in the future.

Why is this? Because the vast middle class that make up the bulk of consumers is broke. SS economics will neither help the affluent or the middle class in present predicament the US is in. Income tax cuts won't help businesses that aren't making money.

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/20/AR2010082005165.html?hpid=topnews
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Gorbachev: It's your turn in the barrel, America

Mikhail Gorbachev was right when he recently said in an op-ed piece that Russia Had its Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours (the US). Translation: America, it's your turn in the barrel!

Gorbachev stated:

"But then came the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, and it became
clear that the new Western model was an illusion that benefited
chiefly the very rich. Statistics show that the poor and the middle
class saw little or no benefit from the economic growth of the past
decades.

The time has come for "creative construction," for striking the right balance between the government and the market, for integrating social and environmental factors and demilitarizing the economy."

The US spends more than five times what the Russians and Chinese spend on defense every year. Is anyone surprised the the US infrastructure has been neglected for 30 years since Ronald Reagan was president.

Reagan cut the top tax rate for the affluent from 50 per cent to 33 per cent. When Clinton was president, he restored the top tax rate to about 39 per cent. Under Bush capital gains taxes which mainly affects the most affluent Americans was cut to under 15 per cent. Bush started a US$700 billion war after he had cut income and capital gains taxes. He was the only president in US history who cut taxes during a war.

Reagan fractured the middle class. About on third became affluent and the remainder treaded water or declined. He also overspent on the military leaving George H. W. Bush a huge national debt and a recession.

The roots of the US financial meltdown started with Ronald Reagan. the 'Bush Ownership Society accelerated the decline. Gorbachev is right, "The time has come for "creative construction," for striking the right balance between the government and the market . . ."

Both the old Soviets and the American conservatives got the balance wrong. It is also possible that the Russians have gone too far in the opposite direction. Russia has more billionaires and millionaires than any other country in Europe. It also has a flat tax.

The question facing America is: Can Obama get the the US rebalanced. One thing is clear: the Republican Party offers no solutions. The deregulation and privatization of the GOP has put us in the dire straits we now find in America in. Of course, the Republicans view any efforts to balance the public and private sectors as socialism.

They can call it whatever they want. Americans needs alternative polices and programs. Name calling won't resolve the dilemma this nation is now in.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/05/AR2009060501966_pf.html