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Poverty Rises as Wall Street Billionaires Whine
The ranks of the working-age poor in the United States climbed to the highest level since the 1960s as the recession threw millions of people out of work last year, leaving one in seven Americans in poverty. The overall poverty rate climbed to 14.3 per cent, or 43.6 million people, the Census Bureau said yesterday in its annual report on the economic well-being of US households. Gulfnews.com
While 43.6 million Americans live in poverty, the richest men of finance sure are getting pissy. First Steve Schwartzman, head of the Blackrock private equity company, compares the Obama administration's effort to close billionaires' tax loopholes to "the Nazi invasion of Poland." Then hedge fund mogul David Loeb announces that he's abandoning the Democrats because they're violating "this country's core founding principles" -- including "non-punitive taxation, Constitutionally-guaranteed protections against persecution of the minority, and an inexorable right of self-determination." Instead of showing their outrage about the spread of poverty in the richest nation on Earth, the super-rich want us to pity them?
Why are Wall Street's billionaires so whiny? Is it really possible to make $900,000 an hour (not a typo -- that's what the top ten hedge fund managers take in), and still feel aggrieved about the way government is treating you? After you've been bailed out by the federal government to the tune of $10 trillion (also not a typo) in loans, asset swaps, liquidity and other guarantees, can you really still feel like an oppressed minority?
You'd think the Wall Street moguls would be thankful. Not just thankful -- down on their knees kissing the ground taxpayers walk on and hollering hallelujah at the top of their lungs! These guys profited from puffing up the housing bubble, then got bailed out when the going got tough. (Please see The Looting of America for all the gory details.) Without taxpayer largess, these hedge fund honchos would be flat broke. Instead, they're back to hauling in obscene profits.
These billionaires don't even have to worry about serious financial reforms. The paltry legislation that squeaked through Congress did nothing to end too big and too interconnected to fail. In fact, the biggest firms got even bigger as they gobbled up troubled banks, with the generous support of the federal government. No bank or hedge fund was broken up. Nobody was forced to pay a financial transaction tax. None of the big boys had a cap placed on their astronomical wealth. No one's paying reparations for wrecking the US economy. The big bankers are still free to create and trade the very derivatives that catapulted us into this global crisis. You'd think the billionaires would be praying on the altar of government and erecting statues on Capital Hill in honor of St. Bailout.
Instead, standing before us are these troubled souls, haunted by visions of persecution. Why?
The world changed. Before the bubble burst, these people walked on water. Their billions proved that they were the best and the brightest -- not just captains of the financial universe, but global elites who had earned a place in history. They donated serious money to worthy causes -- and political campaigns. No one wanted to mess with them.
But then came the crash. And the things changed for the big guys -- not so much financially as spiritually. Plebeians, including me, are asking pointed questions and sometimes even being heard, both on the Internet and in the mainstream media. For the first time in a generation, the public wants to know more about these emperors and their new clothes. For instance:
• What do these guys actually do that earns them such wealth?
• Is what they do productive and useful for society? Is there any
connection between what they earn and what they produce for society?
• Did they help cause the crash?
• Did these billionaires benefit from the bailouts? If so, how much?
• Are they exacerbating the current unemployment and poverty crisis with their shenanigans?
• Why shouldn't we eliminate their tax loopholes (like carried interest)?
• Should their sky-high incomes be taxed at the same levels as during the Eisenhower years?
• Can we create the millions of jobs we need if the billionaires continue to skim off so much of our nation's wealth??
• Should we curb their wealth and political influence?
How dare we ask such questions! How dare we consider targeting them for special taxes? How dare we even think about redistributing THEIR incomes... even if at the moment much of their money comes directly from our bailouts and tax breaks?
It's true that the billionaires live in a hermetically sealed world. But that doesn't mean they don't notice the riffraff nipping at their heels. And they don't like it much. So they've gotten busy doing what billionaires do best: using their money to shield themselves. They're digging into their bottomless war chests, tapping their vast connections and using their considerable influence to shift the debate away from them and towards the rest of us.
We borrowed too much, not them. We get too much health care, not them. We retire too soon, not them. We need to tighten our belts while they pull in another $900,000 an hour. And if we want to cure poverty, we need to get the government to leave Wall Street alone. Sadly, their counter-offensive is starting to take hold.
How can this happen? Many Americans want to relate to billionaires. They believe that all of us are entitled to make as much as we can, pretty much by any means necessary. After all, maybe someday you or I will strike it rich. And when we do, we sure don't want government regulators or the taxman coming around!
Billionaires are symbols of American individual prowess and virility. And if we try to hold them back or slow them down, we're on the road to tyranny. Okay, the game is rigged in their favor. Okay, they got bailed out while the rest of us didn't -- especially the 29 million people who are jobless or forced into part-time work. But what matters most is that in America, nothing can interfere with individual money-making. That only a few of us actually make it into the big-time isn't a bad thing: It's what makes being rich so special. So beware: If we enact even the mildest of measures to rein in Wall Street billionaires, we're on the path to becoming North Korea.
Unfortunately, if we don't adjust our attitudes, we can expect continued high levels of unemployment and more people pushed below the poverty line. It's not clear that our economy will ever recover as long as the Wall Street billionaires keep siphoning off so much of our wealth. How can we create jobs for the many while the few are walking off with $900,000 an hour with almost no new jobs to show for it? In the old days, even robber barons built industries that employed people -- steel, oil, railroads. Now the robber barons build palaces out of fantasy finance. We can keep coddling our financial billionaires and let our economy spiral down, or we can make them pay their fair share so we can create real jobs. These guys crashed the economy, they killed billions of jobs, and now they're cashing in on our bailout. They owe us. They owe the unemployed. They owe the poor.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was no radical, but he accepted the reality: If America was going to prosper -- and pay for its costly Cold War -- the super-rich would have to pony up. It was common knowledge that when the rich grew too wealthy, they used their excess incomes to speculate. In the 1950s, memories of the Great Depression loomed large, and people knew that a skewed distribution of income only fueled speculative booms and disastrous busts. On Ike's watch, the effective marginal tax rate for those earning over $3 million (in today's dollars) was over 70 percent. The super-rich paid. As a nation we respected that other important American value: advancing the common good.
For the last thirty years we've been told that making as much as you can is just another way of advancing the common good. But the Great Recession erased that equation: The Wall Streeters who made as much as they could undermined the common good. It's time to balance the scales. This isn't just redistribution of income in pursuit of some egalitarian utopia. It's a way to use public policy to reattach billionaires to the common good.
It's time to take Eisenhower's cue and redeploy the excessive wealth Wall Street's high rollers have accumulated. If we leave it in their hands, they'll keep using it to construct speculative financial casinos. Instead, we could use that money to build a stronger, more prosperous nation. We could provide our people with free higher education at all our public colleges and universities -- just like we did for WWII vets under the GI Bill of Rights (a program that returned seven dollars in GDP for every dollar invested). We could fund a green energy Manhattan Project to wean us from fossil fuels. An added bonus: If we siphon some of the money off Wall Street, some of our brightest college graduates might even be attracted not to high finance but to jobs in science, education and healthcare, where we need them.
Of course, this pursuit of the common good won't be easy for the billionaires (and those who indentify with them.). But there's just no alternative for this oppressed minority: They're going to have to learn to live on less than $900,000 an hour.
- Posted in
52 Comments so far
Show AllLet's do the math - OK, $900,000/hour and say a 20 hour work week, so 1000 hours/year, that comes to $900 million...OK, a 70% income tax, WOW, that only leaves a guy with $270 million a year. Oh my my, maybe we need to keep the tax-cuts for the rich, they might starve to death.
I love it! I actually spit water on my keyboard :(
Still, funny post!
The article doesn't mention that the threshold to be categorized as impoverished DROPPED between 2008 and 2009, thereby understating the real nmumber of Americans living in poverty.
I've always marveled at the federal poverty guidelines, even if they exclude some benefits or credits. A family of 4 people that lives anywhere in the US (not to mention certain areas) and earns over $22,000 is NOT officially poor?
The polls leave out the Un-officially poor; those that earn $22,001 and such. The working poor that supplement with the Food Pantry. How many of them (?), and you get more of the whole picture of today's, post 9/11/2001, America.
It reminds me of that Comment by some Basketball player when commenting on the size of his contract.
"Sure I make a lot of Money , But I SPEND a lot of money"
those sports stars are so stupid that many of them are bankrupt within a decade of retirement. And when you have that much and lose it, the depression is much, much worse than never having had it at all.
That we have reached the point where 50 million plus are at or below the poverty line considering the assault on our constitution, our economy and our society over the last 30 years should come as no surprise.
The surprise is that the number isn't higher after the last two years
"It's not clear that our economy will ever recover as long as the Wall Street billionaires keep siphoning off so much of our wealth."
I disagree, I believe its quite clear that our economy cannot recover while the current tax and trade laws are in effect.
"In the old days, even robber barons built industries that employed people -- steel, oil, railroads. Now the robber barons build palaces out of fantasy finance."
Great paragraph. And our problem.
After thinking this over after another string, how can anyone object to raising the top rate to say 40%? (thats an effective rate, not a posted rate)
Mightymite, Wall Street billionaires are just as responsible as the tax and trade laws for the economic mess we are stuck with. It might interest you to note that tax and trade laws have a strong bond with the Wall Street billionaires. Having the basics of finance and accounting, if I had to revisit the "free" trade scams and the tax cut policies, chances are I could relate the crooked financial principles that were likely used to craft those obscene tax breaks and loopholes along with exemptions and loopholes for big corporations. Those tax and trade policies would result in a "faith based" market guaranteed to reward the big companies while also persecuting the smaller ones. Now why would Wall $treet billionaires be fighting for such lopsided policies? The answer is that occupation of money for the billionaires is easier in bigger companies than it is when there are far more smaller companies and healthy competition that comes with them exists. On your reply about robber barons, I don't believe that robber barons were ever a good thing at any time only that they have gotten smarter and nastier.
Yep, we have the very best government that corporate campaign contributions can buy!
>Those tax and trade policies would result in a "faith based" market guaranteed to reward the big companies while also persecuting the smaller ones.<
Can you say Wall-Mart, or Home-Dept the reason you can't hardly find any smaller stores anymore, and all the empty shells Wall-Mart has left that can't be sub-divided and used for anyother purpose. Because Wall-Mart wrote the contracts that way so no competition could move in when they bulit the Super Wall-Mart only a few mile down the road in a new county, giving new taxbreaks.
Just beacuse it's leagal, doesn't mean it's not a crime.
>^^<
"In the old days, even robber barons built industries that employed people -- steel, oil, railroads. Now the robber barons build palaces out of fantasy finance."
They still are. Just in other countries.
That is correct and the more the merrier it is to make it easier for the robber barons to hide their intentions at large. :(
We’re All Serfs Now empirePie
Consumer hood, the new personhood;
the hooded consume, consumed, .. consumer
cattle prodded with some laser light;
take the jolt you’ll be alright.
It’s slip slide sublime,
crack slipped plastic, levered on the prime.
It’s up to you to do the time
so step in line,
goose step for the Xe Hal,
a bit of Blackwater prodding and you’ll do fine
Cuddle the cuties in some sweat shopped hoodies,
greed is good;
greed is God;
In greed we trust.
Convert to gold.
Empathy is rotting in the mould;
the fungus among us of the molded calf,
but: ‘don’t have a cow’
we’re all serfs now
Don’t forget the Apocalystick lick.
Us simmering toadies like the stick.
This posting describes exactly why America is going downhill at an extremely rapid pace.
When the wealthy were excluded from paying their "fair percentage" of taxes, thanks to George Bush, the seeds of the present day economic booondoggle were sown.
Today we hear the wealthy screaming about keeping the Bush tax cuts for them because without them "our economy will crash!" HA!!!!!
As the author states, "It's time to take Eisenhower's cue and redeploy the excessive wealth Wall Street's high rollers have accumulated. If we leave it in their hands, they'll keep using it to construct their speculative financial casinos that benefit no one but themselves."
Moreover, our system of "legalized bribery" (lobbying) whereby only the wealthy, including corporations that are now "people," are "heard by members of congress" needs to be completely outlawed for exactly what it is - bribery!!! BRIBING A PUBLIC OFFICIAL HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONSIDERED A CRIME!!! It is no longer just the poor who have no say in our government, neither does any average person!
This is the only possible way that the voting public be put on equal footing with the corporations that have succeeded in "stealing our Democracy!"
Great article, spot-on. However, it is a pipe-dream. There will be no regulations reigning in Wall Street, or any corporations for that matter. There will be no increase in the tax rate on any of the Elite. If there is, it will be a token only, perhaps 1% or less. Certainly NEVER anywhere near 40% or higher. And the reasons for this are quite simple:
The U.S.A. is an oligarchy. Period. It is not a democracy. It is ruled, run, and raped by the corporate elite. They fill Congress, the Senate, the White House, and the Pentagon, as well as the Supreme Court. It is bought and paid for by corporate dollars to do one thing, and one thing only: further corporate interests and the Elite who run them.
Period.
There will NEVER - get that through your heads - EVER - be an accounting, a "take back our country and turn it back into a democracy" like that which occurred back during Teddy Roosevelt's days, or FDR's. There is one, and ONLY one, future for the U.S.A., and it will happen before you think. Enjoy the downhill ride.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis, "It Cant Happen Here", 1935
Your last two points were a result of a combination of two factors:
1. Wall $treet's inherent greed.
2. Main Street being shackle-conditioned into not just feeling powerless but also hurting those on Main Street trying to fight for economic justice against Main Street.
I don't blame Main Street but the hard part is not only convincing locals to think differently but also to get them to stick to it.
When Sinclair Lewis wrote that quote you posted, he must have foreseen that this nation was vulnerable to corporate fascism where the monied elites would not only be given unbridled powers and fortune but that more than enough of the working class would be totally mis-educated into looking at them as "heros". If you meet a working class citizen who still believes that Wall $treet is their ticket to their personal economic fortune or that it is "practical" to listen to the financial liars (aka financial "experts") on the media and follow their Enron-ish schemes, then it is a sign of dystopia at its worst.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis, "It Cant Happen Here", 1935
Yes; and both the American flag and Christian cross will have been "made in China".
Wow, that's heavy.
"There will NEVER - get that through your heads - EVER - be an accounting, a "take back our country and turn it back into a democracy" like that which occurred back during Teddy Roosevelt's days, or FDR's. There is one, and ONLY one, future for the U.S.A., and it will happen before you think. Enjoy the downhill ride."
How many houses and Yachts do these rich rats need? Of course that isn't why we let them get away with so much. Most of the American Dream is that anyone can achieve that kind of wealth so we let them get away with it hoping we will be in the same position. And of course they do not wish to share any of their ill gotten gains with anyone but their friends. Overpaid, greedy, selfish subspecies of humans which in history will be called the "money chasers," dollar signs will grace their head stones and meanwhile we will all pray and follow Wall Street over the cliff.
The war on the middle-class is being fought with H1B visas approved by Congress, and the outsourcing of jobs by corporate America. The middle-class is no longer affordable for the empire. They will be replaced with a mercenary-class that will protect the elite that run the empire. The empire will keep its doctors and lawyers and lobbyists but the rest of the middle-class will be collateral damage in our imperial wars.
Hoa binh
Duplicate comment deleted ...
I'd guess they'll even eliminate the lawyers and import foreign doctors. See
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/15-3
It is time to start taxing capital again. Why? Because that is where the money is. Bill, Warren and friends have cut up the American pie and have armed debutantes keeping it under lock and key. They refuse to pay income tax. Now they have figured out how to take their money with them into the afterlife. The solution is to tax capital. Example: Raise property tax rates across the board but give an exemption for a taxpayer's personal residence. No exemption for commercial, real or rental property.
Capital equals assets. "We" do not have a material amount of capital. I find the current state of affairs revolting. One in seven live in poverty and fifty-three cents of every tax dollar goes to protect the worldwide assets of the wealthy.
The French Revolution failed because they did not cut up the land. The children of those who met the guillotine were in control of their fathers' properties when Napoleon marched all the ravel-rousing young men off to conquer the world for twenty years. One smart move they made was to confiscate the properties of the Church that had a tax free ride for hundreds of years. This is what Bill and Warren have in mind.
What happens to Wall Street when the baby boomers start cashing out stock every month to pay expenses? More sales yields lower stock prices, lower stock prices mean you have to sell more, selling more leads to lower stock prices!
Holy feedback loop, Batman!
All that was missing from the piece, and which describes the attitude of these Wall Street douche bags perfectly, was this infamous quote from Leona Helmsley, "Only the little people pay taxes."
My reply to Ms Leona would be: "Let everyone who pisses and craps pay taxes".
Everyone who reads this, pass it on, and vote come November.
Huh? I thought most CD-ers were AGAINST voting, because it just demonstrates brainwashed allegiance to the corrupt capitalist system.
Man, I am so confused ...
Huh? You are confused, Donny-Don. Voting is only useless when it is done in a corrupt, capitalist system. Lets' change the system to a fair socialist one where every vote counts, and then see what voting can accomplish. That's what THIS CD-er has been advocating.
Don't worry brother, even those of us who vote like to pretend we don't have to.
"Without taxpayer largess, these hedge fund honchos would be flat broke." WRONG! Taxpayer sentiment was running at least 9 to 1 against the bailout. Our representatives in Washington pointedly ignored the massive number of calls and protests from their constituents. My critter's office said that it was the calls from the bankers that they heeded, threats really, that if this payola wasn't provided they wouldn't be lending anyone any money and small business owners would be belly-up. That's what they said, but what they meant was "my campaign funds, perks and bribes will dry up."
So the truer statement would be: "Without the criminal complicity of those elected officials charged with protecting the taxpayers, those hedge fund honchos would be in the same boat as the rest of us."
The media managed a huge U-turn in opinion. At first calls to Congress were overwhelmingly against and then people got spooked that the system would collapse and the percentage allegedly reversed in a matter of days. The only U-turn I recall that happened as quickly was predicting Gore then Bush by the media.
The Concentration of wealth in the handfuls of a few is the antithesis of the "Free market". The more the wealth concentrates the less FREE the market.
People are being sold a bill of goods when they repeat the talkng point that "Capitalism" is about "Free markets".
In truth the marketplace that has COMMON ownership of wealth is more "free".
The reason so little attention paid to the 10's of millions in poverty while so much policy passed to provide for that small handful of Billionaires is because the United States of America and countries that follow that Model are NOT FREE markets or for that matter "free Societies" . They are CONTROLLED by those that OWN everything.
Refuse to serve the empire!
Your country has enough for you. You live in a land where computers are a million times faster than they were 50 years ago. Robots make things.
Your country can afford to give you a good job doing useful things at survivable stress levels. Your country can afford to build you your house, or to hire you to build your house.
Your country tells you that it can't afford these basics because it needs more $50 million dollar yachts in the harbor, but these needs aren't rational. Congress and the President have all of the nation's power and they can make your job and your house come true tomorrow if necessary.
You have to make it necessary. The wealthy have more than enough -- they'll move off of your house and let you have it, albeit with grumbling.
Behind every Billionaire are millions of underpaid workers.
That fact has been obscured by easy credit, at least until the bust.
Eisenhower's America is dead and on display at the Smithsonian Institution. Democracy was never intended to, and cannot, control priapic, cage fighting, rules-be-damned Capitalism.
We live in serfdom and pretend that voting has value by choosing one of the moving shells, possibly with an actual pea under it, but there is no guarantee of a pea, so we vote for a sham.
Checked by unmitigated fear, and lacking the human courage of ancient serfs, it is long overdue time to change the name of the USA to Ship of Fools.
Exactly right. Capitalism and democracy can't coexist. A true democracy wouldn't create a capitalist system and a capitalist system couldn't survive in a democracy. Guess you could say we are near the end.
Hoa binh
There are millions living on a dollar day. These useless crooks make as much money as seven million, two hundred thousand such people each day.
I have the strength of six men, but I don't expect to be paid for six.
Well, I for one do NOT worship these people OR their money. Never have, never will. I've worked around enough of them, being in the music business, to know what a bunch of self aggrandizing idiots they really are. More arrogance than any human should be allowed.
I am all for returning us to the Eisenhower tax rates, which were 94%. Only this time, we'll eliminate the loopholes that allowed them to pay far less than that. Kind of like what Kennedy did when he lowered the rate to 72% but killed off the loopholes, thus allowing republicans to say that lowering taxes increases revenues. It does, but ONLY if you eliminate the loopholes so that the actual ending tax rate is HIGHER than what it was.
What really pisses me off is that these billionaires are bitching about a mere 3% increase! It's from 33% to 36%. Do they even think they would NOTICE that? It should be a repeal of the REAGAN tax cuts, and put it back to that 72%. Hell, for all I care, make it 100%. If they can't live on $3 million a year, then they are truly sick, twisted, and deserve to be locked up in an asylum for the criminally insane. Oh, wait, Reagan closed all of those. Oh, well, out into the streets for them, then.
I don't care about these people, any more than they care about any of us. And they have proved to us all that they are more than willing to sell us all out, throw us under the bus and laugh all the way to the bank. I say it's time they get the same treatment from us. Time for the torches and pitchforks, and take NO prisoners. THEY declared war against us 30+ years ago. I say we take them seriously and start fighting back.
We allowed these people to get incredibly dangerous. Where would the world be if Hitler had been allowed to amass such a fortune before setting out on his course? Who is to say that we haven't allowed just such a figure to start causing trouble? To want to own so much is truly a sickness. It is NOT something to be admired, it is to be shamed, scorned, and despised.
And the robber barons of earlier years were different in that they PRODUCED something for their millions. The current crop we have now produces NOTHING. They are gamblers, and they are crooks and thieves. This is what bothered me about Reagan and his bullshit. Even then I knew that it was based on NOTHING. It produced nothing, but it sure made lots of people rich. But only if you knew the game and were willing to sell out your country. What a shame that so many were.
Here, Here. We are too frightened to stand up. But it will be unavoidable soon when people realize how far we have sunk.
Often thought : NOT 'do not ask what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country'!
BUT : 'Do not ask what you can do for your country - ask what your country can do for you.'
FOR : You do the fighting of wars to enrich your COUNTRY and the labour (and glad if you can get that) and the tax-paying for the sake of your COUNTRY. So lets see what you country can 'do for you'.
~sc
But we are creating great jobs (snark, snark). I really didn't know what to think about this last night, but it sure isn't something of value. And, frankly, does this mean that our Native Americans are going to be shafted again?
In Dicey Economy Casino Dealers In Demand:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129934064#commentBlock
So the one guy in this story worked 35 years in the steel industry (creating something of value), lost his job when the factory closed, and now he's going to deal cards (he hopes). Does anyone find this really sad, or is it just me? Or do the kind of jobs we create really matter, as long as it's a job?
To the elite corporate oligarchy us common tax payers are just slaves that provide their gravy. Why should they care about our poverty? After all, they might be in danger of loosing that extra jet or yacht or estate in the Bahamas. All we have to worry about is our job or home. Doesn't "justice" and "fairness" go along with entitlement? They used to belong to the middle class, but that was ages ago. Come on, get with the times! We are living at the end result of capitalism. Aren't we lucky!
"It was the best of times it was the worst of times.......
poor people and their friends arise we are united :o)
A large percentage of these "Millionaires" are small companies privately owned, small business, like a lot of farmers, like my dad. To say that he is rich, I wish, is nuts. If you are willing to work 12-18 hours a day of years and are very creative and industrious you can make millions here in America. To say that these hare working people that they can not keep the money that they make is very wrong.
The only ones that got money from the government were FOO's, Friends Of Obama.
Oh, I see, the friends of BUSH got NOTHING? Moron, they got 12 TRILLION of OUR dollars!
And let's not start talking about how farmers get all kinds of gov't handouts to keep them alive. Admittedly, it's hard work, and my grandfather did the same thing in Washington state, but he didn't bitch about how terrible the gov't was. He knew that without their help, he'd have been out on his ass during the depression. He was grateful for what he had, and everything he got. And he even found time to serve in the state legislature back in the 40's. He believed in people, and felt that we had to work TOGETHER and not LIE like rugs to suit our shallow purposes.
Obama hasn't even been in office for 2 years, and you want to blame HIM for the failings of the last 4 administrations? Damn, you really need to open your eyes and see who your REAL enemies are. Obama is not a great leader, that is for sure, but he's not the one who is to blame for the last 10 years of disaster. Open your eyes and LEARN something before you go off half cocked. Look at the last 30 years, and tell me that it's NOT Reagan's BS policies that caused this. And when you do that, after I stop laughing like crazy, I'll show you with facts and figures HOW he did it. And how the righties of BOTH parties have been continuing it for 30 years.
Learn who your REAL enemies are, your survival depends on it. So does the rest of ours.
WJM, friends of Dubya still got to keep their goodies even under Obama. Obama has been here long enough to make them give up some of their toys but not only will he not force them to give their money and toys, he is giving them more. Dubya or Barry, we all lose.
P.S.: Name us some accomplishments Obama has done for Main Street while in office and please don't plagiarize from some Obamabot.