It’s the economy….finally.
From the front page of the NY Times today described the first day of the economic policy debate that will likely dominate the upcoming presidential campaigns. Why? Simple: folks are hurting. For all the good and bad things happening in the world, it’s pretty clear that no amount of social “wedge issues,” like gay marriage, choice, or whether America is a “Christian country” or not, will obscure the pain of the subprime meltdown or $4 gasoline. Cooper and Rohter in the Times wrote, “It is a battle between Republican supply-side economics and a Democratic tradition that uses government levers to try to reduce inequality and spur the economy.” Indeed, this may well emerge as the clearest ideologically-based choice voters have had since 1932.
We have had for nearly 3 decades an unchallenged rhetoric that argues that we have to “free up” capital by lowering taxes on investments (capital gains) in order to stimulate the economy. While progressives have been shouting unheard into the media wind that real wages have been flat for YEARS and that letting the rich get richer doesn’t really help working people, somehow the notion hasn’t gotten traction that the economic policy elite wasn’t really moving on the right set of tracks. Some, like ex-Nixon speech writer Kevin Phillips, have been decrying the emergence of a new Golden Age, more similar to the 1890’s or 1920’s when the rich were fabulously so, while ordinary folks wallowed unable to get ahead. This disparity between the rich and the poor, he argued in Wealth and Democracy, threatens democracy at its roots when the wealthy gain unfettered access to the power of government, turning it to their purposes.
So, have Naomi Klein’s “disaster capitalists” been hiding out in the candy store after hours, gorging themselves on no-bid contracts, crop subsidies, military cost overruns, and government policy aided media monopolies? Sure seems so. Just listen to Larry Lessig on the toxic power of lobbyists, or Dan Rather on why corporate interests, particularly conglomerates that own some media but also a lot of other things, have everything to gain from a muzzled media. News has become all-Paris Hilton all the time. And meanwhile, who has noticed the corruption that seems to have broken out in DC?
Let’s hope the people have, and maybe that’s why folks are finally looking so closely at the economy as we enter this election process. How refreshing!
Someone to watch closely on this: Jason Furman, the new economic policy guy in the Obama campaign. Labor folks are unhappy with his strong ties to Robert Rubin, the bigtime Wall Street insider and former Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton.