Blame Bush.

Pretty much.

Go right ahead. Using figures by Reaganomics architect Bruce Bartlett, Andrew Sullivan writes:

When you check reality, rather than the alternate universe constantly created by Fox News and an amnesiac press, you find that Bush had a chance to pay off all our national debt before we hit the financial crisis - giving the US enormous flexibility in intervening to ameliorate the recession. Instead, we had to find money for a stimulus in a cupboard stripped bare - its contents largely given away, by an act of choice. 

I'm tired of being told we cannot blame Bush for our current predicament. 

We can and should blame him for most of it - and remind people that Romney's policies -- more tax cuts, more defense spending-- are identical. 

With one difference: Bush pledged never "to balance the budget on the backs of the poor." Mitt Romney has no qualms about doing that very thing. And he will, if he is given the chance.

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Reaganite Bruce Bartlett (also referenced above) lays it out in black and white: 

Republicans would have us believe that somehow we could have avoided the recession and balanced the budget since 2009 if only they had been in charge. This would be a neat trick considering that the recession began in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.They would also have us believe that all of the increase in debt resulted solely from higher spending, nothing from lower revenues caused by tax cuts.  

And they continually imply that one of the least popular spending increases of recent years, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), was an Obama administration program, when in fact it was a Bush administration initiative proposed by the Treasury Department that was signed into law by Mr. Bush on Oct. 3, 2008. 

Lastly, Republicans continue to insist that tax cuts are highly stimulative, often saying that they add nothing to the debt, when this is obviously ridiculous. 

Conversely, they are adamant that tax increases must not be part of any deficit-reduction package because they never reduce deficits and instead are spent. This is also ridiculous, as the experience of the Clinton administration clearly shows. The new C.B.O. data confirm these facts.

PS:
"According to a new Gallup survey, over two-thirds of the country say Bush deserves either "a great deal" or "a moderate amount" of blame for the economy, compared to just over half who say the same about Obama" (MMFA, Poll Shows Americans Still "Blaming Bush" For Economy | Media Matters for America - http://goo.gl/1p8c4 June 14, 2012 )

Class Warfare (Wealth inequality, etc)

Mitt Romney flashing those benjamins

Also:

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("World of Class Warfare: Warren Buffett vs. Wealthy Conservatives", Aug 18, 2011)

Distribution of Wealth

• Why the truly alarming economic trend is not income inequality. It's the Wealth Gap, Stupid | Mother Jones (2/13/2012) 
• The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office confirms that the rich have been getting richer. : CBO | Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007 (10/25/2011) 
• Young Turks covers this CBO report

From CBO report, Oct 25 2011

(chart from MoJo's "It's the Inequality, Stupid")

Growing Pie? shrinking pieces for 99%

• How the McEconomy Bombed the American Worker | MichaelMoore.com  (May 10, 2011)
• Divide and Conquer; convince you that you have to fight for an ever smaller piece of the pie.  (robert reich, "The Republican Strategy" (Feb 2011) 
• "They pit average working Americans against one another, distract attention from the almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and power at the top, and conceal Republican plans to further enlarge and entrench that wealth and power."
• ONE | Catholic bishops to US House: ‘Make the poor a top priority’  (4/14/2011)

Poverty, Income inequality...

• Corporate Profits Just Hit An All-Time High, Wages Just Hit An All-Time Low - Business Insider - (6/22/2012) http://goo.gl/yk4jh
• As Big Bank Stocks Plunge, CEOs Continue To Reap Huge Salaries | ThinkProgress (1/2/2012) 
• Bottom Line - CEOs rake in huge sums when their companies go bankrupt (1/27/2012) 
• Wall St. Record pay when regular Americans facing unemployment, stagnant wages (2/4/2011)--the study is by Wall Street Journal: $135 billion in compensation. Exec payouts = 1/3 of the total Wall St bank bailout ($417billion)
• Review: The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett | Books | The Guardian (3/13/2009)
• the life-diminishing results of valuing growth above equality in rich societies can be seen all around us. Inequality causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives; it increases the rate of teenage pregnancy, violence, obesity, imprisonment and addiction; it destroys relationships between individuals born in the same society but into different classes; and its function as a driver of consumption depletes the planet's resources.
• Wilkinson, a public health researcher of 30 years' standing, has written numerous books and articles on the physical and mental effects of social differentiation. He and Pickett have compiled information from around 200 different sets of data, using reputable sources such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Health Organisation and the US Census, to form a bank of evidence against inequality that is impossible to deny.
• 21 CEOs With $100 Million Golden Parachutes | Mother Jones (1/18/2012) 
• Thirty Years of Unleashed Greed | Truthout (10/28/2011) 
• Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% - Vanity Fair (5/2011) 1% of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.
• The Forgotten Truth That Conservatives Created The Welfare State Ray Medeiros/Politicus 2/2011 ( Low wages push ppl onto welfare) 
• Executive Bonuses Bounce Back - WSJ.com  (3/18/2011)
• Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession - IPS (Sept 2010)
• Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging - IPS (Sept 2011)
• The Rich Get Richer: CEO Bonuses Skyrocket; Worker Pay Flat | Mother Jones 3/18/2011
• War On The Poor: Minnesota Republicans Want To Bust Poor People Who Carry Cash | Crooks and Liars (3/2011)
• "250K Isn't Rich If You're A CEO But 50K is Rich If You're A Teacher":  Ray Medeiros 3/2011
• "It's the Inequality, Stupid" -MoJo 3/2011, great CHARTS AND GRAPHS abt income inequality
• Poverty Scorecard: 2010 scorecard analysis 
• "Executive Excess 2010: Exec Pay and the Great Recession", 9/2010, Institute for Policy Studies
• the CEOs who slashed their payrolls the deepest took home 42 percent more compensation than the year’s chief executive pay average for S&P 500 companies.
• American workers, by contrast, are taking home less in real weekly wages than they took home in the 1970s 
• Politifact:True: , just 400 Americans -- 400 -- have more wealth than half of all Americans combined," (Michael Moore statement in Wisconsin 3/2011)

"Redistribution of Wealth! Communist!"

• On redistribution of wealth : Does The Bible Mix Religion and Politics? - The Christian Left Blog (6/2/2011) 

There's a War on the Middle Class

• House moved to kill HAMP/Obama Mortgage Plan (CNN Money) - Mar. 29, 2011 
• Robert Reich (The Republican Strategy) 2/17/2011 
• - split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.
• How the middle class became the underclass (And how the DECLINE OF UNIONS hastens the decline of the middle class)- CNN Money Feb. 16, 2011
• Gov Walker's threat to American political stability (Huffpo, Steven Cohen, 3/2011)
• The American middle class owes its existence to the fact and threat of union organizing. That is why the attack on public workers' right to collective bargaining is an attack on the middle class
•  Michael Moore, "The Smug Wealthy Have Gone Too Far", Alternet 3/6/2011
• 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true
• Michael Moore: We Face a Global War on the Middle Class, AlterNet 3/2011 
• "Foreclosure Follies" House Republicans have introduced bills to eliminate four federal antiforeclosure programs and replace them with — nothing - NYT Ed, 3/2011
• The American Dream is Disappearing for This Generation! - Brian Conners, 2/2011 (compares our econ. situation to Egypt)

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("Men of a Certain wage - Money Talks")

[this post was getting too long; I've split off the UNION links to its own blog post]

(related content on Unions and Wisconsin at "Middle Class Fights Back" and "It's the Economy, Stupid" posts)

Reaganing

Jack Donaghy is Reaganing (30 Rock)

"Conservatives don't worship Ronald Reagan. They worship what they believe Ronald Reagan to be"

• Politifact puts Reagan Claims to Truth-O-Meter (handy!) (2/8/2011)
• Reagan a tax/spend big gov guy who was also a pragmatist who respected objective reality (Eugene Robinson, 2/8/2011)
• Reagan, tax cuts, GDP (addicting info 2/11)
• Reagan unemployment rate almost 11% in 1982/high unemployment mirrored by high disapproval during his term
• Caller challenges Limbaugh on Reagan myth; Rush seems bewildered (2/2011)
• 5 Myths about Reagan's legacy (Will Bush, WaPo, 2/4/11)
• 10 Things Conservatives don't want you to know about Reagan (Think Progress, 2/5/2011)
• Reagan cared more abt UFOs than AIDS (Salon 2/4/11)
• Reagan's Triple Legacy (C&L, 2/5/11)
• Regan's embrace of Apartheid South Africa (Salon, 2/5/11)
• Reagan: Enemy of the American Worker (Truthout, 2/4/11)
• Reagan, Terrorist (RubberStampRoskm 2/6/2010--Reagan's 99th)
• Reagan's bin Laden connection (Slate, June 2004)
• Reagan's impact on education today (WaPo, 2/6/2011)

Reagan would be called a Socialist today

• Marco Rubio: Reagan erred in supporting 1986 amnesty for illegal immigrants

Hagiography

• America is like Reagan's Jellybeans by Ben Quayle (Politico, 2/2011)

Ask Democrats, Obama to toughen up

Two worthwhile petitions that cut to the heart of what people like me have been fretting over for a long time... the overability of Democrats/Obama to defer to Republicans and the inability to take hard stances and fight for our agenda.


Yes, Tea Party Republicans took over the House (but as I noted, it's hardly a mandate, and today brings another poll that emphasizes the non-mandate nature of the elections)--

But we, the American People, also elected Democrats in 2008 and it is still the 111th Congress.  Let's get moving and pass some REAL legislation, no compromises!, during the lame duck session!

Sign this petition and edit the cover letter to your point of view.

Amidst signals that Obama is ready to compromise with Republicans re: extending the disastrous, deficit-making Bush tax cuts for the top 2% of earners (see  my post below)...

Sign this Credo petition and tell him to NOT extend the Bush Tax Cuts.  It's a winning issue for Dems--but if and only if Obama takes leadership and fights the case.

There is also the Progressive Change Campaign version of the same petition.

***

UPDATE:  Others are picking up the chorus:

Michael Moore has taken to the airwaves and the blogs to argue for sweeping Democratic legislation to be passed during the lame duck session.

Blue Mass Group bloggers plead: "Mr. President, do not learn the wrong lesson from the midterms"

Extending Bush's Deficits with the "Bush Tax Cuts"

Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Dissecting the Deficit (8/2012) http://goo.gl/XYtIl:  Indeed, the tax cuts and the wars alone account for nearly half of the public debt by 2019.

UPDATE: This NYTimes "solve the deficit" puzzle should be required activity for anyone who claims we should extend the Bush deficit-bombs, tax giveaways to the top 2%.  And here's a useful FACT SHEET about the Bush tax giveaways, from Politifact.
--
Here's what's on the table:

 

And here's a little sense of history--the top marginal tax rates over time--with some helpful Questions to Consider in the graphic: 

 UPDATE Dec 1 2010:

The President just announced, with much fanfare, a plan to Freeze federal workers' pay as part of an austerity/cost cutting measure. 

Our own Scott Brown is refusing to extend Unemployment Benefits (which will impact middle and working class Americans right at the holidays) because of the impact on the deficit.

Consider this: 

The "savings" from freezing fed workers' pay is less than 1% of the total deficit.  Not even a drop in the bucket. 

And extending the Bush tax cuts (deficit bombs) for income over $250,000 will add ANOTHER $700 BILLION to the deficit!!

If we are to believe Senator Scott Brown, The Deficit and Not Adding to It is a primary concern that trumps all others, including the protection of families meager safety net income in the winter, over the holidays.  

If Senator Brown argues FOR extending Bush tax holidays for income over $250,000--he will prove himself a liar:  that he doesn't actually care about the deficit. 

 

Call him on it. DO NOT LET SENATOR BROWN GET AWAY WITH VOTING FOR BUSH TAX GIVEAWAY EXTENSIONS.   

--

How income has been bleeding away from middle class to the top 1% for the last 30 years...

 ----

CONTACT SENATOR SCOTT BROWN

Email: Click thru his "Comment" Form on website:

Phones:

Boston -- (617) 565-3170

Washington, DC -- (202) 224-4543

FAX: (202) 228-2646

(you can use services like FaxZero.com to send free faxes from the internet!)