Since Bush has been president: income down $1,300, 3 million less pensions-manufacturing jobs, 7M lost health insurance, graduate earnings down 5%

Monday, August 6, 2007 by CommonDreams.org | Roll Back the Reagan Tax Cuts | by Thom Hartmann
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There is much discussion of what the floor on earnings should be - the minimum wage - but none about the ceiling. That’s largely because effectively there is no ceiling, and those who control vast wealth in America are happy to have Americans fight over “How poor is too poor?” just so long as nobody asks “How rich is too rich?”
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But the rich fought back, and won big-time in 1980 when Reagan, until then the fringe “Voodoo economics” candidate who was heading into the election trailing far behind Jimmy Carter, was swept into the White House on a wave of public concern of the Iranians taking US hostages. Reagan promptly cut income taxes on the very rich from 70% down to 27%. Corporate tax rates were also cut so severely that they went from representing over 33% of total federal tax receipts in 1951 to less than 9% in 1983 (they’re still in that neighborhood, the lowest in the industrialized world).

The result was devastating. Our government was suddenly so badly awash in red ink that Reagan doubled the tax paid only by people earning less than $40,000/year (FICA), and then began borrowing from the huge surplus this new tax was accumulating in the Social Security Trust Fund. Even with that, Reagan had to borrow more money in his 8 years than the sum total of all presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined.

In addition to badly throwing the nation into debt, Reagan’s tax cut blew out the ceiling on the accumulation of wealth, leading to a new Gilded Age and the rise of a generation of super-wealthy that hadn’t been seen since the Robber Baron era of the 1890s or the Roaring 20s.
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And Bush, following closely in Reagan’s footsteps, is making things worse. As Senator Bernie Sanders pointed out at recent hearings for the confirmation of Bush’s new nominee for the Office of Management and Budget:

Since Bush has been president:

* over 5 million people have slipped into poverty;
* nearly 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance;
* median household income has gone down by nearly $1,300;
* three million manufacturing jobs have been lost;
* three million American workers have lost their pensions;
* home foreclosures are now the highest on record;
* the personal savings rate is below zero - which hasn’t happened since the great depression;
* the real earnings of college graduates have gone down by about 5% in the last few years;
* entry level wages for male and female high school graduates have fallen by over 3%;
* wages and salaries are now at the lowest share of GDP since 1929.

The debate about whether or not to roll Bush’s tax cuts back to Clinton’s modest mid-30% rates is absurd. It’s time to roll back the horribly failed experiment of the Reagan tax cuts. And use that money to pay down Reagan’s debt and rebuild this nation. ...