THE WORKIN' MAN UNDER OBAMA
The mantra of the Left for generations has been that they're the party of the Workin' Man, the ones to protect the guy who rises early to work, gives it his all, and returns home at night to raise his family and contribute to his community and his country.
Image from here.
Then again, truth has never been a priority for the Left.
Under Obama, what has the Workin' Man really gained, besides the grand insult that the he only "clings to his guns and his religion."
There can be no doubt that the urban liberal, swathed in the religion of environmentalism, statism, and nihilism, is ascendant and rules the Democrat Party.
The new elites who rule the Progressive Movement have no time for the Workin' Man's guns, faith in God, V8 pick up, traditional family values, and belief that government should be efficient and fair in delivering government programs.
The Workin' Man really has no place in the new liberal hierarchy, other than to serve as a political step stool to be stood upon each election cycle by the liberal elites who use his vote to attain political power they will then use to restrict his gun rights, eliminate his job, and force upon him a fiscal and social issue agenda with which he vehemently disagrees.
And this week, proof positive was delivered to demonstrate that the liberal elites, personified by Barack Hussein Obama, have delivered the coup de grace to the Workin' Man.
A Labor Department economist delivered a white paper measuring the distribution of the rise in household income from 2008-2012, a period that directly coincides with the first term of the Liberal Man in the White House.
During that period, the average income level showed that income lost during the height of the recession from 2007-2009 had actually been regained.
The real problem is that the gains weren't evenly distributed.
In fact, it wasn't even close.
Under Obama, the wealthiest 20% (the top quintile), realized 80% of the income gains.
The next quintile realized nearly 19% of the income gains, meaning that the next 60% saw no gains income.
In fact, the lowest quintile lost wages.
This under a president who now decries the "inequality gap," which is a gap of his own making.
Now, in what portends to be the most cynical political campaign in American history, the Democrats propose to run on a platform that blames Republicans for these economic ills while proposing legislative solutions that are little more than further job killing salved by welfare spending that enslaves more citizens under the yoke of government dependency to replace the dignity of work they once knew.
But there are signs of life in the Workin' Man. He elected Chip Cravaack to Congress in 2010 in the 8th Congressional District.
There are signs in the polling data that Stewart Mills may catch another wave of Workin' Man anger this year that could propel him to Washington.
This all from a quite wealthy man owning a high-tech business. Without ever stating an opinion in favor of either unions or of raising the minimum wage.
Harold, does he drive a pickup truck, is he the tired and awful cliche he thinks persuasive? Anybody want to bet on that?
So, who writes that sutff? John K?
Trace income inequality back, if not earlier, at least to the Reagan tax cuts for the wealthy, and then the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and someone has to pay and it is a two-party elite that has consistently been shipping jobs overseas and entering the nation into troublesome trade pacts while also war-mongering.
Surely, Obama has continued where Bush left off, but that part of the argument strangely is missing from the Dog liking fiction more than truth. Or more precisely, liking an edited hackneyed-up half truth over the entire ugly thing. He's got too much of an "our schmucks are just better than their schmucks - or we simply don't mention ours" attitude, and it is very bothersome. It denies any chance for a meaningful insight from the man and/or ghost writer.
Stuff like, "urban liberal, swathed in the religion of environmentalism, statism, and nihilism." Give me a break.
Who writes anything that gawd-awful? Harold? Actually, I give Harold credit for not being that phony. Not that dumb.
Some ghost, who?
It is simply terrible writing. Not as good as Agnew's speechwriter's "nattering nabobs of negativism." The ghost needs to go to school.
(Read it again. The gist is, there is a continuation of income inequality in the nation. Big news? Of course not.
It's been so and getting worse, an unbroken trend, and one everyone knows of, one which is due to the use of money and lobbying in DC that only those gaining from it can love.)
But -- such an inartful way of trying to spin it. From the Woofer. Delivered with condescension.
Handling it that ham-handedly insults the intelligence of Harold's readers.
____________UPDATE____________
The notion that an entrenched member of the powered and moneyed elite hateful toward taxation speaks for and identifies with the common man is ludicrous. It's expected that in expounding such an absurd notion, it would be done in a ludicrous way. Which it was.
Kathleen Geier writes truth. With links omitted from the original, this beginning quote:
Proof of Wealth’s Power Over Policy
> Kathleen Geier
April 10, 2014
Paul Krugman says we’re living in a “New Gilded Age,” an era of government of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich. Last week’s McCutcheon decision from the Supreme Court, which struck down the aggregate limit an individual can contribute in capped political donations, does not disabuse us of this notion. And now the world of social science brings forth even more proof that the wealthy overwhelmingly control our political institutions.
Writing for the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels discusses a forthcoming study in Perspectives in Politics by fellow poli-sci acedemics Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page. Their research provides stunning new evidence of the hegemonic dominance of the rich in our democracy.
Looking at 1,779 national policy outcomes in the United States over a period of over twenty years, Gilens and Page found that:
economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.
The differences between the influence of average people and moneyed elites on the policy-making process were not small, either. Bartels says that the preferences of economic elites (defined here as citizens at the 90th percentile or above of the income distribution) were fifteen times as important in affecting the government policies that were enacted on the national level.
The same pattern held for interest groups. “Mass-based interest groups,” says Bartels, mattered “only about half as much as business interest groups.” As the authors note, their findings reflect not only “the ability of actors to shape policy outcomes on contested issues” but also “their ability to shape the agenda that policy makers consider.” In other words, the wealthy have massive influence on which issues policymakers will even take into consideration in the first place. The power to rule an issue off the nation’s political agenda altogether may be the greatest political power of all.
There is much more to the item. It is cumulative, but proof by cumulative evidence is quite better than proof by scant evidence, or weak argument without much of any proof to speak of, that's dog-style argument, so to speak.
Now, considering the ending part of that above quote - power over agenda: Recall, single payer, favored by a sizable majority of the population was off the table, as was reform of pharmaceutical pricing, when Obama put forth federalized Romneycare, aka now, Obamacare. True major reform, not on the agenda, off the radar screen, Verboten.
Who sez?
Answer that one for yourself. Hint: They have a watchdog.
Woofing minimum wage stuff, huh?