At this point, McCain should be embarrassed to even say that tax cuts for the rich help the economy. Tax cuts for the rich help the rich, they don't help the economy. It's that simple.
This economic catastrophe was many years in the making. There is no painless way to recover from the collapse of the housing bubble and the correction from an over-valued dollar. We do know that Senator McCain's plan to keep giving the rich more money is not a road to prosperity because that is exactly what we have been doing.
We can't know exactly how Senator Obama will address the economy's problems if he takes office in January in part because we don't know exactly where the economy will be. However, a plan that focuses on supporting ordinary workers and promoting clean technologies, is likely to produce much better results than policies that are focused on redistributing even more income to the wealthy.
CEPR – The Whiner’s Recession, Dean Baker.
This piece could be subtitled, “Or why continuing the Bush/McCain class war is not a good idea.” Or maybe that Einstein quote about the definition of insanity as repeating the same thing again and again and expecting new results. I keep thinking, too about that “Drill Baby Drill” chant at the Republican Convention.
My immediate family, most of whom live on the Texas and Louisiana coasts, have been emailing in all weekend, reporting on everyone, talking about who had to leave for shelter and how long it might be before the electricity comes back. My mother was particularly scared by the Tornado warnings Friday night, in Lake Charles.
Meanwhile gas prices shoot up and giant financial institutions collapse. I can’t help but wonder if people are connecting all of the dots. We can’t blame global warming for a storm, although we might blame it for the ferocity. We can blame so-called free market capitalism, though, for destroying wetlands, which make the storms worse.
The Republican party, starting with Reagan, have consistently dismissed alternative energy and refused to provide capital and leadership. The gas hikes from Ike are a result of the disruption of domestic refineries and supplies. Unless we want to relocate our refineries in a bunker somewhere, Gulf Oil will always be unreliable.
