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Originally Posted by dc_dux
Perhaps most Americans understand the political divergence that exists in the country and are sick and tired of the extremists at both ends, as expressed here, and just want their political leaders to act with principled compromises that serve the greater good rather than any one special interest or ideology.
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Perhaps, dc_dux, but consider how great the excesses have been....first, in the direction that the recently industrialized economy went in during the Rockefeller, Jay Gould robber baron era, countered first by the 1913 income tax and the 1916 inheritance tax, and.....after the crash of the DJIA from 393 in Sept. 1929 to 41 in July, 1932, and the rash of bank failures that followed....and 25 percent unemployment, came the "New Deal"....SSI and unemployment insurance, and the confiscation of gold.
The backlash reached it's height with the 91% top income tax bracket in the early 1960's, and....even with that, there was a 30 percent poverty rate when Eisenhower left office in Jan. 1961. The backlash was Johnson's "war on poverty", and the phenomena, even it was primarily coincidental....who knows.....of the poverty rate being cut in half by the mid 1970's.
Beginning with the "Reagan revolution", interrupted only by the Clinton 1993 rollback of the 12 years of Reagan/Bush '41 tax "reform", and the remarkable, one year end of steadying accumulating US treasury debt in 2000, the excesses have moved "full tilt" in the other direction.
These bastards have intentionally attempted to destroy the fiscal integrity of the federal treasury, via deep preferential tax cuts for their wealthy patrons and needless, wasted expenditures on military/intelligence, a sham pharma gift to that industry with the medicare prescription fiasco, no-bid contracts in Iraq and in Katrina relief, and record pork barrel spending....only time will tell if they've succeeded in destroying the currency itself....because they saw it as the only way to dismantle the "New Deal" entitlement obligations that they believe is the main justification for progressive income tax and for an inheritance tax.
This mugging of the budget and the soundness of the treasury, is all the more extreme and easy to notice, because the budget was, for the first time in 30 years, acutally "in balance" when they renewed their assault, beginning with the 2001 tax cuts and the mailing of checks to every taxpayer.
No....dc_dux, if history is any guide, the backlash will be at least as extreme as the mugging by the rich and their republican pol puppets has been. The loss of the only equity most Americans have gained in the last 15 years....via the implosion of real estate valuations, along with the steady drop off in the numbers who can afford private health insurance premiums, aggravated by the tough provisions of bankruptcy "reform", will come together to inflict enough pain and militancy among the sheeple to push the backlash much further in the direction of a French or Italian type of entitlement society, and the taxes on the rich that come with it, than most will predict.
...and they brought it on themselves, IMO.