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15 August, 2008

Heckuva Job: Economic Edition

So, how have ordinary Americans fared under eight years of Republicon rule? Allow Think Progress and The Center for American Progress to draw you some pictures:

Check out these charts from Scott Lilly’s report:

- Household incomes are down:

Wages Down

- Corporate profits are up:

Corporate Prifits Up

- The richest 1% of Americans experienced the greatest income growth:

Richest 1%’s Share
Go back up to the top and scan that first picture again. Note the dramatic comparison in economic health between the Clinton years and the Bush years for regular Americans.

Flatlined rather fast, didn't we?

Now, you may wonder what Obama and McCain respectively plan to do about this. Let's have another picture:

According to Tax Policy Center figures, McCain’s plan is worse than his opponent’s for the bottom 80% of American families with children and far, far worse for the bottom 40% of families with children.

Candidates Tax Effect On Families With Children

We're the ones on the left, there. Think hard, now: who's going to get the middle class's heart beating again? Who's going to prevent poor families from becoming even more desperately poor?

Hint: T'ain't McCain.

1 comment:

  1. The economy started flatlining during the Clinton Administration. It's stayed that way ever since. Of course, the Republicans have tried to blame all that on the damage Clinton did to the economy. That strikes me as bunk. If Republican policies were going to have a good effect, we'd have seen it by now. There isn't any.

    If anything, things have become much worse thanks to the laissez faire policies of the government regarding lending institutions. We have no energy policy that actually has a chance of succeeding without bankrupting us. We're screwed in a way I couldn't have imagined us being ten years ago. While some of that started during the Clinton years, it was certainly supported and abetted by the Republicans who controlled Congress at the time.

    The truth's a bit murkier, but overall I think Clinton did a better job by far. and that's not because he did a great job. It's because the Bush Administration and the neocons have done such a fabulously bad job.

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