Bush did more to encourage "class warfare" than any other President

[Allen773]

What certain people seem to forget or ignore is that President Bush gave huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while cutting social programs for those who needed them most, encouraging the destruction of the middle class.

 

[Wildy]

What kinds of social programmes did Bush cut?

And how does this equate to class warfare?

 

[maxpower1227]

More than *any* other president? For such a bold claim I expected more substance to the OP.

 

[GStan]

What certain people seem to forget or ignore is that President Bush gave huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while cutting social programs for those who needed them most, encouraging the destruction of the middle class.

 

[Beerina]

What certain people seem to forget or ignore is that President Bush gave huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while cutting social programs for those who needed them most, encouraging the destruction of the middle class.

Can you please reference graphs showing the "destruction of the middle class"?

It is my understanding that the middle class is shrinking almost exclusively because they're moving to the upper class, not falling down. And immigrants, which we have tons of every year (well, about 1 megaton, actually) tend to enter into the lower class region, then lift themselves up.

 

[jj]

It's interesting to see how many people have their head in the sand about the performance of 'W'.

I can't support "more than any other president", but only because I haven't numbers, and I will expect equivocation on the meaning of "more" from the people who seem immune to the fact that their president screwed them over.

 

[TheJim]

Can you please reference graphs showing the "destruction of the middle class"?

It is my understanding that the middle class is shrinking almost exclusively because they're moving to the upper class, not falling down. And immigrants, which we have tons of every year (well, about 1 megaton, actually) tend to enter into the lower class region, then lift themselves up.

This all comes from Census data.

Those that have made the median income or lower has seen there wages frozen for the last 40 years (adjusting for inflation). This despite the cost of goods and products going up (that is not caught by the inflation number. The top 20 percent was going up slightly about 5 percent total from 65 to
80 when there wages (adjusting for inflation) jumped up almost a third.

The only way to make the claim that the middle class shrank because they moved up is to use net worth at the end of 2006. This was all paper wealth of course based on equity in homes. But with home prices dropping up to 50 percent in some spots and around 30 percent overall in the big 5 real estate market states (CA, FL, AZ, NV, GA) that stat is no longer close to being valid.

 

[quarky]

In the 50's, a single worker could support a middle class family.
But then something happened...houses doubled in size.
More people had cars.
Several phones and tvs became the norm.
Kids demanded snacks and better clothes.

It became a lot more expensive to be middle class.

 

[tomwaits]

Define "class warfare".

 

[Ziggurat]

This all comes from Census data.

Those that have made the median income or lower has seen there wages frozen for the last 40 years (adjusting for inflation).

Blame the tax code for favoring non-wage compensation. Health care benefits are one of the major non-wage forms of compensation. Since health care benefits have almost certainly changed over this period, shouldn't one consider their contribution to total employee compensation, and how that total compensation has evolved over time? Why yes, I think one should. Same with things like 401(k) matching funds - and yes, there are people earning below the median wage who get 401(k) match. But if you only compare wages, then you're ignoring these non-wage compensations, and you aren't comparing total employee compensation, which may look very different. Which means it's not the whole story, not by a long shot.

 

[jj]

Blame the tax code for favoring non-wage compensation.

Yes, yes, it's all the liberal's fault that the conservatives taketh away. Right. I get it.

No, really, I do. The demonization of hte moderatecontinues.

 

[GStan]

Yes, yes, it's all the liberal's fault that the conservatives taketh away. Right. I get it.

No, really, I do. The demonization of hte moderatecontinues.

How are you getting that from his post?

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

...Health care benefits are one of the major non-wage forms of compensation. Since health care benefits have almost certainly changed over this period, shouldn't one consider their contribution to total employee compensation, and how that total compensation has evolved over time? Why yes, I think one should. Same with things like 401(k) matching funds - and yes, there are people earning below the median wage who get 401(k) match. But if you only compare wages, then you're ignoring these non-wage compensations, and you aren't comparing total employee compensation, which may look very different. Which means it's not the whole story, not by a long shot.

Be sure to account for the reduction in 401k matches over the last 10 years as well as the increase in the percentage of healthcare covered by employees when you start looking at how these non-wage compensations factor in over the time in question.

While you’re at it, maybe the sharp increase in things like “discretionary bonuses” and “golden parachutes” common to the executive level should be factored in as well.

 

[Ziggurat]

Yes, yes, it's all the liberal's fault that the conservatives taketh away. Right. I get it.

Who said anything about blaming liberals? I certainly didn't, but the fact that you accused me of doing so is a pretty good indicator of who the blind partisan here is. The tax code is the work of both democrats and republicans, and I never said or implied otherwise. As a matter of fact, even my use of the word "blame" wasn't meant very literally. My whole point was that you need to make sure you've really evaluated the situation correctly to begin with, or else playing the blame game over statistics which don't reveal what you're truly interested in is a waste of time. And your response to my post has been utterly devoid of any information relevant to that point, or really to any other coherent point. Paranoid Android's response was on topic, but you just flew off the handle.

 

[Ziggurat]

Be sure to account for the reduction in 401k matches over the last 10 years as well as the increase in the percentage of healthcare covered by employees when you start looking at how these non-wage compensations factor in over the time in question.

Sure. Go ahead and include that in your comparison. My point remains: TheJim's reference to 40-year evolution of census data on wages doesn't actually tell us what we want to know.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Sure. Go ahead and include that in your comparison. My point remains: TheJim's reference to 40-year evolution of census data on wages doesn't actually tell us what we want to know.

I'm in total agreement here.

 

[jj]

The tax code is the work of both democrats and republicans, and I never said or implied otherwise.

Indeed.

For my own attitude, just look up and down the forum, with the moonbat conservatives screaming "socilist" at every tax increase, every action, every word.

If you didn't mean that, well, I'm sorry. The company around here has gotten so shrill and unpleasant it's hard to tell.

As to provide "facts" I haven't made any claims. So why are you asking ME for facts?

The histogram of wealth over time in the USA speaks utterly for itself. That is all the data a reasonable person needs.

 

[Tricky]

I'm guessing it would be Washington or Jefferson or one of the early presidents. After all, they presided over the time of slave trade and made no effort to curtail it. Essentially they were importing a whole new class of extremely underpaid laborers, thus, sowing the seeds of class warfare.

Or maybe you could say Abraham Lincoln, since the slaves weren't citizens before he freed them. One could mark that as a critical step toward the creation of a new underclass.

Then again, if you're talking about income disparity gap, the dot-com bubble was a time when upper income increased incredibly fast, far outpacing the lower income levels, and this mostly occurred during the Clinton years.

Now there is a pretty good amount of evidence that the GW Bush favored wealthy people over poor and middle class, but he was far from the first president to do it and quite probably, not the one to do it the most. After all, the rise of the middle class has only been really taking off since the 20th century. It used to be that only landowners had any voice in government at all.

Don't get me wrong. The disparity between rich and poor is a very serious problem, potentialy a powderkeg for our society, but to lay all the blame at the feet of poor Dubya is stretching things quite a lot.

 

[jj]

I'm guessing it would be Washington or Jefferson or one of the early presidents. After all, they presided over the time of slave trade and made no effort to curtail it. Essentially they were importing a whole new class of extremely underpaid laborers, thus, sowing the seeds of class warfare.

Or maybe you could say Abraham Lincoln, since the slaves weren't citizens before he freed them. One could mark that as a critical step toward the creation of a new underclass.

Then again, if you're talking about income disparity gap, the dot-com bubble was a time when upper income increased incredibly fast, far outpacing the lower income levels, and this mostly occurred during the Clinton years.

Now there is a pretty good amount of evidence that the GW Bush favored wealthy people over poor and middle class, but he was far from the first president to do it and quite probably, not the one to do it the most. After all, the rise of the middle class has only been really taking off since the 20th century. It used to be that only landowners had any voice in government at all.

Don't get me wrong. The disparity between rich and poor is a very serious problem, potentialy a powderkeg for our society, but to lay all the blame at the feet of poor Dubya is stretching things quite a lot.

How unreasonably moderate and accurate.

I think you're leaving out some of the Bush legacy, but the Clintons were no friend of the little guy, either. Nor was Bush 1, nor for that matter Reagan.

 

[GStan]

Indeed.

For my own attitude, just look up and down the forum, with the moonbat conservatives screaming "socilist" at every tax increase, every action, every word.

<snip>

Keep your facts straight. We conservatives are the "wingnuts". You liberals are the "moonbats".