Well…I thought I was going to wait until this aft for a new post but an article by Paul Krugman in the NYT opened the floodgates to something that I have been thinking of for quite a while…when did we accept going backwards in this country? All I hear these days is that we can’t afford to pay our teachers, we can’t afford to maintain our roads, we can’t afford police or fire protection, we can’t afford any of the safety nets that keep people from abject poverty, that taxes are too high…but it’s not true. These are all lies that have been accepted by the populace because the repubs have been repeating them so much they have become accepted wisdom…but it is just the way the repubs do business..not unlike the lies the Soviet Union kept telling its people until they believed them. Think of what could be done with the 700 billion dollars that would come from letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the top 2 pct. Even if just applied to the deficit, it would make almost a 10 pct reduction per year.

But, that is not my point…my point is that when I was growing up, rising wages, new roads and other infrastructure projects, and a rising standard of living was what we strived for, was what was expected by everyone including politicians and the everyday worker…but today we’re being told what is not possible, that we have to cut back our expectations, that government is the problem, not the solution. The gains in the standard of living for the middle class that have been fought for over many decades is being destroyed by the blackmail of business that want givebacks or jobs will be shipped overseas as government stands by and gives more and more to the rich. All the while business is sitting on the largest hoard of retained profit in the history of the world…and I will ask the question I always ask: “how much is enough?”

I think we all need to ask ourselves what kind of country do we want? One that goes backward with more and more wealth concentrated in the hands of the rich or an equitable one where hard work is rewarded by good pay and benefits and we go forward, not backwards as a nation? Geez….