Gleaning Facebook: U-Turn

Amen.

From Robert Reich

My father's 100th has got me thinking about his so-called "Greatest Generation." Not only did they win World War II. They built a post-war America for their children and grandchildren: the largest expansion of K-12 and public higher education in history, the Interstate highway system, Civil Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and Environmental Protection Act. They rebuilt war-ravaged Europe and Japan, and got America to the moon. More than a third of them belonged to labor unions, giving the middle class bargaining power to get a big share of economic gains. And with those gains they could pay taxes that financed much of what was needed, while the richest Americans paid at least 70 percent of their top dollars in taxes (under Dwight Eisenhower the top tax rate was 91 percent). The rising tide lifted all boats.

Then came the great U-turn. As Ed Reich's generation began to retire, and Ronald Reagan became president, America reversed course: cutting back public investments in education and infrastructure as a percent of GDP, fighting labor unions until fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers belonged to one, causing median wages to flatten, filling the public's mind with lies such as "supply-side" economics that led to dramatic cuts in taxes paid by the wealthy, and reducing our commitment to all things public. The rising tide lifted only the yachts, while the dinghies and rowboats began to sink.

Why the U-turn? Did we forget the Great Depression and World War II, when we were in the same boat together?

- Robert Reich