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New Letter to the Bulletin


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Larry Hernandez

Mon Jan 04 2010, 04:13AM

Registered Member #6

Joined: Mon Jun 29 2009, 02:44AM
Posts: 21

Below is a copy of my latest letter submitted to the Daily Bulletin. They may not print it because of length, or because it hits way too hard at the Golden Calf. Funny isn't it? The Bulletin routinely prints long teabagger diatribes and yet is such a stickler to its rules when anyone from the left submits a piece. Even submitting it as a Point of View piece really doesn't change that dynamic. But I still try.

Here is a link to the WAPO article cited: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101196.html
And here is my letter:

Letters to the Editor
The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
January 3, 2010

If there is any underlying explanation for why so many local letters to this page have been unrelenting in their criticism of President Obama, his policies, the proposals of Congress or so much else, it is that so much of what occurred beforehand needs to hidden away by distraction. And what needs to be hidden? It is the realization that the previous stretch of conservative-dominated government in Washington, AKA the Bush/Cheney years, gave this nation pitifully little improvement in the bread and butter issues that really matter to us all. In terms of increased wages, job creation, and average net household worth, the kind of government these critics desperately yearn to return to, produced zilch.

As reported in the article “Aughts were a lost decade for the U.S. economy, workers,” by Neil Irwin in the Washington Post on January 2, 2010, the last decade was nearly a bust for the average working American. The details are simply miserable: While the economy remained productive during the decade, rising 17.8% as measured in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), take home pay stagnated. Working Americans produced more that fattened the bottom line of their employers, and got very little out of it for their families. Similarly, while the household net worth of the average American rose 44% in the 1960s, 28% in the 70s, 42% in the 80s, and 58% in the 90s, it fell -4.0% in the 2000s! We left the decade actually poorer than we entered it.

And in the all-important area of job creation, the Bush/Cheney years, which supporters constantly depicted on this page as a “New Golden Age,” produced a whopping zero in net job creation. Compare this performance to the previous decades and the difference is stunning: 24% growth in the 1950s, +31% in the 60s, +27% in the 70s, +20% in the 80s and in the 90s, now compared to Zero, in the decade mostly presided over by the “Great Decider.”

Clearly, this is not just the fault of the Republicans. Wage stagnation has been persistent under both Reagan and the Bushes, and under Clinton and now Obama. Democrats in Congress have done pitifully little to change a dynamic that has been in place since Reagan first took office, which is that while profits have soared and productivity has climbed, take home pay for the common working person has not kept pace. While Wall Street players and corporate CEOs have “porked out” at the trough, the average worker has stayed afloat mostly through heavy borrowing and taking out loans against previously rising home values. And now that game is up.

Thinking that somehow returning the GOP to a share of power will change any of this is sheer delusion. I am not at all pleased with the present course taken by Obama and the Democrats, but through electing better Democrats, we have a chance to return to what worked so well in the past. With the alternative, we have already experienced all we could expect. Think about it? Is anyone hearing anything new or better from that crowd?


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