DON'T LET THE RIGHT REWRITE HISTORY
DON'T LET THE RIGHT REWRITE HISTORY
Since well over half of the country haven't ever seen a liberal president in office, and since the media has generally bought the GOP line on progressive politics it is important to remember what life would be like if it hadn't been for liberals in the White House.
People who complain about liberals are like the man from Virginia who went to college on the GI Bill and bought his first house with a VA loan. When a hurricane struck he got federal disaster aid. When he got sick he was treated at a veteran's hospital. When he was laid off he received unemployment insurance and then got a SBA loan to start his own business. His bank funds were protected under federal deposit insurance laws. Now he's retired and on social security and Medicare. The other day he got into his car, drove the federal interstate to the railroad station, took Amtrak to Washington and went to Capitol Hill to ask his congressman to get the government off his back.
Here are a just a few of the things America would be without were it not for liberals in the White House:
- Regulation of banks and stock brokerage firms cheating their customers
- Protection of your bank account
- Social Security
- A minimum wage
- Legal alcohol
- Regulation of the stock exchanges
- Right of labor to bargain with employers
- Soil Conservation Service and other early environmental programs
- National parks and monuments such as Death Valley, Blue Ridge, Everglades, Boulder Dam, Bull Run, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Mount Rushmore, Jackson Hole, Grand Teton, Cape Cod, Fire Island, and San Juan Islands just to name a few.
- Tennessee Valley Authority
- Rural electrification
- College educations for innumerable veterans
- Housing loans for innumerable veterans
- FHA housing loans
- The bulk of hospital beds in the country
- Unemployment insurance
- Small Business Administration
- National Endowment for the Arts
- Medicare
- Peace Corps
ROBERT S. MCELVAINE, HISTORY NEWS NETWORK -
There are certain things that everyone knows. The rich get richer faster during Republican administrations. Such self-evident "facts" are accepted without reference to evidence. Yet there is evidence available against which to test the belief, which most rich people seem to accept as an article of faith, that Republican administrations are better for the rich.
United States Census Bureau data on mean household income from the beginning of the Nixon Administration through 2002 (the last year for which these data are currently available) show that this almost universally held belief is simply, almost spectacularly, wrong. During that period, Republicans held the White House for 22 years and Democrats for 12 years. In constant 2002 dollars, the average annual gain in income by the richest five percent of American households under Republicans (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the two Bushes) was $1706. Under Democrats (Carter and Clinton), the richest five percent saw their income rise by an annual average of $6,921.
The startling bottom line is that over the last three-plus decades the income of the richest Americans has risen at a rate four times faster under Democrats than under Republicans. Above that bottom line are other findings that should be sobering to wealthy Americans intoxicated by the ideology and tax cuts preached and practiced by Republicans. A few examples:
- All of the comparatively small cumulative gain in income by the rich under Republicans came during the Reagan years. Under the other four Republican administrations since 1969, the richest five percent of households lost an average of $444 per year.In nine of the last 34 years, the income of the richest five percent declined. Eight of those nine years of loss for the rich came when a Republican was in the White House. The only year under a Democrat in which the richest Americans did not gain was the last year of Jimmy Carter's presidency, 1980.
- In the eight years under Clinton, the richest five percent gained an annual average of $10,241; in the six years so far calculated under the Bushes, the rich lost an annual average of $1999. It is true that the rich fared well during the Reagan years: an average annual gain of 3.6 percent with his huge tax cuts and massive deficits. Yet under Clinton, with his tax increase on upper income people (which Republicans insisted would cause economic ruin and against which every Republican in Congress voted) and ultimate balancing of the budget, the mean income of the rich increased at the significantly faster annual rate of 4.9 percent.
- A similar story emerges from a look at the stock market, usually seen as another benchmark of how the rich are faring. During the same administrations, from Nixon to the second Bush, the Dow has gained an annual average of 7.1 percent under Republican administrations and 11.1 percent under Democrats.
Since well over half of the country haven't ever seen a liberal president in office, and since the media has generally bought the GOP line on progressive politics it is important to remember what life would be like if it hadn't been for liberals in the White House.
People who complain about liberals are like the man from Virginia who went to college on the GI Bill and bought his first house with a VA loan. When a hurricane struck he got federal disaster aid. When he got sick he was treated at a veteran's hospital. When he was laid off he received unemployment insurance and then got a SBA loan to start his own business. His bank funds were protected under federal deposit insurance laws. Now he's retired and on social security and Medicare. The other day he got into his car, drove the federal interstate to the railroad station, took Amtrak to Washington and went to Capitol Hill to ask his congressman to get the government off his back.
Here are a just a few of the things America would be without were it not for liberals in the White House:
- Regulation of banks and stock brokerage firms cheating their customers
- Protection of your bank account
- Social Security
- A minimum wage
- Legal alcohol
- Regulation of the stock exchanges
- Right of labor to bargain with employers
- Soil Conservation Service and other early environmental programs
- National parks and monuments such as Death Valley, Blue Ridge, Everglades, Boulder Dam, Bull Run, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Mount Rushmore, Jackson Hole, Grand Teton, Cape Cod, Fire Island, and San Juan Islands just to name a few.
- Tennessee Valley Authority
- Rural electrification
- College educations for innumerable veterans
- Housing loans for innumerable veterans
- FHA housing loans
- The bulk of hospital beds in the country
- Unemployment insurance
- Small Business Administration
- National Endowment for the Arts
- Medicare
- Peace Corps
ROBERT S. MCELVAINE, HISTORY NEWS NETWORK -
There are certain things that everyone knows. The rich get richer faster during Republican administrations. Such self-evident "facts" are accepted without reference to evidence. Yet there is evidence available against which to test the belief, which most rich people seem to accept as an article of faith, that Republican administrations are better for the rich.
United States Census Bureau data on mean household income from the beginning of the Nixon Administration through 2002 (the last year for which these data are currently available) show that this almost universally held belief is simply, almost spectacularly, wrong. During that period, Republicans held the White House for 22 years and Democrats for 12 years. In constant 2002 dollars, the average annual gain in income by the richest five percent of American households under Republicans (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the two Bushes) was $1706. Under Democrats (Carter and Clinton), the richest five percent saw their income rise by an annual average of $6,921.
The startling bottom line is that over the last three-plus decades the income of the richest Americans has risen at a rate four times faster under Democrats than under Republicans. Above that bottom line are other findings that should be sobering to wealthy Americans intoxicated by the ideology and tax cuts preached and practiced by Republicans. A few examples:
- All of the comparatively small cumulative gain in income by the rich under Republicans came during the Reagan years. Under the other four Republican administrations since 1969, the richest five percent of households lost an average of $444 per year.In nine of the last 34 years, the income of the richest five percent declined. Eight of those nine years of loss for the rich came when a Republican was in the White House. The only year under a Democrat in which the richest Americans did not gain was the last year of Jimmy Carter's presidency, 1980.
- In the eight years under Clinton, the richest five percent gained an annual average of $10,241; in the six years so far calculated under the Bushes, the rich lost an annual average of $1999. It is true that the rich fared well during the Reagan years: an average annual gain of 3.6 percent with his huge tax cuts and massive deficits. Yet under Clinton, with his tax increase on upper income people (which Republicans insisted would cause economic ruin and against which every Republican in Congress voted) and ultimate balancing of the budget, the mean income of the rich increased at the significantly faster annual rate of 4.9 percent.
- A similar story emerges from a look at the stock market, usually seen as another benchmark of how the rich are faring. During the same administrations, from Nixon to the second Bush, the Dow has gained an annual average of 7.1 percent under Republican administrations and 11.1 percent under Democrats.
posted by T. Scott Brineman at 9:47 AM
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