Sunday, Dec. 12, 2010 | 2:03 a.m.
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In 2009, the Census Bureau reported that the number of Americans living in poverty grew to levels unseen in 15 years, as 43.6 million people fell below the poverty line. The number of Americans without health insurance also rose last year to 50.7 million. It is not a pretty picture at all of the typical American household.
During the George W. Bush years, private enterprise was given a free hand, Republicans dismantled government regulation, leaving banks and financial institutions free to take ever-crazier gambles until the entire financial system blew up. Republican tax cuts failed to encourage businesses to hire or invest, middle-class wages and benefits stagnated or declined and unemployment increased.
The federal bailout of financial institutions too big to fail is the kind of crony capitalism you’d expect from a banana republic.
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies,” Groucho Marx said. Of course, he was joking; the politicians are not.
It may take a full-blown depression before politicians — Republican and Democrat — react constructively
to an economic disaster.
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