A brief word about choices

David Van Os send me an editorial where Akwasi Evans wrote this:

When Bush entered office in 2000 the median household income was $49,158. Six years later it was $48,201. The median decrease for Whites was $745. It was $1,043 for Latinos, $1,381 for Asians, and $2,766 for Blacks.

In 2006, 24.3% of African Americans lived in poverty. The figure was 20.6% for Latinos, 10.1% for Asians and 8.2% for Whites.

Bush, like his hero Ronald Reagan, fiddled while corporate America initiated a scorch and burn campaign on the American people and their sense of security.

The war on minorities and workers has spread to the white middle class under Bush. We have almost half the population who thinks the economy is great and we need four more years of a Bush clone.

Krugman also notes this bad trend in another recent column:

L. B. J. declared his “War on Poverty” 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.

But progress stalled thereafter: American politics shifted to the right, attention shifted from the suffering of the poor to the alleged abuses of welfare queens driving Cadillacs, and the fight against poverty was largely abandoned.

In 2006, 17.4 percent of children in America lived below the poverty line, substantially more than in 1969. And even this measure probably understates the true depth of many children’s misery.

Work for change. The typical American life improves under Democratic leadership. Sure, the rich still get richer, but this spreads to workers seeing a bigger paycheck. The Republicans are worse for the economy as they target to improve the lives of millionaires forgetting that the average American drives the economic growth engine.

Democrats have even become better at slowing the growth of federal spending - 6.96% to 7.57%. And the legacy for our children - government debt increased $36 billion under Democrats annually, $190 billion under Republicans. The only thing Republicans in Congress are better at is bringing home the bacon as their richer districts saw much more government dollars showered on them even under a Democratic President.

John McCain: for the status quo; against hope.

Tags: Van Os, economy, Democrats, Republicans