GOP - We Cannot Afford A Middle Class In America.

[TheMastersNemesis]

If you seriously look at what all the GOPPER presidential candidates are selling Walker being the most obvious, you must conclude that we cannot afford a middle class in the US any more. Walker's attack on unions largely actually supported by the rest of the candidates we must pay paltry wages to workers. In the end no unions and no enforcement of laws against unfair labor practices means workers will really be royally screwed over time.

Even now most workers do not make enough to save for retirement much less anything else. We have wage stagnation mostly due to Reagannomics which is a low paying "service economy". All the GOP talk about good jobs is a lie and always has been. Anyone who really is paying attention can see how all the tax cuts for the rich and subsidies for corporations have worked in creating jobs and rising wages. They don't exist. In fact good jobs are still disappearing and pay going down as unions wane.

[HooptieWagon]

1. Their plan is a return to Feudalism. Nt

[ProfessorGAC]

2. Yeah, Because That Worked Out So Well Before

Revolutions, guillotines, civil wars, blood baths, worked so well in the 12th through 18 century, why not go back to that time!

[MrScorpio]

15. No one has ever credited wingers for learning from their own mistakes...

The most obtuse idealogues on the planet, always desperate to prove that two plus two equals anything other than four.

[Binkie The Clown]

3. The problem today is that the average American family

has no pitchforks and torches in the closet to bring out when they are needed.

[pansypoo53219]

8. i do! i actually have a bunch of old RUSTY garden tools i could use. no scythe tho.

ooh, my wood handled shovel.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. I have a pitchfork.

And I have been keeping it sharpened.

But to be fair, there are a lot of weapons in the hands of the people. Thank you, NRA.

[passiveporcupine]

13. I have two pitchforks

I'll be happy to loan one out.

But my chainsaw might even be better.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

29. I have a Hula-Hoe

[Curmudgeoness]

30. OMG.

Why have I not ran into you here before! I need more laughs.

[paleotn]

17. They're too busy

Watching the NFL. Circuses without the bread.

[DinahMoeHum]

24. Many do have something else, though. (hint hint)

Who needs torches and pitchforks anyway?

[davekriss]

4. "Middle Class" as we know it is an historical aberration

The prosperity enjoyed by the Great Middle existed neither in the past nor is likely to continue much further into the future. It is an historical aberration, a momentary blip slowing the accumulation of capital in the hands of the very few.

The capitalists are almost done, they're ready for a new world order where there are the rich, a thin sliver of managers and magistrates that serve the rich, and everybody else. The latter being so much canon fodder or, in the words of Dick Cheney in the eighties, just "useless eaters".

Welcome the new fuedalism. It is already here! Bow down before the oligarchs and pray they continue to bless us with bread and circuses!

[TheMastersNemesis]

5. You Have Got That Right

[Cosmocat]

23. And,the "useless eaters" gleefully giving the the keys

to the kingdom ...

[JohnnyAmerica]

28. During the 1980’s, with the “Greed is Good” ethos of Gordon Gekko leading the charge,

. . .the goal of corporations was to keep the shareholders happy. CEOs rose and fell with stock prices. To keep stock prices high, costs had to be low in order to maximize profits. Somebody had to “Take one for the team.” And that somebody was the average rank-and-file worker. Since the 1980’s, real wages have stagnated, private pension plans have all but disappeared for white collar workers and been replaced by laughably insufficient 401(k) plans, health insurance plans have been drastically reduced (or, in many cases, eliminated), the amount of vacation days reduced, sick pay eliminated, and overtime pay reduced. All of this while expecting more work to be done by fewer workers. Employer loyalty? Yeah, right. The middle class was assailed on so many fronts that finally enough was enough, and a revolt broke out. Say hello to the Tea Party.

[davekriss]

35. Hey I think I misattributed to Cheney

I think the "useless eater" remark was actually (anecdotally) uttered by Henry Kissinger. Sorry that, Dicky.

[world wide wally]

6. The worst part is that they are doing this with the support and blessing of the working middle class

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

16. As long as you give them enough toys and entertainment. n/t

[w0nderer]

7. umm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class
does america have MUCH of a middle class anymore?



i know i'm working / working poor and i make 29k pre tax (no health no dental no vision no pension) (job takes 3-4 years apprenticeship to do right)
with 10 hours minimum per week over time (usually 15)

so...let's hear that middle class 'cry n whine'

[LiberalArkie]

10. I read somewhere that middle class starts at around 125k now.

Middle class being defined as a family wilt 2 children, working husband and stay at home wife and own a home. With the husbands income about to provide for the kids college and be able to put a minimum of 10% of income in savings. I think it is probably higher than 125k now, but that would take someone smart to figure out.

[No Vested Interest]

19. You're describing upper-middle class.

I think very few wives stay at home now, unless very small children where earned wages cannot justify child care.
Most middle -class families are no longer paying entire college for kids, if they ever did.
Saving 10% of income is stretch for middle class as well.
Middle class families make choices - retirement savings or college for kids, seldom both.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

20. Seems more like getting close to upper middle.

[LiberalArkie]

26. The article I read was a few years ago. What it did was take the 50'6 & 60's middle

class family (Like Ozzie & Harriet) and what it would take today to be that. I graduated in 66, but my dad WORKED and the typical family my mom was a stay at home. They raised 3 kids and only was able to send my sister (Oldest) to college. But they were I guess, lower middle class. No vacations ever. But he was a forman at a plant and them was a service manager at a Chevy dealership, so I always assumed that we were lower middle class since mom had never worked and they owned the house and had 2 used cars.

When I retired a few years ago I was bringing in 60k and single. I would never have been able to afford kids and a wife like my dad did. Hell I can barely afford myself. I looked at the hospital bill of when I was born in 1948 and 3 days in the hospital. $52.80 for me and my mom.

My thinking s that according to the way it was, 125k may be too low. But that is just me.

[daleanime]

11. ........

[MrScorpio]

12. A privileged class and a subservient class...

That's the world that want.

[hifiguy]

31. Aristocrats and their retainers

and the vast mass of peasants and serfs.

The New Feudalism.

[jtuck004]

14. Probably not. If you remember, the middle class was mostly just for a few white folks,

and it came from the genocide and property theft of tens of millions of native people. then the several hundred year enslavement and servitude of black folk, while we blew up a good portion of the world and then sold them their lives back.

We got someone else tapped to screw over?

The thugs think we still can, but only for a few of their mostly white friends, at the expense of the rest of us.

Otherwise, we better have a conversation about how we all have a decent life by cooperating. I know that is new and scary, but any other way will continue our downward trajectory.

[hifiguy]

32. There were tens of millions in the middle class

in the post-war era of 1945-75. Hardly a "few."

Union workers, tradespeople, office workers, middle managers, it was the largest slice of the American populace for the better part of 30 years.

[lark]

18. Us to GOP - we can't afford YOU!!!!!!!!!

GOP, you have done your level best to destroy the American workers way of life. You have given companies huge tax breaks for moving overseas and taking American jobs with them, you have given military equipment to police forces with no controls over how they are used. You have supported the police in killing/hurting innocent minorities, women and children. You have refused to stop companies from polluting our air and rivers in the name of enriching the owners and it's irrelevant to you if people die in the process. You have supported the private prison industry and kept mostly young minority people in jail for decades for non-violent made up crimes that hurt no one, except possibly themselves. You have fought tooth and nail to make sure that poor people don't have any help in getting unaffordable healthcare. You care for the fetus but hate the baby. You are really almost everything bad about this country.

So happy that you won't win the presidency again and your total control will still be limited. Hopefully then, things will get better instead of worse. If you win, worse is 100% guaranteed.

[ancianita]

21. "WE" can afford whatever the hell this country wants to afford! More GOP tax cut/austerity bullshit

[PasadenaTrudy]

22. I'm so glad I didn't have kids..

or get married. I can live pretty happily on my less than $40K a year, in Los Angeles.

[Demobrat]

25. I'm right there with you, sister.

I do just fine on what I earn, and even have a healthy retirement account. Part of it is not having kids, but another huge factor is that I don't own things that break. (I rent in a city where I don't need a car). Kids, cars, and home repairs are what keep people broke.

[rhett o rick]

27. While it's obvious that the GOP want to eliminate the middle class, it isn't as obvious that

the Conservative Wing of the Democratic Party do also. Now they won't say they want the middle class to die but they will do nothing to prevent the death. If your candidate isn't in favor of direct steps to make the wealthy and corporation pay their fair share, they don't care if the middle class dies. When asked about this, Clinton said she wants to make the economy grow. You know the "all boats rise" crap. Well that has failed us for the last 40 years.

[hifiguy]

33. The part of the plutocracy that bellied up to the auction bar

when the Clintons and the DLC began selling off chunks of the party - to the point where they now OWN the institutional party - were the oligarchs who couldn't abide the jebus-wheezers and nativists.

That said, they retained all of their oligarchical policies, outlook, and greed.

[smirkymonkey]

34. We cannot afford an UPPER CLASS in America.

Eff you, pigs.