First there was the New Deal, and then there came the Ordeal; now we need the Re-Deal.

For more than four decades after the Great Depression struck, programs based on progressive principles worked to ensure that all Americans shared in the prosperity of our great nation. The rich did get richer, but so did everyone else; fairness and empathy for our fellow man formed the moral foundation of our culture, and together we forged arguably the greatest nation in the history of the planet.

But all good things must come to an end, and that’s what started happening in the U.S. during the 1970s. The oil crisis of 1973, followed by a stock market crash and runaway inflation brought economic growth to a standstill. Productivity actually went backwards in 1974, shrinking by 1.5%, stagflation set in, the prime rate soared, and Americans were left desperate for change.

That change came in 1980. Ronald Reagan was elected in reaction to a stalled economy, the 444-day long Iran Hostage Crisis, and a general sense that America was losing its way. Reagan did bring change, by the boat load, and the short term results were impressive. In direct opposition to the austerity called for by Jimmy Carter, Reagan set in motion the wheels of a fiscally-expansive economic policy that would drop the 13.5% inflation rate of 1980 to just 3% by 1983.

Of course, most of the credit for the drop in inflation belongs to the monetary policies of then Federal Reserve chief, Paul Volcker, but it was Reagan’s combination of increased defense spending, coupled with massive tax cuts that would create a model for the future. Reagan would nearly double military spending during his time in office, while simultaneously ripping away the federal tax base. The result was a tripling of the federal debt, to $2.8 trillion, a dramatic shift that moved the U.S. from being the world’s largest international creditor to the world’s largest debtor nation.

Sadly, not only did Reagan plunge our nation into debt, but he did so as the reverse-Robin Hood in Chief. Establishing tax cuts very favorable to the rich, while cutting social programs and gutting the internal regulatory structure of the government, Reagan was the political godfather of movement conservatism. His policies, coupled with his suppression of union rights laid the foundation for the lopsided balance of prosperity we have today.

But as detrimental as Reagan’s policies were for working Americans, their harmful effects pale when compared to a single tenet that emanated from his bully pulpit — “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

No more destructive words have ever been uttered by a U.S. president. With a single statement, the actor turned president both rationalized his dismantling of social programs and gutting of tax revenues and also disassociated a large portion of the American public from their only means to combat their own demise. As Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, once said in reference to movement conservatism, “Reagan taught the movement how to clothe elitist economic ideas in populist rhetoric.”

Once the American public bought into the notion of government-is-the-problem, the die was cast. The progressive ethics upon which modern America was built would soon be trampled time and again. Before long, the only Americans to reap any bounty would be the economic elite, who began to prosper as never before, doing so at the expense of everyone else.

The shift in public attitude was so strong that, in order to gain election, Democrats who once supported progressive principles embraced instead the Third Way. Combining conservative economic policy with a liberal position on social issues, Third Way Democrats are more Republican-light than truly Democratic. Bill Clinton presided in this manner, and as a result is responsible for such anti-worker legislation as NAFTA, as well as a heap of corporate wealthfare in the form of telecom “reform,” commodities treatment that opened the doors to the wild derivatives nightmare that nearly sunk the economy, and the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which removed all remaining barriers preventing commercial banks from playing in the Wall St. casino.

To his credit, Clinton did at least balance the budget and turn over a surplus to his successor. But once George Bush took office, all stops were removed. Without a progressive bone in his body, the younger Bush wasn’t held back by any sense of fair play. He drastically cut taxes, especially for the rich, dismantled the regulatory structure, replacing all key posts with industry insiders, and spent federal money like a drunken sailor. Bush was asleep at the wheel when the Islamic terrorists attacked on 9/11, and again when the economic terrorists on Wall St. attacked in 2008. He opened a new prison for the former and rewarded the latter with a $700 billion bail-out.

President Barack Obama was then elected by campaigning on a platform of “Change we Need.” Obama rode the wave of anger directed at Republicans and Wall St. all the way into the Whitehouse and then quickly proceeded to surround himself with the very people who had orchestrated the collapse.

Another Third Way Democrat, Obama has promoted more aid for those in need than what occurred under the eight years of W’s rule, but he’s also bowed to conservative economic policy time after time. The Obama healthcare “reform” improved access to healthcare insurance, but did so without effectively addressing the related costs. The financial “reform” bill, ostensibly enacted to prevent another banking crash, was passed without provision to deal with Too-Big-Too-Fail or the derivative casino. Most recently, Obama signed legislation providing tax relief to average Americans but not without also extending the Bush cuts for the most wealthy.

The net result of more than 30 years of a federal government divorced from progressive principles is an America more reminiscent of that which created the Great Depression than the one that was created to ensure that it would never happen again. Concentration of wealth today is the worst since the Depression — so bad that the top 1% have leaped from 9% of overall income prior to Reagan, to 23.5% today, and now have more financial wealth than the bottom 95% of all Americans.

The richest 400 Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 50%, while a record number of our people live in poverty, including one in every five children. The robbery of wealth extracted through the subprime mortgage scheme took 30% of all middle class wealth and transferred it to the Wall St. thieves and disreputable brokers across the country. Homeowners by the millions are still facing foreclosure, and many who are not are paying underwater mortgages. Yet the banks are still paying out billions in bonuses, even after being bailed out with taxpayer money, and now account for more than 40% of all American corporate profits.

Meanwhile, the corporate share of federal tax revenues collected dropped from more than 30% during the progressive era to a mere 6.6% today. But even that low rate would present a huge increase for firms like G.E. that just filed its second return in a row where the IRS had to pay them money, in spite of billions in profits. Of course, American corporations responsible for shipping as many as 8 million jobs overseas need their tax savings in order to pay for their CEO salaries that skyrocketed from 24-to-1 in the late 1960s to a high of 431-to-1, before dropping after the banking crash to a mere 319-to-1.

Average Americans would likely cheer the prosperity of the elite, if only a bit of it was shared. But while the rich have been lining their pockets, median household income has now experienced its first decline since 1967, and job growth under Bush was the slowest since 1945. The U6 unemployment rate, which tracks the underemployed along with the unemployed, is still hovering near 17%, and overall participation in the labor force is at its lowest point since 1984.

Politicians say that corporations would start hiring but might need incentives, because their record profits, the highest ever at $1.659 trillion in the third quarter of 2010, just aren’t sufficient. But not to worry, because while the Congress may be in stalemate, the wave of new Republican governors in statehouses across the country are doing everything they can to cut taxes, along with social programs, while waging a war against public employees. Who says we can’t concentrate wealth still further?

We now have a national debt that exceeds $14 trillion, and the clarion call amongst politicians on both sides of the aisle is for austerity, for cuts to Social Security and Medicare and a draconian slashing of social programs of all types. We are in dire fiscal trouble they say, and there must be shared sacrifice — but the only sharing going on is a split where all benefits go to the wealthiest 1% and all sacrifice to the other 99% of us.

There is no excuse for this corrupted mess. The American People have allowed our country to be hijacked by a self-serving elite who deliberately drive wedges into the populace so that we’ll fight amongst ourselves while they bleed us all dry. Hard working people across the nation are struggling to make ends meet while the money changers struggle to find more ways to exploit them. Hard work should be rewarded above clever manipulation. In the words of one of our greatest presidents, a Republican named Abraham Lincoln, “Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

Another famous Republican, President Teddy Roosevelt, once said “A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy.” Truer words were never said. Progressive principles demand that all citizens work together for the common good. They support entrepreneurialism and prohibit monopoly. They’re rooted in fairness and insist that prosperity be shared. They require that we invest in our infrastructure, and in our people, for such investments form the true strength of a nation.

Progressive principles are about progress, about building a better America. Progress isn’t a dirty word — unless you prefer that things stay exactly as they are. The America captured in the artwork of Norman Rockwell, the America for which so many of us are nostalgic, that was an America built on progressive principles. The Great Depression was that same nation ravaged by scorched earth policies like those in effect today.

Isn’t it time that all Americans ask themselves which America they prefer?

We can work together to end the Ordeal and demand a Re-Deal where all Americans get a fair deal. One nation, one people — we must unite against the evil that’s destroying us; that evil has a name — its name is Greed.

---

The House and Senate have reached an agreement and we have a financial reform bill. That means we’ll see significant improvements over the status quo as it existed yesterday. It also means we still haven’t addressed the gravest risks to the economy. And for those of us who care about this country, it means that we still have work to do.

Richard (RJ) Eskow, Huffington Post

I agree with the major premise of this article and support efforts to combat the Republican attempt to regain control. The conservatives have proven that they care nothing about the average American and will say and do anything to return to power.

That said, I think the article is a little disingenuous on multiple points. The first and most glaring is the comparison between Obama and FDR. It is true that FDR had an appreciation for fiscal conservatism, but he was also very bold in his positions to spend and promote the common person.

It was during his first 100 days that the New Deal was born. In his first inaugural address, FDR openly condemned the same caliber of criminals who Obama has brought into his inner circle:

“The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.”

And while FDR did balance the standard budget, he also created a second, “emergency” budget. It was through the emergency budget that funded the jobs programs that cut unemployment in half between the time he took office and 1936.

Once again, we need jobs. We don’t need temporary stimulus; we need federal government investment in infrastructure. Unless that happens, we will see a double-dip recession. What would FDR do? What will Obama do?

FDR did finally succumb to the pressure of the deficit hawks in 1938 and cut back spending. The result was that after growing at a compound annual rate of 9% since 1933, the economy took its first step backward.

We need Obama to take a lesson and stop playing pragmatic politician. His bent for passing marginal legislation is nothing more than a façade over business as usual. We need him to stand and be counted. I’d like to see Obama follow the model of FDR and call it the way he did on election eve 1936:

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”

We need bold, courageous leadership, not more milquetoast. This financial “reform” legislation is just the latest farce of a captured Congress. And the notion that, as Obama has said, it’s “most significant financial reform since the 1930s” is patently absurd. Has he forgotten about the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, the repeal of Glass-Steagall that set the stage for the Great Banking Rip-off of 2007? Perhaps he was simply referring to the heft of the 2,000 page legislation?

---

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

At the start of the next century, Dick Cheney dismissed conservation as “a sign of personal virtue,” and in the days after 9/11, George Bush told America to go shopping. In the decade since then, New York Times columnist and best-selling author Tom Friedman has pounded on the failure of that administration to use 9/11 to summon Americans to sacrifice and greatness.

Marty Kaplan, Huffington Post

I couldn’t agree more with this article, though I think the chances of Obama summoning the nerve to be a great president are growing more slim by the day. Marty Kaplan speaks of Bush’s failure to leverage the events of 9/11 to rally Americans to end dependency on foreign oil. But such an act would have been contrary to Bush’s vision for America.

Obama, on the other hand, has already had numerous opportunities to embrace his purported vision. Instead of playing politics, he could have held his ground in support of the public option; he could have refused to compromise on his response to the corruption that brought down American banking, and he could have immediately taken control of the BP disaster. But in each case thus far, President Obama has compromised the vision and given in to special interests and business as usual.

I voted for Obama, and I still believe that he has the potential to be the greatest president of my lifetime, but if that’s going to happen, he will have to leave his “good politician” senses behind and take a stand. I agree with Marty Kaplan that the American people will follow a great leader, and that Obama has the bully pulpit from which he alone can reach the masses. Americans are ready for a change, but we want a real change — we want honesty, not more politics.

Obama still has the opportunity to unite Americans and restore our sense of pride in our country. But in order to do so, he needs to break with the left and right. He needs to stand above the fray and take a stand directly with the American people. He needs to take a lesson from FDR, who rallied our nation with bold honesty. FDR wasn’t afraid to attack the wealthy business interests who controlled the country, and he didn’t pull punches. He made himself perfectly clear in his election eve speech of 1936:

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”

This is the type of bold leadership that gave birth to the attitude of national pride that pervaded our nation for nearly 40 years. It was the leadership that created a system where the vast majority of Americans were able to share in the prosperity of our nation. It was the leadership that won the war against fascism, built our American industrial might and created the American middle class.

The New Deal wasn’t merely a program designed to restore the American economy from the ravages of the Great Depression. It was a blueprint for a healthy and prosperous America where all citizens believed, not only in their ability to share in the wealth but also in their responsibility to help produce it. JFK best captured the sentiment of the time in his inaugural address of 1961:

“And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

Thus was the spirit of a nation with a strong and increasingly prosperous middle class. It was that sense of unity that won WW2, and it was the notion that we were all in it together that empowered us to excel at every challenge. It wasn’t free market capitalism that drove the United States to the pinnacle of nationhood but rather the understanding that We the People are the source of American greatness.

But the sad truth is that the sense of American unity has been replaced with an ethic of every person for themselves. The oil crisis of the 1970s and the stagflation that followed gave rise to Reaganomics and the festering idea that government is the enemy. The progressive tax system that had paid for the debt of WW2, helped to fuel the greatest expansion of the American economy and funded the programs that supported the middle class was then decimated. Since that point in time, the conservative movement has systematically done everything possible to further its goal of serving the wealthy and destroying the American middle class.

Tax cuts for the rich, massive concentration of wealth, deregulation, trillion dollar bailouts, environmental disaster, outsourcing, off-shoring, and 30 million unemployed — is it any wonder why the average American no longer feels a part of a larger united whole? Movement conservatism is destroying our country, and if President Obama is to take a place amongst the greatest of our leaders, he must stand firmly against their assault. He must embrace the fact that he is president of ALL the people, and he must stop playing politics and start telling it like it is.

Part of the story he needs to tell is that today’s economic situation, dire as it is, still pales when compared with the situation after WW2. The federal debt was then a staggering 122 percent of the GDP. It is now about 94 percent. We recovered from the debt of WW2 by raising the top marginal tax bracket to 91 percent, and guess what — we had the longest sustained period of economic growth in our nation’s history, while also creating a middle class at the same time. It’s time again for those who have reaped the most benefit to stop lining their pockets and ante up. We will need to raise taxes on the most wealthy or kiss the American middle class goodbye — it’s that simple.

Would a call to raise taxes really be political suicide? I don’t think so. Ross Perot stood before the American people, shared the hard facts, advocated a gas tax to pay off the deficit, rallied millions of Americans and could possibly still have been president. The secret to his success — he shared the facts, good and bad.

What America needs now is a leader with a vision and the personal resolve to make it happen. Energy policy is the perfect place to start. The BP disaster has set the stage. All we need now is for President Obama to serve our nation, even at the expense of his deep pocketed campaign benefactors. We need to stop tinkering around the edges and face our energy issues. We can’t produce enough oil; coal is freaking dirty, and clean coal is too expensive. We need a vision and a plan for energy independence. Obama needs to share that vision and drive us toward the goal. He needs to become a true statesman, and just like JFK led us to the moon, he will set us on the path to true energy independence and a bright and prosperous future for all Americans.

---

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost