Progress versus Regression
Despite the clear success of progressive policies in the 1990s, President Bush returned the country to the failed economic strategy of focusing on the very wealthy under the theory that their success would “trickle down” to everyone else. It didn’t work out that way. President Bush cut taxes repeatedly for high-income earners and on capital gains, with the promise that those cuts would result in impressive growth for everyone. The rich were doing very well after eight years of supply-side policies, but everyone else was falling back. Median incomes and wages were down, poverty was up, job growth was anemic, and unemployment was beginning to soar.Conservatives/ tea baggers would like to lay the blame for America's problems on the poor and powerless, convoluted conspiracy theories in which liberals and immigrants are at the center. In other words they want to deflect blame for the policies they enabled and voted for. So they can once again put America on the road to rewarding wealth for its own sake and punishing American wrokers that make wealth possible - known in the 1980s as voodoo economics.
[ ]...The median household income increased by 14 percent during President Clinton’s two terms in office, the highest increase for any two-term president. Under President Bush’s economic policies, median household income decreased for the first time since the mid-1960s.
