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Public frustration at the unrelenting horror of Iraq formed the core of discontent that catapulted Democrats to control of the House and Senate for the first time in more than a decade. But public disenchantment with the economy is just as likely to animate the new discourse on Capitol Hill.
The cacophony will jar those in what can only be called the ruling class. That is: the White House, Wall Street, the business lobbyists and the television talkers who all gush with know-it-all glibness that the United States' economy is a paragon of efficiency and prosperity for anyone willing to work hard enough to grasp its rewards. It includes those who claim the obvious benefits of unfettered trade based on the labor of dirt-poor and often politically oppressed peasants; and those who say that when your company summarily eliminates or cuts your promised pension or health insurance -- well, it's just something you have to live with.
This is the story line that has been promoted, with rare dissent, since Reagan's rosy prediction of economic utopia achieved through tax cuts, shrunken government and hostility toward unions. After Reagan, the plotline was embellished and embedded in conservative Republican dogma that ultimately gave us a president with a blinkered economic policy that consists mostly of tax cuts for industry and for individuals who already are well off. It resulted in a Congress that turned Capitol Hill into a favor bank for favored industries and a sinkhole for ordinary people with such prosaic desires as a decent wage, a job with benefits and a fair chance to send a kid to college.
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