The New Progressive Movement

[n2doc]

By JEFFREY D. SACHS
Published: November 12, 2011

OCCUPY WALL STREET and its allied movements around the country are more than a walk in the park. They are most likely the start of a new era in America. Historians have noted that American politics moves in long swings. We are at the end of the 30-year Reagan era, a period that has culminated in soaring income for the top 1 percent and crushing unemployment or income stagnation for much of the rest. The overarching challenge of the coming years is to restore prosperity and power for the 99 percent.

Thirty years ago, a newly elected Ronald Reagan made a fateful judgment: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Taxes for the rich were slashed, as were outlays on public services and investments as a share of national income. Only the military and a few big transfer programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ benefits were exempted from the squeeze.

Reagan’s was a fateful misdiagnosis. He completely overlooked the real issue — the rise of global competition in the information age — and fought a bogeyman, the government. Decades on, America pays the price of that misdiagnosis, with a nation singularly unprepared to face the global economic, energy and environmental challenges of our time.

Washington still channels Reaganomics. The federal budget for nonsecurity discretionary outlays — categories like highways and rail, education, job training, research and development, the judiciary, NASA, environmental protection, energy, the I.R.S. and more — was cut from more than 5 percent of gross domestic product at the end of the 1970s to around half of that today. With the budget caps enacted in the August agreement, domestic discretionary spending would decline to less than 2 percent of G.D.P. by the end of the decade, according to the White House. Government would die by fiscal asphyxiation.

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-new-progressive-movement.html?ref=opinion

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Had to make sure it wasn't the Onion.

No thanks to 30 years of shilling from the Times.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Had to make sure it wasn't the Onion.

No thanks to 30 years of shilling from the Times.

[lunatica]

3. The last two paragraphs are pure gold

Finally, the new progressive era will need a fresh and gutsy generation of candidates to seek election victories not through wealthy campaign financiers but through free social media. A new generation of politicians will prove that they can win on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and blog sites, rather than with corporate-financed TV ads. By lowering the cost of political campaigning, the free social media can liberate Washington from the current state of endemic corruption. And the candidates that turn down large campaign checks, political action committees, Super PACs and bundlers will be well positioned to call out their opponents who are on the corporate take.

Those who think that the cold weather will end the protests should think again. A new generation of leaders is just getting started. The new progressive age has begun.

[Scuba]

5. +1

[mother earth]

4. I've waited a lifetime, K & R! To the left!!! To the left!!!

[Zorra]

8. Me too! Left at the light. nt

[moondust]

6. K/R

Thanks for posting this.

:thumbsup:

[NNN0LHI]

7. Sachs goes into some detail in this interview

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=439&topic_id=2213244

[mmonk]

9. Good article.

Can't wait 'til it's in my driveway tomorrow.

[sarcasmo]

10. Nice, Thanks.

[evrstrong]

11. Yes!