What real liberals were really like
From our overstocked archives
Sam Smith - Since
well over half of the country hasn't ever seen a real liberal
president in office, and since the media has generally bought
the GOP line on liberalism, it might be useful to consider what
life would be like if it hadn't been for liberals in the White
House.
Here are a just a few of the things America
would be without were it not for liberals in the White House:
- Regulation of banks and stock brokerage
firms cheating their customers
- Protection of your bank account
- Social Security
- A minimum wage
- Legal alcohol
- Regulation of the stock exchanges
- Right of labor to bargain with employers
- Soil Conservation Service and other early
environmental programs
- National parks and monuments such as
Death Valley, Blue Ridge, Everglades, Boulder Dam, Bull Run,
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Mount Rushmore, Jackson Hole, Grand
Teton, Cape Cod, Fire Island, and San Juan Islands just to name
a few.
- Tennessee Valley Authority
- Rural electrification
- College educations for innumerable veterans
- Housing loans for innumerable veterans
- FHA housing loans
- The bulk of hospital beds in the country
- Unemployment insurance
- Child Labor Act
- Small Business
Administration
- National Endowment for the Arts
- Medicare
- Peace Corps
HOW
BAD WAS LIBERALISM?
DC GAZETTE, 1985
- We've come across some comments on the accomplishments of liberalism
of the last half century that are worth passing on. They were
made by Alien Ferguson, President of AFE Inc, before the National
Economist Club. Ferguson notes that the real gross national product
rose 546% from 1933 to 1980. Real per capita disposable income
rose 233% during the same period. In 1929, one percent of non-farm
workers took vacations. By 1970, the figure had risen to 80%.
The average work week dropped from around 48 hours in 1929 to
around 35 hours in 1980. By 1950, 34 million workers were covered
by unemployment insurance; by 1980 the figure was almost 93 million.
Social security, during the same period expanded from covering
46 million to 128 million people. While the share of income realized
by the poorest 20% of the population has not changed much over
the years, the percentage held by the wealthiest 5% has dropped
from 30% in 1929 to 15.4% in 1981, indicating a redistribution
of income to the middle class. Similarly, the percentage of total
wealth held by the top one percent was 36% in 1929 and down to
20% by 1969. Between 1959 and 1979, 9% of whites and 25% of blacks
moved out of the poverty classification. And a Congressional
Research Service study done in 1982 showed that without the various
liberal transfer programs, 24% of the country would have been
in poverty rather than the 9% that was the case.
1 comment:
Because you appear to have such a limited memory, I list a few of Obama’s accomplishments for your readers. Follow the link for the whole list):
Obama’s Top 50 Accomplishments
by Paul Glastris, Ryan Cooper, and Siyu Hu
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril-2012/obamas-top-50-accomplishments/
1. Passed Health Care Reform: After five presidents over a century failed to create universal health insurance, signed the Affordable Care Act (2010). It will cover 32 million uninsured Americans beginning in 2014 and mandates a suite of experimental measures to cut health care cost growth, the number one cause of America’s long-term fiscal problems.
2. Passed the Stimulus: Signed $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to spur economic growth amid greatest recession since the Great Depression. Weeks after stimulus went into effect, unemployment claims began to subside. Twelve months later, the private sector began producing more jobs than it was losing, and it has continued to do so for twenty-three straight months, creating a total of nearly 3.7 million new private-sector jobs.
3. Passed Wall Street Reform: Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) to re-regulate the financial sector after its practices caused the Great Recession. The new law tightens capital requirements on large banks and other financial institutions, requires derivatives to be sold on clearinghouses and exchanges, mandates that large banks provide “living wills” to avoid chaotic bankruptcies, limits their ability to trade with customers’ money for their own profit, and creates the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (now headed by Richard Cordray) to crack down on abusive lending products and companies.
4. Ended the War in Iraq: Ordered all U.S. military forces out of the country. Last troops left on December 18, 2011.
5. Began Drawdown of War in Afghanistan: From a peak of 101,000 troops in June 2011, U.S. forces are now down to 91,000, with 23,000 slated to leave by the end of summer 2012. According to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the combat mission there will be over by next year.
7. Turned Around U.S. Auto Industry . . .
8. Recapitalized Banks: In the midst of financial crisis, approved controversial Treasury Department plan to lure private capital into the country’s largest banks via “stress tests” of their balance sheets and a public-private fund to buy their “toxic” assets. Got banks back on their feet at essentially zero cost to the government.
9. Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”:
12. Reversed Bush Torture Policies: Two days after taking office, nullified Bush-era rulings that had allowed detainees in U.S. custody to undergo certain “enhanced” interrogation techniques considered inhumane under the Geneva Conventions.
13. Improved America’s Image Abroad:
14. Kicked Banks Out of Federal Student Loan Program, Expanded Pell Grant Spending.
17. Coordinated International Response to Financial Crisis.
20. Increased Support for Veterans . . . signed new GI bill offering $78 billion in tuition assistance over a decade, and provided multiple tax credits to encourage businesses to hire veterans.
22. Created Conditions to Begin Closing Dirtiest Power Plants. . .
25. Protected Two Liberal Seats on the U.S. Supreme Court.
33. Trimmed and Reoriented Missile Defense.
36. Invested Heavily in Renewable Technology. . .
Your constant devaluing the accomplishments of a President who received no assistance from the laziest congress in history, a racist and uneducated public ready to believe any stupid crap the brainless and lazy media decided to spoon feed them, and who was constantly aware that the slightest slip would result in rabid impeachment hearings is one more reason why the United States is getting exactly the government it deserves. And that is why I have unsubscribed from your blog. For all of your expectations of perfection, you'd think the litany of typos and grammatical errors in your writing would receive some attention.
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