We find that the average income for the middle 20% of households will likely decline by $2,456 in 2009, and by an additional $601 in 2010, for a total decline of $4,813 from 2007 to 2010. This is a decline in income of 9.3% for the typical household over these three years. Given the decline in income over the weak business cycle from 2000 to 2007, this means that after reaching an all-time peak in 2000, by 2010 real incomes for the typical household will likely have declined by $5,729, or 10.8% - truly a lost decade.
And here's one of her charts that Meteor Blades reproduced:
I advice everyone to go read her presentation. This are really going to get ugly before they get better. But I want to take a somewhat different focus for this diary, extending an analysis I did a couple of weeks ago, "Forget The Recession--Bush Economy Sucked BEFORE Then". I want to compare the 7-year and 8-year records with a view toward arguing that things have been economically lousy throughout the Bush years, and the media have been doing a terrible job of informing the American public all along. More charts, and very little text need to tell the story on the flip.
One symptom of the total dysfunction of our political system is the fact that we just suffered a catastrophic economic system failure without anything remotely approaching a coherent political response. Although the economy as a whole shows signs that it may soon bottom out and begin to recover, jobs will continue to be lost for some time, and there is no assurance that we will not see another severe downturn in the near term, given that the systemic problems behind the recession have not yet been fathomed, much less addressed.
Still, at least we know that there is a recession, and that its orgins lie in the financial sector and its facilitation--if not outright creation--of the housing bubble, as discussed in the previous diary. But is that simple fact itself a distraction from even more fundamental problems? I would argue yes, on two counts: First, that the Bush economy was already a miserable failure compared to the Clinton economy before it. Second, that the Clinton economy was actually much, much better for those at the very top levels, and thus was not substantially any different than the Bush economy, when viewed in comparison to the pre-1970s economy, for example. Indeed, it was during the Clinton economy that housing bubble got its start. One can, in a sense, see the Bush economy as an outgrowth of the Clinton economy, in which all the flaws of the latter are heightened, while a whole new round of flaws are larded on top. This was visible first in the recession, then the incredibly anemic employment recovery, and then the income data--all before the ultimate crash.
In this diary, I only look at data through 2007, so there's only the impact of the early slowdown to be seen--nothing of disastrous crash.
We begin by looking at the income levels for the top of the first four quintiles, plus the bottom of the top 5%, collected by Census Bureau, and published in the H1 Table. The second part of the diary will look at the high-end income data--up to the top 0.01% of income-earners--compiled by Dr. Emmanual Saez of UC Berkeley (Excel spreadsheet here). A simple visual inspection is enough to see that growth of all income levels in the census data came to a virtual stand-still during the Bush years:
Here's the underlying data:
As can be seen, income growth basically stopped for just about everyone. Those on the bottom lost a substantial amount, however. Does the phrase "worst President ever" ring any bells?
Removing the top 5% allows us to rescale the first graph, for a clearer view of what's happening with the lower quintiles:
Via Mark Matson in the comments, I have never been a huge fan of The New Republic, but I think Noam Scheiber has a real point in his column today. Obama needs left-wing criticism in order to have any hope of passing progressive legislation:
Prior to all the apoplexy on the left, the two poles of the debate were the president, who wanted a reasonable, fairly moderate set of health insurance reforms, but was nonetheless being branded a socialist or whatever, and a lot of lunatics on the right screaming about death panels and enemies lists and home invasions.
Around the conference table at TNR, we've been saying for weeks that what Obama really needed was a group of equally vocal, equally zealous critics on the left, pulling the debate's center of gravity in the other direction. And, wouldn't you know, that's exactly what's happened over the last 48 hours. We've now got a pole on the left to match the intensity of the pole on the right. (Don't get me wrong: I'm not suggesting a moral equivalence between the two. As far as I'm concerned, the critics on the left are basically right and the critics on the right are either insane or deeply cynical...)
In the national debate, Obama now looks like the centrist voice of reason instead of an over-ambitious lefty (I'm caricaturing, of course, in the spirit of the cable-news coverage). Inside Congress, Obama may not get a public option, but if he doesn't, he was never going to get it. And now he can extract a ton of concessions in return, because he can point to a left-wing of his party that's ready to eat him alive for failing to deliver on it (whereas that left-wing outrage was largely hypothetical before now).
Since the November election, some of the more dyed in the wool Obama supporters within the blogosphere have taken great umbrage at any criticism coming at President Obama from the left. Having been a target of much of this umbrage myself, it sometimes even feels as though more anger is directed toward us critical lefties than even at Republicans. My best guess is that this is because such left-wing criticism smacks of betrayal and / or Naderism to some people. (Yeah, I know that I am sort of vaguely calling people out here.)
However, the current fight over the public option is a perfect demonstration of why such left-wing criticism is absolutely essential to any attempts to pass progressive legislation by the Democratic leadership and the Obama administration. If there had been no left-wing revolt to Sebelius's statements on Sunday, it would be far more difficult for the Democratic Congressional leadership and the Obama administration to justify not giving into right-wing demands. Lacking any Progressive Block demanding more progressive legislation, the Democratic leadership and administration would be practically forced to offer up even less progressive legislation than even the compromises they were floating over the weekend.
6:50pm - I finally found a minute to sit down and type up some thoughts on my first trip to Netroots Nation. We are close to done with day 1 of filming. We filmed 8 panels, interviewed a handful panelists, and are prepping to film President Bill Clinton's keynote address. Below, you will find a play list of day 1 coverage, including interviews with Greg Dworking (DemFromCT), Nate Silver, Congresswoman Donna Edwards, Monique Hoeflinger, and Michael Wilson:
This is the second article in a three-part series today that compares political conditions in 1993-1994 to our current environment. I argue that the current situation is much more favorable to Democrats than the one 16 years ago-Chris
President Clinton's Trouble on the Left President Clinton had remarkable difficulties with the left-wing of his own party. In mid-1993, 15% of the country, or about 75% of all self-identified liberals, thought that Bill Clinton was "too conservative." The percentage of Americans viewing the Democratic Party as "too conservative" also reached an all-time high during Clinton's first term, rising to between 12-13% according to Gallup.
Neither labor nor self-identified liberals were very happy with Clinton. The result was depressed turnout in 1994, which contributed to the Republican victory.
Obama Doing Better With the Left Right now, only 8% of the country thinks that President Obama, and the Democratic Party, are too conservative. Those numbers are significantly better for the President and the party than at this point 16 years ago.
Possible Trouble Points? Even though President Obama and the Democratic Party have a better ideological image with the American left than President Clinton and the Democratic Party had 16 years ago, there are still some potential trouble spots.
For one thing, Democrats don't appear particularly motivated to vote right now. Recent polling in Virginia for the upcoming Governor's race shows likely voters in 2009 favored John McCain by 9-11% in 2008. Given that President Obama won Virginia by 6.30% in 2008, that represents a 15-17% swing just from enthusiasm and projected turnout. That could easily result in a repeat of 1994.
Also, while it is not currently very high on the national list of priorities, a CNN poll released yesterday showed that three-quarters of all Democrats "oppose the war in Afghanistan." If the economy recovers, and if the situation in Afghanistan remains stagnates or gets worse, Afghanistan will quickly rise on the list of national priorities. At that time, President Obama could start facing Clinton-level problems from the left.
Passing a strong health care bill is probably the best insurance President Obama has against future left-wing depression. Clinton might have been OK if he had been able to do that. However, the Democratic failure to reform the health care system, combined with NAFTA, apparently caused a lot of people to decide there wasn't a reason to bother (not mention lowered his approval ratings overall). It is essential that the failure of 1994 not be repeated in 2009.
Healthcare reform is back in the news, as Legislators and interest groups spar over the promised public component of Obama's healthcare plan. In very simple terms, this is a fight between groups with a vested interest in expensive healthcare and everyone else. This week, the American Medical Association warned Obama that a public plan could restrict patient choice. But for millions of Americans, getting a choice between healthcare and no healthcare wold represent a 100% increase in their healthcare options. Obama's public plan would also give people the choice of keeping their private health insurance. So, the public plan is an additional option, not a diminution of options.
Along with about a dozen other bloggers, I had an opportunity to meet with former President Bill Clinton in his New York offices today (apologies for the content delay created by my presence at the meeting). During this time, I was able to ask him about the Agriculture Committee holding up the Waxman-Markey climate change bill.
In regards to the committee's attempts to have the USDA determine who receives carbon offset credits, President Clinton said that "too many carbon offsets have nothing to do with agriculture" for the USDA to become the appropriate regulatory agency. He added that "it's not the right thing to do. Keep it in the EPA."
President Clinton did note that Chairman Peterson, like many of the Democrats on the committee, comes from a conservative and rural district. However, making the USDA the regulatory authority is something that "not even the coal industry" would support.
Further, toward the end of the meeting--which covered a wide range of topics--President Clinton told the assembled bloggers that one of the best things they could do for elected Democrats is to function as a "counterveiling" source of progressive pressure. That is, he encouraged us to offer left-wing criticism of Democrats on key policy areas, and that we should urge our leaders and elected officials to favor further reaching, more community-focused public policy. In fact, he indicated that he would have wanted more such progressive media pushing him during his time in office.
Additionally, President Clinton told the assembled bloggers that they should focus their pressure in a "sophisticated" pattern, focusing specifically on members of Congress who could be the most influenced. By this, he meant Democrats in safe blue districts afraid of primary challenges, and members of both parties in districts that could be swung in the next general election. He also indicated that he believed this was the start of anew progressive era in the federal government--the first since the mid-1960's--and was hopeful that major progressive agenda items on health care and climate change would pass as a result.
****
I have to say, it all made sense to me. Hopefully, the climate change activists, media figures and organizations who have stayed surprisingly quiet about the Agriculture Committee hijacking the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation will take this advice.
And no, I am not making this up. President Bill Clinton really said this all to me, and other assembled bloggers, today. The other attendees, and soon to be released photos, will be able to verify that this took place and that all my quotes are accurate.
I know it is surprising, but this did really happen. He isn't very Villagerish, even if he is a bit hesitant to call himself left-wing. He certainly seems to welcome left-wing criticism directed at him personally, becuase it he believes it provides him room to break away from the Village. That might explain why the Village hated him so much during the 1990's.
That was quick: It took just three days for the titans of the healthcare industry to reveal the emptiness of their pledge to the Obama administration to save $2 trillion in healthcare costs over the next 10 years.
We Americans dwell in a consumer plutocracy, and the plutocrats don't even bother to be cute about it any more. Barack Obama, hailed by the geniuses of new media as a populist saviour, has surrounded himself with a team that was already bought and paid for by the financial services industry before they ever walked into the White House.
"And just in case you ever get a big job in Washington, Larry, remember who your friends are!"
George W. Bush remembered his friends who paid him $15 million on a $600K investment in a baseball franchise, and Barack Obama remembers his friend Penny Pritzker, the Queen of Sub-Prime Lending, chief financial officer of his Senate and Presidential campaigns, and Rahm Emanuel remembers his friends among the investment bankers at Wasserstein Perella, who paid him $16.2 million for two years of "work," and it isn't easy to figure out exactly what "work" that was, because Rahm Emanuel was a speech and communication major at Sarah Lawrence and Northwestern, and never had any training whatsoever in accounting, or business, or finance... but he always knew how to follow the money, as a fundraiser for Richard Daley and Bill Clinton, and now Rahm has followed the money all the way to his current job as Chief of Staff and gatekeeper outside the Oval Office.
"If you ever get a big job in Washington, Rahm, remember your friends!"
And the friends remember, too. They remembered Bill Clinton for signing Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and paid him $40 million for speaking, in 2007, alone, and the same friends already remember Tim Geithner.
Tim Geithner is "[a] very unusually talented young man...[who] understands government and understands markets," says Henry Paulson, who gave away more money to the banks than anybody in the history of the world... except Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Rahm Emanuel, and Barack Obama.
Barack Obama still enjoys a comfortably high approval rating and the higher it stays the more political power he is likely to wield. You can get stuff done even if your numbers decline but it gets harder. George W. Bush's plans for Social Security "reform" were dead on arrival, in part, because he had long since used up his political capital. Here are Obama's numbers from Pollster.com:
Obama's approval rating shows a slow steady decline. This is not unexpected. First, there's almost always a high-starting honeymoon period folowed by a decline. Second, he has pursued a very aggressive agenda and the more you try to change the more enemies you can expect to make. But given the times, most Americans remain hungry for change and I would attribute most of his small decline to the former.
When considering these approval numbers the questions arises: how does this compare to past Presidents? That part is ahead.
The fight for 2012 is here. Beltway media insiders rejoice!
Who's it going to be? Spunky Sarah? Moneyed Mitt? Holy Huckabee? Some dark-horse candidate flying under the radar? One thing is for sure: While the media clamors for every tiny detail in the looming battle for the Republican presidential nomination, the real fight for 2012 is taking place right before their very eyes.
The theory behind this diary is that the experiences of being amember of Congress are fundamentally different from the experiences of being an ordinary citizen. When I was born, Harry Truman was President. I have no memory of him as President except the films or books that I read much later. Truman was gone while I was still an infant (age 1). The memories of Ike are far more distinct but certainly not those of an adult. I actually saw the man in the early 60s when I was a child. Kennedy is more distinct but Johnson and Nixon were real.
The working memories of those who served in Congress are different from those who merely watched on TV or even donated or worked in campaigns. Those memories, I would strongly suspect, shape the concept of what it is to be in power or to be in opposition.
For House Republicans, the notion of opposition is pretty much shaped and exemplified by their experience when Bill Clinton was President. Only five current Republican House mebers served while Jimmy Carter was President (Bill Young of FL-10; Don Young of Alaska; Jerry Lewis of California; Jim Sensenbrenner of WI-5; and Tom Petri of WI-6). Three of the five served one term or less (2 years) under Carter. None are now in Republican leadership although both Sensenbrenner and Lewis were committe chairs as recently as 2006 and are now ranking members but the two Youngs and Petri have no official leadership roles and the Youngs seem to have been put out to pasture.
From the second exchange between Greenwald and W. James Antle III in the LA Times:
Given the overwhelmingly Democratic tilt of the career bureaucracy in most civilian portions of the federal government, I must say I'm not terribly concerned that Bush's "burrowing" is going to derail any Obama administration initiatives. Elliot Abrams is not going to be making Obama's foreign policy, and Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey is not going to be overruling Holder (assuming he's confirmed) at the Department of Justice. I won't defend the practice, but burrowing is common, bipartisan and in this case likely to be [no] more of an impediment to the Obama administration than the pranks of political appointees removing keys from White House keyboards or similar hi-jinks.
Now it seems those closely detailed stories were largely bunk. Last week it was revealed that a formal review by the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative agency, "had found no damage to the offices of the White House's East or West Wings or EOB" and that Bush's own representatives had reported "there is no record of damage that may have been deliberately caused by the employees of the Clinton administration."
We would all be so much better off if the only mark that the slob Bill Clinton had deposited on the history of the world was the famous semen-stain on Monica Lewinski's blue dress.
But unfortunately he didn't spend his whole Presidency getting blow-jobs from interns, and somehow found time to sign the Telecom Act of 1996 into law, enabling an unprecedented concentration of media into a few giant corporations, and likewise with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, a combination which almost totally deregulated banking and consequently destroyed the American economy.
We would all be so much better off if the sadistic little punk George W. Bush had never been born, much less promoted on the basis of nothing but his name through oil companies and baseball teams and a governorship all the way to the White House, thanks largely to abject media treatment by networks and newspapers that are nothing but the playthings of billionaires. So Sumner Redstone bitch-slapped Dan Rather for finally exposing Bush as a nasty little coward who never stopped cheering for the same war that he ran away from himself, and that gave us four more years of torture, crazy wars, and oceans of blood sucked out of the national economy to feed a few parasites like Sumner Redstone.
After those two shining examples of American democracy in action, now we get the freak Barack Obama, a sociopathic con-man created out of nothing by sub-prime banking and already busy accelerating the biggest payoff in the history of the world for his billionaire creators, advised by none other than the same Larry Summers who pushed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act through Congress for Bill Clinton.
So the torch has been passed from a slob to a punk to a freak, and all that's left for the rest of us to do is hee-haw our amazement while Obama pays off the Clintons with the Department of State and pardons Bush/Cheney, even before the formality of his splendiferous inauguration.
I am going to take a much-needed break for this holiday weekend: no posting from now until either Sunday night or Monday morning. With the election season and the early Iowa caucuses last year, there has not been a real break since last Thanksgiving. I won't even bring my computer to New York City, where I will be spending the next few days with my family.
Before I go, here are three basic principles for dealing with the new administration:
Can't stop pushing from the left: I recently heard an interesting anecdote about the 1993 budget fight. While it is probably the most progressive piece of sizable legislation to pass into law in two decades, it was a grueling fight--passing both branches of Congress by a single vote--and it still could have been better. At the signing ceremony, President Clinton found then Representative Bernie Sanders, and told Sanders that he, Sanders, should have made a much bigger public display of how he, Clinton, wasn't giving enough to liberals in the new budget. Such a public display would have provided Clinton more room to maneuver on the left.
The moral of the story is that if no one is criticizing a Democratic administration from the left, then there is no rationale or political space for that Democratic administration to operate on the left. Such criticism is thus even useful to, and desired by, a Democratic administration. If the left stays quiet, it will not be relevant.
Open lines of communication: Now, even with the first point in mind, criticism must take place with open lines of communication. There need to be regular access points for the progressive left within the administration. Possibilities include press credentials, blogger conference call gaggles, White House staff that both understand and have roots in the online progressive community, and legislation needs to be posted online. Preferably, all of this will happen to varying degrees. If we can't talk to each other, than we are going to stop understanding each other, and then each side is just going to think the other groups are a bunch of idiots.
Carrots and Sticks: Discussion of the new administration can never be one-sided. Positive developments, of which there will be many, need to be focused on in addition to the criticisms. While I don't anticipate this being a big problem for me, as I was sometimes happy with the Clinton administration eight years ago, it will still be important to remember. This is a tremendous opportunity to make real accomplishments, and I would like to work to pass some legislation that I find personally important. However, in order for the praise and the criticism to remain valuable, it can never be all praise nor all criticism. If it were one-sided, it just wouldn't work.
Now, I am off for a 100-hour vacation. Please enjoy your holiday.
There really isn't a lot left to say as we head into the final 24 hours of the campaign. First, and most important, Kelly, Amanda and I want to thank everyone who has helped in any way with the campaign. The one thing I will take away from this experience, regardless of the outcome on Tuesday, is the people I've met, the communities I've visited and the stories we've shared.
It has also been encouraging how many people have stepped up over the last 2 weeks to help with donations to the campaign. Once our opponent got desperate and decided to go negative there were many people and organizations who stepped up and sent in late donations. These late donations allowed us to expand our media advertising and create a second TV ad to combat the distortions coming from our opponent's campaign.
Bill Clinton was at it again last night, offering his enthusiastic support, his support, his analysis of what might happen on election day:
Bill Clinton offered the most tepid support possible for Barack Obama's presidential ticket on David Letterman's Late Show last night. After repeatedly invoking his vanquished wife Hillary, Clinton said the typical American voter will recall John McCain's heroic torture in a Vietnamese prison camp before deciding to "go the other way" and vote for... whoever that other candidate for president might be.
Fortunately he was followed by Chris Rock who saw through the Clinton speak:
Maybe the Obama campaign should forget about Bill as a surrogate and just go with Chris Rock. He would probably fire up these voters anyway.
Earlier today Matt proposed that when it comes to message control the Obama campaign has some things in common with the Dukakis campaign of 20 years ago. Many readers found the comparison bothersome. Some were a little peaved. Others were even irked.
Since the comparison was entirely about strategy and not how they were separated at birth or something I'm not sure what all the fuss is about and I don't buy, and never have, that pointing out possible strategic errors when the most important 8 weeks of the campaign have yet to play out is some sort of political treason.
But I digress because that's not the point of this post. While many of us agree that "more offense, less defense" is a good idea there are times when responding is necessary and useful. But it's how you respond that can make all the difference. In terms of the evolution of campaign messaging it looks like this:
1988, Dukakis: Stay above it all, launch earnest, belated responses
1992, Clinton: Respond fast and, at times, aggressively
2004, Kerry: Wait and see if media goes with a story, respond if necessary
2008, Obama: Respond, laugh it off, mock opponents
I know I have skipped Gore but that's only because I don't recall what the Gore campaign did when, for example, he was accused of being a serial liar. Someone add that in comments.
I want to expand on Clinton and Kerry in the extended entry but here is a teaser on how I think you respond to the more outrageous attacks:
A response can sometimes be an effective attack as well. Follow along.
As I argue in my book coming out in January, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, the history of American politics from 1776 on has been a debate between progressives and conservatives as to what kind of country we want to live in. Progressives have always argued that America should be seen as one people, one family if you will, where our fates rise and fall as one; where we are all equal in the sight of each other and the law, where we should each have an equal opportunity at the good things in life; where the luckier and better off among us give their less lucky fellow citizens a hand up, should be their brothers' and sisters' keepers; where people, all the people not just the elites, are the sovereigns, that we the people have joined together to form a more perfect union where progress is possible, where hope for a better future can overcome the fear of change. Conservatives, of course, have always argued the opposite: that we should look out only for ourselves as rugged individualists; that the powerful are powerful for good reason, and trying to change anything is to be feared.
I am convinced that this coherence and unity in pushing this compelling idea of American progressivism is a big part of what made the Convention such a success. Short-term for our 2008 electoral purposes, it is of course also great that so many speakers, especially including Obama, went hard after McCain and made the case against him effectively. That was essential. But after watching so many Democratic Conventions over the years with no coherent big picture message, messages that were all personal and didn't have an ounce of ideological definition to them (think Dukakis' stirring "I'm a good manager" message, Kerry's "I'm a war hero" message, and a host of others), it was a joy to see a clear definition of who we are, what we value, and what we believe in.
The Convention was, as usual (this is my fifth), a sleep-deprived whirlwind. I meant to write more, but between helping the SeaChange Communications folks coordinate activities (panel discussions, political documentaries, a VIP "green room"), and an even more intense credential gathering operation than usual, I did not have a moment to sit and write. But since I like to take the longer view anyway, to give myself some time to digest things before putting up my thoughts for all the world to see, I am taking the time to put all we've seen the past 10 days into context. My plan is to do a series of retrospective pieces on the Democratic Convention as well as what is following this week.
Last week and this one are the two most dramatic political weeks that don't include Election Day in American history. With conventions usually a few weeks apart, and usually nominating fairly predictable folks for President and VP, these two weeks in 2008 are stunning. Think about it:
