Obama's plan is part of the solution. Trust me, much more to come my friend.
sealy uses a McCainism.
After the Republican Great Depression, FDR put this nation back to work, in part by raising taxes on income above $3 to $4 million a year (in todays dollars) to 91 percent, and corporate taxes to over 50% of profits. The revenue from those income taxes built dams, roads, bridges, sewers, water systems, schools, hospitals, train stations, railways, an interstate highway system, and airports. It educated a generation returning from World War II. It acted as a cap on the rare but occasional obsessively greedy person taking so much out of the economy that it impoverished the rest of us.
And, most tragically, Reagans tax cuts caused America to stop investing in infrastructure. As a nation, weve been coasting since the early 1980s, living on borrowed money while we burn through (in some cases literally) the hospitals, roads, bridges, steam tunnels, and other infrastructure we built in the Golden Age of the Middle Class between the 1940s and the 1980s.
We even stopped investing in the intellectual infrastructure of this nation: college education. A degree that a student in the 1970s could have paid for by working as a waitress at a Howard Johnsons restaurant (what my wife did in the late 60s - I did so working as a near-minimum-wage DJ) now means incurring massive and life-altering debt for all but the very wealthy. Reagan, who as governor ended free tuition at the University of California, put into place the foundations for the explosion in college tuition we see today.
Bullshit. My daughter is in college. She will have some loans to payoff when she is done but nothing along the lines of massive and life-altering. But you see, we planned for this and saved, she worked hard in high school and got scholarship money, there is grant money in there too. Its within reach of anyone who wants to work for it. There are many ways to afford it as well. For example, attending a two year college for the gen ed stuff then attending a four year for the rest cuts costs considerably. BTW, we're a family of five living on about $40,000/yr. Is that what you call wealthy? Were there sacrifices along the way? You betcha. Worth it? Every, single dime.
You might want to read a little bit more on the problems with today's skyrocketing education costs. One thing to consider is this. What kind of job is she going to get? I'm working with a bunch of accounting graduates. They just graduated from UofM and EMU. They make in the $40K's and with overtime can make $60. WOW! So they paid $40k and went to school for 4 years to make as much as my dad did and all he did was go to work for Ford Motor Company.
Our kids are going to make less than us.
If there is no manufacturing in America, then there is no need for engineers.
Bill Gates tells Congress he can't find good help in the IT field here in America. He needs more F1 Visa's. He can find Americans, but they want to make more than Indians.
And they're letting illegals in to do factory work and a lot of other jobs Americans will do.
All these things are to lower wages of the middle class.
Now take into affect that healthcare costs went up 191% since 2001. So the $50k your daughter makes isn't even what it used to be.
The only good thing is, she'll get a house really cheap. LOL And she can buy stocks really cheap and they have to rebound someday, right?