So where will the demand come from if not government? The radical right points to the alleged "failure" of the stimulus program as evidence that government spending doesn't work. The fact is it did work -- it saved at least 3 million jobs, and would have saved far more if the stimulus was on the scale needed and directed to job creation.
To be sure, pump-priming is more difficult when the well is almost dry, as it is now. And widening inequality -- the rich taking home an increasing share of the nation's total income and wealth -- has left the vast middle class with even less purchasing power.
But the pump still needs to be primed.
And the well has to be filled: The nation must also push for real tax reform that reverses the surge toward inequality -- raising taxes on the wealthy, cutting them for the middle, and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for the poor.
To do this, though, requires that Americans understand the truth. But where will they learn it?
The radical right has not only captured the federal budget. In convincing so many Americans the problem is the size of government rather than their shrinking paychecks and growing economic insecurity, the radical right has also captured the American mind.
