Back in the Day

It's poignant.  We've made very little progress in some areas of our country's political life.  The material below is an almost-identical  version of a blog post I did nearly a decade ago.

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Donkey Dharma

Thoughts By and For Enlightened Progressives

I'm proud of being from Western Pennsylvania. (Google North Braddock when you have a chance.) I think often and fondly of my working-class upbringing; of the ethnic diversity and harmonious interaction between disparate groups that, until adulthood took me to another part of Pennsylvania, I considered the way of the world at large; and of the fact that, contrary to the pronouncements of many a cable news chatterer, working-class, proud-of-their-backgrounds Americans are also quite often progressives. (Google Charles Owens Rice)

Rightisimos like to accuse progressives of engaging in “Class warfare!” almost as much as they try to paint us as “Socialist!” But the chart below demonstrates that it is the working- and middle-class families of this country that have paid the price, actual and metaphorical, of conservatives’ tax cuts for the wealthy, and of their readiness to gut regulatory agencies of all stripes. 

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 Lest you think insensitive policies only a recent development, note this quote from John Boehner.

We are going to do everything we can to make sure that this law [the ACA] and this program never really takes effect.

During the same interview, Mr. Boehner sought to ensure funding for the war in Afghanistan by

1. reforming the country's entitlement system
2. increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement
3. tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index rather than wage inflation
4. limiting payments to those who need them

Like so many of his far-right colleagues, Mr. Boehner gave no hint as to how or by whom any such determination of financial need would be made.