This is a fascinating look at how the Washington lobbying industry works by a GOP lobbying firm.
You need to know this to avoid the “skim” on your expenses side of the ledger, and to profit from the “skim” on the investing side.
intercst
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From the link:
Our latest review of census data, updated from our
previous memo, “Class Dismissed I,” confirms that
Reich’s assessment is now hard fact, but maybe not
in the way he envisioned it. The “successful” class—
defined not just by income, but by education,
geography, and cultural homogeneity—is seceding
in large part to the Democratic Party and
away from Republicans.
By “secession,” we (and Reich) mean moving
into a hermetically sealed, elite cultural
bubble, set apart from the working class and
poorer populations, which are increasingly
afflicted by the nation’s most crushing social
pathologies.
Neither side
now seems to understand the other, each
speaking in strange tongues—or, for some,
speaking in ways they find offensive, label-
-ing them ignorant, or worse, racists or
fascists.
The reasons for this in many ways gets
down to how people live, where they live,
and what living is like for them. Consider
that Democrats, in fact, represent far
wealthier districts and constituents than the
GOP.
Elites stay away from, and
condescend to, non-elites? Of course. But to us, it’s
more fundamental, something we will state again:
Republicans are now a working-class party, the
Democrats the party of the wealthy.
This link is in full agreement with Thomas Franks book:" Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?" written in 2016 just prior to the election in 2016.
Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming.
With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank’s Listen, Liberal lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party’s philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party’s old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America.
Listen, Liberal - Wikipedia
In the book, Frank argues that the American Democratic Party has changed over time to support elitism in the form of a professional class instead of the working class, facilitating the growth of what he considers deleterious economic inequality.[1] Frank was one of the few analysts who foresaw that Donald Trump could win the 2016 United States presidential election.[
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“Represent” the working class? Or “co-opting” the working class?
I Would submit neither party represents The People or wants to. The suggestion that Dems are the “Rich Guy” party and GOP is somehow “for the working person” is just deceptive wordplay, perhaps even a bit of marketing-speak.
The Dems have become the the party of the seriously un-serious. How zany or xxaynee can we get today?! And the GOP is in fact and indeed the party of The Rich and brazenly so. But they know, all societies know, The System cannot produce enough winners to win an honest election so they protect the winners by undermining i.e. fooling, enough of the others to get the votes. The GOP does it better at least at this point in history
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Bottom line is it’s not about the people. It’s about money. Money used to get their votes. One way or another. Advertising. Policies that sound good.
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Oh baloney. Republicans have controlled both houses of Congress for 16 of the last 24 years, while Democrats have controlled it for just 4 (first two years of Obama, first two years of Biden) and that’s if you count having Manchin and Sinema as “reliable Democratic votes” which they were not.
Democrats have certainly tried to woo the working class with ever more benefits: ACA, expanding day care, job training, welfare, SNAP, and all the other things that Republicans are rolling back. Republicans have outflanked that by appealing to emotional and unscientific issues: immigrants, vaccines, and even so-called states’ rights (which they are dismantling with ever greater federal intrusions.)
I have long said that it’s hard to “buy” votes the way Democrats have gone about it; people’s memories are short. Take the continuing attempts to dismantle the ACA; in spite of its overarching popularity, the people who benefit from it most are the same ones who keep electing people who vow to get rid of it.
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Yes I think that has become known as “owning the issue.” If you solve immigration, if you solve health care affordability, if you solve fill-in-the-issue you can’t run on it next time. So, nobody actually tries to fix things because talking about them is good for bringing in political contributions
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Yah.
here’s the way you do it.
Trump Promises $1,776 ‘Warrior Dividend’ for Troops—Here’s What Service Members Need to Know | Military.com
ya money for nothing and your checks are free.
ralph
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I think the point is not who “represents” whom, but what are the demographics and such of the people who vote for a given party.
One thing that has happened over the past decades is the increase in college graduates from 4% to 40%. One can’t build a coalition around a 4% slice, but 40% is a different matter. Then, focusing on issues that are important to that 40% leaves Joe Blue Collar feeling left out.
DB2
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AI * Search assist
Many individuals with private health insurance had to switch to ACA-compliant plans due to the Affordable Care Act’s regulations
I had a $5000 ded policy with BCBS that was suiting my needs. I had to convert to an ACA approved $5000 ded policy at double the premium.
Such “help”!
What did Clinton actually do in his eight years on Pennsylvania Avenue?
*First was the economy, which did really well while he was in office. So well, in fact, that we had something close to full employment for several years while the Dow hit 10,000 and the Nasdaq stock index went ffing vertical —flush times that are almost inconceivable from our present-day vantage point.
Not much “help” for the working class.
Now we remember that it was Bill Clinton’s administration that deregulated derivatives, that deregulated telecom, and that put our country’s only strong banking laws in the grave. He’s the one who rammed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) through Congress and who taught the world that the way you respond to a recession is by paying off the federal deficit. Mass incarceration and the repeal of welfare, two of Clinton’s other major achievements, are the pillars of the disciplinary state that has made life so miserable for Americans in the lower reaches of society. He would have put a huge dent in Social Security, too, had the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal not stopped him. If we take inequality as our measure, the Clinton administration looks not heroic but odious.
Globalization wanted these things to happen. Technology wanted them to happen. The Future wanted them to happen. Naturally the professional class wanted them to happen, too.
NAFTA-the beginning of sucking good jobs with health care benefits to foreign nation tossing the working class under the bus.
One reason the treaty required no brains at all from its supporters is because NAFTA was as close to a straight-up class issue as we will ever see in this country. It “boils down to the oldest division of all,” Dirk Johnson wrote in The New York Times in 1993: “the haves versus the have-nots, or more precisely, those who have only a little.”
NAFTA was supposed to increase employment in the U.S.; a study from 2010 counts almost 700,000 jobs lost in America thanks to the treaty. And, as feared, the agreement gave one class in America enormous leverage over the other
And let’s not forget that administration teed up the 2008 real estate implosion.
First repeat; of Glass Steagull Act that separated commercial & investment banking.
Second, poo-poos Brooksley Born’s warning of the dangers of unregulated derivatives trading, which contributed to the 2008 financial crisis.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2009/10/frontline_look_at_woman_who_ga.html
Born was defeated in her effort to regulate OTC derivatives market during the late 1990s by then Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan; Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Assistant Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Arthur Levitt. They argued regulation would cause financial turmoil.
Well those gentlemen were right about something. There was financial turmoil–just not the cause of it.
Mere crumbs while the theft progressed from working class to professional class.
Today the New York City mayoral race has demonstrated that NOW the spawn of the professional class are affected.
We likely will hear more about the affordability political issue, that has economic impact, in future elections.
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A) So, what is the reputation of Business Insider magazine? I’ve only heard of it but don’t know how it’s perceived or regarded. Doesn’t appear to be a kook left socialist commie enterprise.
B) What is the position of RAND? I know it’s a think tank and was a popular second career for many senior officers I knew in the Air Force, especially flyers who couldn’t fly anymore.
C) Now that we have hard data from a credible study by a reputable unbiased (depending on the answer to question B above) research organization, why isn’t this front page new? I know everybody already sort of “knew” it, but now everybody can see it. It’s not just a Bernie or a Cenk Uygur talking point.
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My hands are clean. I voted for Ross Perot twice, and Trump over Hillary in 2016. {{ LOL }}
intercst
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That RAND study about the $50 Trillion is fantastic. Unfortunately, the only people that are going to read it are the 1% or near one percent, not the folks that got screwed over.
intercst
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Ah. On the old board you would have been referred to as a g**ber.
I guess what I meant is , is RAND considered Left or Right on the spectrum. I don’t see any indication of either. Maybe they’re honest? Certainly this study would indicate that
Because democrats suck at the messaging. They merely come across as people outraged at those who are successful. Rather provide a simple table of the benefits cut for middle class, and poor and show that money is used to finance rich people tax cut. It is not difficult. Let the numbers speak.
No, democrats will not do that, instead talk about non-starter ideas like tax the unrealized gains, and all other non-sensical things where their entire focus is demonizing billionaires. Focus on the wealth transfer and not attack people who were successful. It is not that difficult but it not easy to fix the stupid either.
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And during the first two years of Obama’s term Ted Kennedy died in office and Al Franken’s election wasn’t certified for months. I’d have to look it up to be sure, but IIRC in those two year the amount of time the Democrats had a majority in the Senate while it was in session was on order a few months.
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I am generally against that as well. That said, I can’t figure out how “unrealized gains” are an asset when you go to a bank to get a loan so you don’t have to have “income”, but they are not an asset when it comes to, you know, being taxed.
Weird.
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That’s rich. We use full sentences. Must be easy to beat full sentences.
It’s because people want low taxes.
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Are you implying that you would support a general tax on asset values? Today, only real property (like real estate or cars) have taxes assessed, other types of assets, for the most part, do not.