(This image of rich man / poor man is from haam.org.)For the last three decades the Republicans have controlled economic policy in the United States. The policy they put in to place is "trickle-down" economics -- the idea that giving more to the rich would benefit all Americans (because the rich would then share that by creating more jobs and raising wages). But the rich didn't cooperate. They didn't create new jobs or raise wages -- but just stuck the extra money in the bank.
All this policy wound up doing is shrinking the middle class, lowering the wages of workers, shrinking the middle class, creating a vast gap between the rich and the rest of us, and finally crashing the economy. The rich have recovered from that crash, but the rest of America hasn't. A reasonable person would assume the GOP had learned its lesson and change their failed economic policy. But they haven't. They remain convinced that giving more to the rich will somehow magically fix the economy.
Fortunately, the rest of America is finally starting to wake up and realize what a disaster this policy has been. And they want economic change. The charts below are from a new New York Times / CBS News Poll. It was done between May 28th and 31st of a random national sample of 1,022 adults, with a margin of error of 3 points.
As you can see, a substantial majority are now agreeing with Democratic policies. About 61% say not everyone has a chance to get ahead in this economy, 66% say the distribution of wealth/income is unfair, 67% say the gap between the rich and poor is growing larger, 57% say the government should do more to reduce that gap, 71% say corporations have too much influence, 71% say the minimum wage should be raised to $10.10 an hour, and 68% say taxes should be raised on those making over a million dollars a year.
That should worry the hell out of Republicans going into this next election cycle -- because those are all things they oppose and the Democrats support. If the Democrats are smart, they will campaign hard on these issues.
