The 2020 version of this was Critical Race Theory, another equally bogus attack on public education. Republican grandstanding for political gain actually dumbed down America. Hysteria followed, and Red state after Red state outlawed these new high standards for high-school graduation. The story ran day after day on Fox “News” and rightwing hate radio. In 2010, though, when fossil fuel billionaires bankrolled the Tea Party and were looking for an issue to beat up on Democrats in the 20 elections, they seized on the national standards for education program conceived and legislatively initiated by both Republicans and Democrats called “ Common Core.”Īlthough it had been endorsed by the US Chamber of Commerce and GOP presidential front-runner Jeb Bush (among others) and was in place in 45 states, word went out that it was an effort to “indoctrinate” American students. In the 1950s, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower championed building tens of thousands of new public schools all across America, an effort supported by the business community because an educated workforce is a productive workforce.įrom the early days of the Industrial Revolution, Americans were proud that we had one of the best-educated workforces in the world, and that itself was a huge boost to business. Close in around the store's location, between 35 and 60 percent of stores closed.”įor most American businesses and the communities they serve, Republican governance has been a disaster since the Reagan 1980s. Persky and his colleagues found that for every mile closer to the Walmart, 6 percent more stores closed. “he closer a store was to the Walmart location, the greater the likelihood it would close. Big Box stores, spreading across the country unconstrained since Reagan, have been wiping out small towns and rural communities. Strip malls and small-town downtowns that were once mostly home to local retailers are now dominated by giant monopolistic national chains. But in 1983, when Reagan ordered the DOJ, FTC, and SEC to stop enforcing anti-trust laws dating back to the Sherman Act of 1890, giant corporations began a relentless campaign to destroy locally-owned companies. Small- and medium-sized companies built America and brought us the American middle class, the first and largest middle class in the world. Nike alone today controls around 20 percent of that market. We enforced anti-trust laws so aggressively that when Buster Brown and Kinney shoe companies wanted to merge in the 1960s the Supreme Court blocked the merger because the combined company would control about 5 percent of the US shoe market. The core of American business and thus the livelihood of American communities before Reagan was small- and medium-sized companies. Bush lied us into, our national debt would today be zero instead of over $30 trillion. If not for the Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts for billionaires and the two wars George W. Just last year, President Biden decreased federal spending by $550 billion and reduced the deficit by $1.4 trillion - the largest one-year deficit drop in American history - all while creating five times more jobs in 2 years than the last three Republican presidents combined. Bush a $128 billion surplus (after 4 consecutive years of budget surpluses): Bush immediately squandered it with a massive tax cut for billionaires and two criminal wars. Republican presidents have exploded the national debt, while the only balanced budgets out of the past 60 years have been presented by Democratic presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama.īill Clinton left George W. Ten of the past 11 recessions began under Republican presidents, although lifelong Republican and Trump Fed appointee Jerome Powell seems hell-bent on producing one for Joe Biden, just in time for the 2024 election. For example, the economy has grown three times faster under Biden than under Trump. The economy during this time grew at an average rate of 4.6% under the Democratic presidents, but only an anemic 2.4% under Republican presidents. It may have once been true when I was a very young child, but today it’s a lie - and has been so in a huge way since the neoliberal Reagan Revolution.īetween 19 there were 14 American presidents, 7 Democratic and 7 Republican. This weekend, as I recall, it was CNN‘s turn.Īll my life, in fact, I’ve been told by the media that the GOP is the “party of business.” As predictably as the sun rises and sets, every Sunday sees a commentator or politician on one of the Sunday political talk shows say - without being challenged - words to the effect that the Republican Party understands and supports business better than Democrats.
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