Oh No, Mr. Bill. It's Socialism. Oh NOoooo...

Joe Conason has a good piece up today on TruthDig, wherein he examines and dispatches the two most dominant myths and shibboleths regarding criticism of the the stimulus plan, which begins:

Mythology is overshadowing history in the debate over President Barack Obama’s plan to stimulate the depressed economy. Excessive airtime is devoted to the prejudices of cable hosts and radio personalities who regurgitate ideas they barely understand (and who haven’t entertained an original thought since the Reagan era). Urgent action that could prevent enormous suffering is delayed by all the same old agendas that have dominated Washington for the past three decades.

Of course, being prudent, Conason doesn't name the names (DINOs, BlueDawgs, along with the feculent GOPukes. He dismisses the tax-break chimera. He shows the efficaciousness of spending on food stamps and other resources for poor folks. He concludes:

It is true that we need to make real investments in transportation, energy, education and technology for the future—and that our future fiscal difficulties will be eased if we make those investments now. Yet the most immediate need is to promote demand, which will restore confidence and encourage investment.

What we ought to learn from this episode is that extreme inequality reduces national economic stability. The falling wages of working families forced them to rely too much on credit to maintain and improve their standards of living. Restoring the American dream means putting a floor under family incomes and reducing the gap between the richest and poorest, not only for the sake of simple justice but because that is the most reliable economic policy for the nation as a whole.

Whence cometh the hed above.

But let's be clear and real, here. Wages didn't simply "fall." They were suppressed, by both Pukes and Dims, since 1980 or thereabouts, to boost the bottom lines (and bonuses) of the corporat class. Working families were TOLD cheap credit was as good as higher wages (Greenspan, among others), and to regard their homes as liquid assets, cuz you know housing NEVER falls...Exterme income inequality is the NORM in the USofA, since forEVAR...and it ain't gonna change now...