joeklein

Look at our economic history. The regulatory regime put in under FDRs New Deal managed to smooth out the boom and bust cycle that plagued the U.S. economy in the century prior to the 1930s. The post FDR America had recessions rather than depressions. The economic cycle of boom and bust that ravaged this country between the civil war and the great depression was tamed by regulatory oversight of both Wall Street and the banking industry. In the 1980s and 1990s a rabble of post-Reagan economic ideologues emerged from the right wing of the Republican Party. These self proclaimed Neo-Conservatives or ‘Neocons,’ sought the dismantling of FDR’s regulatory regime and a return of America to laissez-faire policies. The Neocons apparently snoozed through history class during the lecture on the “Gilded Age,” an often glossed over period in American History; a time when laissez-faire economics so destabilized American society as to cause labor revolts and wild swings in the economy. The social, eco...

"Palin's requests to Congress came at a time of huge federal deficits, while Alaska state revenue was soaring due to rising oil prices and a major tax increase on oil production that Palin signed into law in late 2007." -- Palin's earmark requests: more per person than any other state "Palin reduced the state government's requests for special projects this year to 31 earmarks totaling $198 million, about $295 person." -- Despite cuts, Alaska earmarks still high "Total 2008 earmark spending for Wisconsin is $182.5 million, or roughly $33 per resident, according to the database." -- JSonline: Earmark spending has power to divide, unite