Jim Johnson said "Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living.
Damned if that isn't a very good description of trickle down economics that we are just starting to get rid of,
I suspect Mr. Johnson is ignoring the fact the redistiibution of weatlh to the few that occured in the last Administration and his comment is about the possiblility of it turning around and some of that prosperity he talks about will reach middle America.
But given the fact he quotes at least two Facisits and portrayes them as Socialists I would say he has no clue as to what he is talking about anyway.
The Other America
An Enduring Shame: Katrina Reminded Us, But The Problem Is Not New. Why A Rising Tide Of People Live In Poverty, Who They Are--And What We Can Do About It.
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It takes a hurricane. It takes a catastrophe like Katrina to strip away the old evasions, hypocrisies and not-so-benign neglect. It takes the sight of the United States with a big black eye--visible around the world--to help the rest of us begin to see again. For the moment, at least, Americans are ready to fix their restless gaze on enduring problems of poverty, race and class that have escaped their attention. Does this mean a new war on poverty? No, especially with Katrina's gargantuan price tag. But this disaster may offer a chance to start a skirmish, or at least make Washington think harder about why part of the richest country on earth looks like the Third World.
"I hope we realize that the people of New Orleans weren't just abandoned during the hurricane," Sen. Barack Obama said last week on the floor of the Senate. "They were abandoned long ago--to murder and mayhem in the streets, to substandard schools, to dilapidated housing, to inadequate health care, to a pervasive sense of hopelessness."
The question now is whether the floodwaters can create a sea change in public perceptions. "Americans tend to think of poor people as being responsible for their own economic woes," says sociologist Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University. "But this was a case where the poor were clearly not at fault. It was a reminder that we have a moral obligation to provide every American with a decent life."
In the last four decades, part of that obligation has been met. Social Security and Medicare have all but eliminated poverty among the elderly. Food stamps have made severe hunger in the United States mostly a thing of the past. A little-known program with bipartisan support and a boring name--the Earned Income Tax Credit--supplements the puny wages of the working poor, helping to lift millions into the lower middle class.
But after a decade of improvement in the 1990s, poverty in America is actually getting worse. A rising tide of economic growth is no longer lifting all boats. For the first time in half a century, the third year of a recovery (2004) also saw an increase in poverty. In a nation of nearly 300 million people, the number living below the poverty line ($14,680 for a family of three) recently hit 37 million, up more than a million in a year.
With the strain Katrina is placing on the gulf region (and on families putting up their displaced relatives), it will almost certainly increase more.
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