I gave a speech in support of John Kerry at a local union hall back in '04. My title was "Downhill since Nixon". What I meant by that clever meme is that the middle class has been suffering a thirty-eight reversal of fortunes in terms of its relative standard of living and real wages. There was an upward blip during the Clinton years, but the trend has been overall downward. In other words, the rich are getting richer. Senator Obama is correct when he says that economic issues will decide this campaign because Americans tend to vote their pocketbooks, and there are a lot more middle and working class people in this country than rich folks. This probability should not give the Republicans cheer even if the issue distracts voters from the novelty of Governor Sarah Palin. Rutgers University just released a scorecard for labor that shows the median weekly earnings for American workers have not grown in real terms over the last eight years. Despite a very modest increase in the federal minimum wage to $6.55 during the eight years of the Regime, that wage is 40% less in inflation-adjusted dollars than it was a decade ago. 530,000 workers were subject to mass layoffs in the last years, a growth in numbers of 5%.
The economy as a whole is also doing poorly. The next president will face a record size $482 billion deficit in the federal budget or about 3% of the national economy in 2009. That percentage is smaller than the deficits of the late 80s that forced President Bill Clinton to renege on campaign promises and increase taxes to reduce the deficit. He did, however, leave office with a balanced budget and a robust economy. The ultimate size of the deficit is dependent on the nation's economic performance. Right now the US is experiencing a real estate market meltdown. Not since the 1930's has the U.S. had real estate deflation like the nation is experiencing now. As many as 1 in 15 homes are affected in especially hard hit markets like California, Nevada and Michigan. Some neighborhoods resemble ghost towns with rows of empty suburban homes. The subprime crises is fundamentally the result of free market aficionados deregulating the banking industry. In the end the crisis is expected to cost the real estate industry $1 trillion. Another sign of a stagnant economy is the rate of job creation. The US has the lowest rate of job creation in 40 years: 2.9% according to the Bureau of Economic Research. So much for the Charlatan's legacy: an expensive foreign adventure we did not need and stagflation to boot. Thank you, Mr. President. Is it any wonder John McCain does not want to be seen on the same stage in St. Paul?