Rutland Herald Editorial - Are You Better Off Today?

Published on 9/16/2004 in the Rutland Herald
Are You Better Off Today?
by Rep. Bernie Sanders

In 1980, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan raised a simple but profound question. He asked, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" This is 2004, and it's appropriate to ask that question again: Are you better off today than you were four years ago? The answer to that is, unless you are very wealthy, probably not.

Job creation is a disaster: President Bush will be the first president since Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression to oversee a decline in employment in a single White House term.

Despite huge tax breaks for the rich and large corporations, our country has experienced a net loss of 1.7 million private sector jobs since Bush took office. Equally important, the new jobs that are being created pay substantially less than the jobs that have been lost.

As a result of the Bush administration's strong support of our disastrous trade policies and outsourcing, in the last three years alone we have lost 2.7 million good-paying manufacturing jobs - 16 percent of that sector. We are now on the verge of losing millions of high-tech information technology jobs to India and elsewhere.

Take home pay is declining: While corporate America is throwing U.S. workers out onto the street and moving their jobs abroad, wages are no longer keeping up with inflation.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported recently that real earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers had fallen by $2 per week (inflation-adjusted) between July 2003 and July 2004. The Census Bureau reports that median household incomes fell last year for the third year in a row, with the typical American family now making $1,535 less per year than three years ago.

The situation will likely become even worse because Bush has implemented new rules that cut overtime pay for 6 million employees.

Poverty is increasing: Under President Bush, the poorest Americans are suffering the most. Incomes of the lowest wage earners are down 7.9 percent since 2000.

Poverty has increased by 1.3 million in the last year alone, and more than 4 million people have fallen into poverty since the beginning of his administration. Hunger and homelessness are on the rise. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has not said one word about raising the national minimum wage - which remains a pathetic $5.15 an hour.

The gap between the rich and poor is growing wider: The truth is that while the middle class is suffering under Bush's economic policies, the wealthiest people in our country have never had it so good.

The gap between the rich and the poor is now wider than at any time since the 1920s, with the richest 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Corporate profits are soaring, and the compensation of CEOs of our largest corporations is 500 times greater than their workers.

Our health care system is disintegrating: Under George Bush, 5 million more Americans have lost their health insurance and today we have a record 45 million without any health coverage.

As health insurance premiums soar, workers are being asked to pay higher premiums, deductibles and co-payments, and many small businesses are no longer able to provide any coverage. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is trying to privatize Medicare and recently announced a 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums - the largest premium increase in the Medicare program's history.

Today, the United States remains the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care for all of its citizens.

While the cost of prescription drugs rapidly increases, President Bush has vigorously defended the pharmaceutical industry, which has heavily funded his campaign.

He has opposed all efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs and end the national disgrace of Americans paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for their medicine.

Incredibly, in the disastrous prescription drug bill passed last year, the Bush administration inserted language that actually prohibited Medicare from negotiating with the drug companies for lower prices.

We now have a record-breaking deficit: President Bush and the Republican leadership have provided hundreds of billions in tax breaks to the richest 1 percent, people with an average income of more than $1 million a year. In the process, they have created record-breaking deficits and a $7 trillion national debt - a terrible legacy to leave to our children and grandchildren.

As a result of this huge national debt, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other financial leaders are already advocating cuts in Social Security benefits.

While Bush's wealthy friends and campaign contributors receive huge tax refunds, Bush has barred 160,000 veterans from receiving VA health care and his new veterans budget will substantially raise fees for the men and women who have put their lives on the line defending our nation.

Bernard Sanders, an independent, is Vermont's member of the U.S. House of Representatives.