In Fifty Short Years

Why are we starting to look like a country that is a shadow of what we were a short 50 years ago? What has happened under the leadership we had during this period from good, knowledgeable, educated, experienced in world and domestic affairs?  Men, both Democrats and Republicans; i.e. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama? They inherited the workings of America’s Greatest Generation and blew out our future one way or another.  They left us an unhappy electorate and a failure to hold our head up high in the international community, The result?

The frustrated, disillusioned Americans who voted for President Trump committed the ultimate act of favoring an inexperienced, never prepared, shoot from the hip heir to a real estate fortune whose businesses had declared bankruptcy six times.  He would “drain the swamp” in Washington, he promised.  He would take the coal industry back to the greatness it had enjoyed 80 years before.  He would rebuild the cities, block immigrants with a great wall paid for by Mexico, provide health care for all and make the country’s infrastructure the envy of the world, while cutting everyone’s taxes.  Forty-six percent of those who voted figured that things were so bad they might as well let him try.  The result?

1. An average of fifty water main breaks occur per day. The power grid, roads and rails are pushing the US far down international rankings for infrastructure quality.
2. Inflation adjusted middle class wages have been frozen for the last four decades, while top 1% have nearly tripled.
3. Pay since 1975, adjusted 2016 dollars shows in 1975 average worker pay annually was $46,000 and in 2016 was $53,000.  Average CEO pay in 1975 annually was $1,200,000 and in 2016 was $15,000,000.
4. Crash of 2008 banks and bankers were bailed out, while millions lost their homes and savings.
5. In the three years following the crash the bottom 99% has improved less than ½ of 1% while top 1% has tripled.
6. For adults in their 30s, the chance of earning more than their parents dropped to 50% from 90% just two generations ago. The share of American adults in the middle class has shrunk from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2015.
7. Middle class of America is no longer the world’s richest.
8. In 2017 household debt had grown higher than the peak reached in 2008 before the crash.
9. US has the 3^rd highest poverty rate among the 35 nations in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development.
10. Nearly 1 in 5 American children live in a household without “access to enough food for active, healthy living.”
11. America’s air traffic control system is more than 25 years behind its original schedule.
12. Among the 35 OECD countries American children rank 30^th in math proficiency and 19^th in science, despite spending more on health care and K-12 student achievement.
13. Congress has failed to pass a comprehensive budget on time without omnibus bills since 1994.
14. There are more than 20 registered lobbyists for every member of Congress.
15. Members of both parties in Congress are required to go to the party’s office building and spend 5 hours a day in a booth and raise funds for both the party and their own reelection.

And this administration talks a pie in the sky blue streak, but doesn’t correct the problems.  “Make America Great Again?” that’s a farce.

Experts hope and believe that the country will overrun the lobbyists and cross over the moats when enough Americans see that we need leaders who are prepared and intelligent, who can unite the middle class and the poor rather than divide them.  They are certain that when the country’s breakdown touches enough people directly and causes enough damage, the officeholders who depend on those people for their jobs will be forced to act.