It’s the Economy, Stupid!

Of course, everyone has opinions about the economy in general, the financial crisis, the bailout bill, and what the next President should do about them — and what the candidates should say about these topics in tonight’s debate. (Actually, it’s a pretty wimpy debate format: I understand there are to be no follow-up questions, which means either candidate can get away with Palin-like non-answers.)

It’s The Jobs, Stupid!

Be that as it may, today’s New York Times has an excellent piece by Bob Herbert that provides a big-picture view of where we are economically and how we got here, which I felt was worth quoting fairly extensively:

What we haven’t paid close enough attention to for many years . . . is the fact that there haven’t been enough good paying jobs to sustain what most working Americans view as an adequate standard of living. This is a fundamental flaw in the U.S. economic system. . . .

The rich have been running the table for the better part of the past 30 or 40 years.

Example: The after-tax income of the top 1 percent of Americans rose 228 percent from the late 1970s through 2005. The story for working families over that same stretch was one of constant struggle to just stay even. . . .

Now middle-class and working families are up against the wall. With most other options exhausted, the only real way for the vast majority of Americans to continue financing a reasonable quality of life is through the proceeds from employment.

Unfortunately, we’re retreating on that front. Nearly 160,000 jobs were lost in September. More than three-quarters of a million have vanished over the past nine months.

The economy won’t be saved by bailing out Wall Street and waiting for that day that never comes when the benefits trickle down to ordinary Americans. It won’t be saved until we get serious about putting vast numbers of Americans back to work in jobs that are reasonably secure and pay a sustaining wage.

So, What Are We To Do To Create Jobs?

We just need to find a way to put people to work doing all that has been neglected while we’ve been practicing trickle-down economics, ignoring massive problems like health care and energy independence, and spending billions on unpopular wars we insist on fighting to “victory” (a strangely elusive term to define in the “war on terror”).

Herbert continues:

And that won’t begin to happen until we roll up our sleeves and begin the immensely hard and expensive work of rebuilding a nation that unconscionably was allowed to slip into a precipitous state of decline. . . .

Now we need to find the money and the will to put Americans to work rebuilding the nation’s deteriorating infrastructure, revitalizing its public school system, creating a new dawn of energy self-sufficiency and rethinking our approach to an economy that remains tilted wildly in favor of the rich.

That’s what the presidential campaign should be about.