Andrea Batista Schlesinger

Today’s Wall Street Journal: Actually debating solutions for a change

Check out this morning's Wall Street Journal must-read: "Democrats Target Wealth Gap
And Hope Not to Hit Economy."

It's an overview of proposals Democrats are considering to tackle the income equality that characterizes our nation in the way that shared economic propsperity and a strong middle class formerly did.

The accompanying graphs powerfully illustrate the rise in economic equality . And pictured here is an overview of the proposals on the table provided by the Wall Street Journal.

While this was an A1 story, don't expect the Wall Street Journal's Editorial page to cover it. They have other things to rant about, like how female employees discriminated against by their employer Wal-Mart shouldn't be able to sue as a class, and about crazy leftists in Mexico.

In fact, the Journal has some of the best reporting on the changing nature of the American Dream. It's Op-Ed page ignores most of it, opting to blindly support the Bush administration's tax cuts and corporate agenda.

Regardless, it is great to read something where people are lining up to actually debate solutions, as opposed to debate whether or not the problem exists.

As I argued in this Reuters piece, "Democrats won, but did the middle class?," the promise of the midterm election results isn't that our problems will instantly be solved, but that we have leadership more invested in solving them than in pretending that they do not exist.

And while some voters may doubt the ability of the new Congress to bring real change to ordinary Americans, Batista Schlesinger said the first step to solving the middle class squeeze was admitting it existed.

"I don't necessarily think that the policy debates coming are going to be easy, but I think the very idea that we have a government that understands its role is to create policy that improves people's lives is a victory," she said.

Andrea Batista Schlesinger: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 9:12 AM, Nov 21, 2006 in Middle-class squeeze
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