Free Republic

The roots of American liberalism are not compassion, but snobbery. That’s the thesis of Fred Siegel’s revealing new book, The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class.

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog, The death of the middle class in America has become so painfully obvious that now even the New York Times is doing stories about it. Millions of middle class jobs have disappeared, incomes are steadily decreasing, the rate of homeownership has declined for eight years in a row and U.S. consumers have accumulated record-setting levels of debt. Being independent is at the heart of what it means to be "middle class", and unfortunately the percentage of Americans that are able to take care of themselves without government assistance continues to decline....

President Barack Obama says the U.S. can take steps to ensure more people can join and stay in the middle class. In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama is echoing themes from his State of the Union address. He says some of his ideas require Congress, but he’ll take steps on his own where he can. …

If there were any shreds of hope left that the stunning decline of the middle class could be turned around, Obamacare has absolutely destroyed them. Over the past decade or so, the middle class in the United States has been absolutely eviscerated. The number of working age Americans without a job has increased by 27 million since the year 2000, median household income in the U.S. has fallen for five years in a row, and the poverty numbers in this country are spiraling out of control. And now here comes Obamacare. As you will see below, Obamacare is causing millions...

Taxes: Once upon a time, President Obama promised he wouldn't raise taxes on the middle class. Millions of those getting insurance cancellation notices are finding out how fraudulent that promise was, too. Matthew Fleischer, a freelance writer in Los Angeles, recently learned ObamaCare will force him off a plan he likes, and a comparable policy will cost him nearly $800 more next year. "Most young, middle-class Americans I know are happy that millions of previously uninsured people will receive free or heavily subsidized insurance under the Affordable Care Act," he wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed. "We just didn't...

Uncertainty and struggle are what we most often associate with poverty. Not knowing if you can still afford to pay next month’s bills and worrying over how much more you can cut back when you’re already barely getting by. This way of life has become more associated with the middle class than with those at the very bottom. The statistic that shows that average black household worth is at $4,955 while average white household worth is at $110,729 is often quoted, but these numbers are not comparing similar things. The $110,729 and $4,955 don’t reflect different standards of living; but...

My mother and father taught me some important lessons in my life. One of them was to not to pay attention to what someone is saying, but rather pay attention to what they are doing and the consequences of their actions. Never has this lesson been more evident in taking stock of the economic policies of Obama and the progressive liberals who seek to transform America from an individualistic, capitalistic society to a collective, socially democrat one. We hear on the news every day that the economy is improving, people are going back to work, and that the dark days...

We have all heard the news stories about people so morbidly obese that they could not exit their house or apartment. I remember one story of a person who had to be lifted out with a crane after a wall was removed. These people are addicted to eating, and in some cases, ate incessantly even though they knew that they were jeopardizing their health and eventually, their lives. They grew so large that they were barely able to move and rendered themselves largely useless except as a food-disposal unit. This reminds me of our federal government, which was once agile...

The Middle Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America The 25 statistics that you are about to read are solid proof that the middle class in America is being systematically wiped out. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world. It seemed like almost everyone owned a home, had a couple of nice vehicles and could provide a very comfortable lifestyle for their families. Sadly, that has all changed. In America today, prices are rising at a very brisk pace but incomes are not....

New England’s largest coal-fired power plant has been slated for shutdown, partly due to Environmental Protection Agency regulations.The Brayton Point Station in Massachusetts will no longer provide power to the region’s electrical grid when the plant is shut down in 2017. The plant’s owner Energy Capital Partners has cited several factors for its closing, including competition from natural gas and the need to spend “significant capital to meet environmental regulations and to operate and maintain an aging plant.”Environmentalists argue that coal is no longer an economically viable fuel source.“If Brayton Point can’t make it economically, no coal plant can make...

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that the income gap in the United States has increased to the point where members of the middle class resemble the Americans who lived in poverty when he occupied the White House.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/20/obama-congress-republicans-kansas-city-budget-shutdown/2842889/

In the four years since the Great Recession officially ended, the productivity of American workers — those lucky enough to have jobs — has risen smartly. But the United States still has two million fewer jobs than before the downturn, the unemployment rate is stuck at levels not seen since the early 1990s and the proportion of adults who are working is four percentage points off its peak in 2000. This job drought has spurred pundits to wonder whether a profound employment sickness has overtaken us. And from there, it’s only a short leap to ask whether that illness isn’t...

Is there such thing as “class” in America? Not if you ask Rick Santorum. The once and possibly future GOP presidential candidate spoke to a Republican gathering in Lyon County, Iowa late last week and shared this piece of advice with his party: “Don’t use the term the other side uses.” That includes the “middle class.” Santorum proceeded to tear into President Obama for constantly invoking the term “middle class” in his speeches about the economy. “Since when in America do we have classes?” Santorum asked. “Since when in America are people stuck in areas or defined places called a...

Occupy Wall Streeters claimed that they were populists. Their ideological opposites, the Tea Partiers, said they were, too. Both became polarizing. And so far populism, whether on the right or left, does not seem to have made inroads with the traditional Republican and Democrat establishments. Gas has gone up about $2 a gallon since Barack Obama took office. Given average yearly rates of national consumption, that increase alone translates into an extra $1 trillion that American drivers havencollectively paid in higher fuel costs over the last 54 months.Victor DavisVictor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution,...

It's good to be the king ... of class warfare hypocrisy. While he lectures his political opponents about their neglect of middle-class America, President Obama is headed to Martha's Vineyard. Again. Because nothing spells populist like a $7.6 million, 9.5-acre estate owned by one of Chicago's wealthiest corporate financiers. The sprawling summer manse of David Schulte is actually a downgrade from the Obama family's previous summer digs. The $21 million, 28.5-acre Blue Heron Farm that had hosted Obama and his massive entourage since 2009 isn't available for rental anymore because a British mogul snapped it up. But don't be bumming....

President Obama has been rolling up his sleeves campaigning across the country delivering a surreal stump speech message supposedly aimed at the middle class: big government works, Obamacare is manna from heaven, the wave of recent scandals are “phony” figments of the imagination, and all economic problems are the fault of the Republicans. Conveniently, he leaves out the bankruptcy of Detroit, a city run by his own party for more than half a century. His message is so stale and unconvincing, that even The New York Times and Washington Post have noticed. Both papers, usually loyal to Obama, remarked that...

How? Just move people from low income neighborhoods into middle class neighborhoods. This brilliant stratagem is being promoted by Shaun Donovan, Obama's newly appointed head of HUD. According to Donovan, the middle class is the middle class because they have all the advantages of living in middle class neighborhoods. After all, middle class neighborhoods have better "schools, jobs, transportation, and other important neighborhood resources that can play a role in helping people move into the middle class." Move people from low income neighborhoods with poor "assets" into neighborhoods with good "assets" and presto they will have middle class jobs and...

President Obama made his fourth or fifth, or maybe it's the seventh or eighth, pivot to the economy on Wednesday, and a revealing speech it was. We counted four mentions of "growth" but "inequality" got five. This goes a long way to explaining why Mr. Obama is still bemoaning the state of the economy five years into his Presidency. The President summed up his economic priorities close to the top of his hour-long address. "This growing inequality isn't just morally wrong; it's bad economics," he told his Galesburg, Illinois audience. "When middle-class families have less to spend, businesses have fewer...

President Obama tried to move past months of debate over guns, surveillance and scandal on Wednesday and reorient his administration behind a program to lift a middling economy and help middle-class Americans who are stuck with stagnant incomes and shrinking horizons. In speeches in two small college towns in the Midwest, Mr. Obama lamented that typical Americans had been left behind by globalization, Wall Street irresponsibility and Washington policies, while the richest Americans had accumulated more wealth. He declared it “my highest priority” to reverse those trends, while accusing other politicians of not only ignoring the problem but also making...