Would you agree that right wing economics are what is really destroying family values in America?

[Crocoduck]

Back in the 1950's, Union membership was high and the rich paid a tax rate of 90%. These were our most prosperous times ever. A working person with no college degree could support a family of four, and pay off a mortgage faster than two working people today. These are the golden years of prosperity and values that conservatives love to talk about, they just don't realize why it used to be that way.

In the last 30 years America has taken a sharp turn to the right economically. The tax burden has been shifted away from the rich, and onto the middle class. Laws have become less favorable to Unions, resulting in a decline of Union membership and a decline in worker's wages. Tariffs on imported goods have gone down, resulting in more jobs being outsourced.

The net result of 30 years of right wing policies starting with Reagan is why half the people in the US are now poor, the top 1% make more money than the bottom 50% combined, and it takes two workers a lifetime to pay off a mortgage. The rich have it better, but everyone else has it worse.

Ever wonder why parent's aren't doing their job of being parents anymore? Maybe it's because both parents are working 40 to 60 hours a week, and then send the kids off to daycare and school.

Conservatives always think of the 1950's in the US as the golden years for family values in America.

The rich people on Wall Street have been waging war on workers for decades. This is the real cause of the decline of "family values" in America. Instead of realizing this reality, conservative blame the "liberal media" for everything that is wrong with America today.

What do you think is really destroying family values? Hollywood movies, or the Koch brother's war on workers?

[Jeff]

Pretty much bro... They are stressing the family like never before budd... That's family values for you!

[Quieteggnog962]

Right wing people are usually christian who have good moral and family value, people who get knocked up with 4 different dudes tend to be libs , just sayin

[LiberalsRNutz]

Wow! You have to be a special kind of stupid to buy that.

[The Taxpayer]

You're a fool. Unless you have a skill somebody wants, no body will pay you what you'd like to be worth.
Corporations will move or automate. Adapt or starve.
Back in the 50's people weren't lazy or crying all the time looking for people to support them while they cry sitting on the couch. 99 weeks of unemployment you could have gone to a tech school, graduated, and had a nice vacation.

[TK]

I heard today on MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes" that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics here in America 7 out of 10 jobs will pay poverty level wages in the future. Yet you have conservative commentators babbling about declining fertility rates and marriage rates as though the reasons for these changes were something other than financial.

One particular ass quoted Megan McArdle who opined "If you think that population decline is going to be a net boon to society take a long hard look at Greece. That's what a country looks like when it becomes inevitable that the future will be poorer than the past: social breakdown, political breakdown, economic catastrophe."

America will be poorer in the future than in the past due solely to Republican fiscal and economic policies, which will inevitably lead to lower fertility and marriage rates and, accordingly, social breakdown, political breakdown and economic catastrophe. So when we do reach that level of 7 poverty level jobs out of 10, please don't forget to reach out and hug a conservative and thank him or her. Because without the Bush tax cuts, deficit spending, supply-side economics and the deregulation of the financial economy, we might have no national debt and a bright economic future for ourselves and our children.

[The Independent]

This is about as well-written and accurate a summation of precisely what is wrong with America as I have ever seen in this forum. You've encapsulated the past 3/4 of a century of American economic history and explained both how and why we're facing the dire straits in which we currently find ourselves. Brilliant.

I honestly don't have a lot to add to your thesis, except to say that I agree 100% with your argument. It angers me beyond all measure that this grotesque economic and social injustice has been allowed to take place. Our nation has been transformed in a comparatively brief period of time from an economic powerhouse with an enormous middle class to a have and have-not culture in which the top 1% control over 40% of the nation's wealth. Indeed, the Walton family alone have more money than the bottom 40% on the economic scale, and the bottom 90% on the economic ladder have 27% of the total wealth of the United States. It is unconscionable.

Perhaps the worst aspect of all is that so many Conservative Republican/Tea Party voters are willingly and willfully voting against their own economic interests. The right-wing propaganda machine, as best exemplified by the likes of FOX News and Rush Limbaugh, has been so successful in twisting and contorting the truth while focusing people's attention on bogus social and tertiary issues like Gay marriage and abortion that "family values" has replaced the American dream. Social and economic justice are mere afterthoughts on the road to ruin.

This country has lost its way. And the vast majority of us are losing more and more with each passing year. Short of an actual revolution, I honestly don't see how this story can possibly have a happy ending.