How's that workin' for us now?

Some of you may not be old enough to remember when St. Ronnie, patron saint of greedy corporations and big business, said that government wasn't the solution to the problems facing our country and that indeed, government was the problem.  

Well, a succession of US Presidents, including Bill Clinton, after him took his mantra to heart and they cut government programs and used that money for corporate welfare and they privatized many essential governmental services.  I got to wondering how all that has worked out for us and here's what I came up with:

• We've had more food and product recalls than ever before. 
• FAA inspectors have been told to go easy on airline safety checks.
• We've had more deaths due to shoddy FDA tests on drugs than ever before.
• We are losing millions of dollars a day to companies like KBR, Halliburton, and Blackwater in what are known as "cost plus" contracts with the federal government.  Cost plus means the companies in question don't have to be competitive in price, they charge the government what ever they like for what they provide and we have to pay for it,
• Corporate America is running, or should I say ruining, the Labor Department, HUD, the FDA, the USDA, and many other cabinet level offices and departments.
• Corporate America is writing our laws and paying our legislators to vote for them.  Case in point, I refer you to the Medicare Prescription Drug program, it was written by big pharma lobbyists.  
• Our legislators are not beholden to us, they are beholden to whoever pays for their reelection campaigns.

Our government is supposed to be a government of the people, that is run by the people, for the people.  Instead ever since St. Ronnie hoodwinked us, it's become a government of the corrupt corporations, that is run by the corrupt corporations, in order to line the pockets of rich white men and women.  Reagan started it, Bush the elder continued it, Clinton went along, and Bush the idiot perfected it.  And we're all getting screwed as a result.

Maybe after the other shoe drops in the current financial meltdown we can kick these greedy bastards out and we can rebuild our country like FDR and the Democratic Party did after the Great Depression.  All those programs and laws that they enacted helped people like you and me, the working class that built this country.  And they, Reagan, Bill "NAFTA is good!" Clinton, the Bushes, and their enablers in Congress, dismantled them.  

The period after the Great Depression, which by the way was brought on by out of control capitalism which is what we have today, and after World War 2 was the most productive period ever for working class people.  Our parents and grandparents were able to climb out of poverty, buy homes, cars, and give us baby boomers great childhoods because laws were written that reigned in big business.  Big business still made money, they just didn't make as much as they wanted, some of their profits went back to their employees and to the cities and states where they had their factories and stores.  The big difference between then and now is big business doesn't care about you or me anymore, they don't have to care because they got the laws changed in their favor.  The money that used to go to our parents and grandparents and to our communities now goes to the people at the top of the corporate food chain, look at how much their pay has increased and look at how much yours has decreased.

St. Ronnie led us all down a rathole.  And then him and his buddies in big business filled the hole in with dirt.  It's time to dig out and take back our country, our economy, our Congress, and our world.  What Wall Street wants is not what's good for us, less restrictions and less taxes on big businesses and the rich is not the answer, the fact that they do not pay their fair share is the fucking problem.  It's time to make big business and the rich pay their fair share again and to have some regulation again.