A Progressive Agenda to Remake Washington (NYT)

[jefferson_dem]

A Progressive Agenda to Remake Washington
By DAVID LEONHARDT
WASHINGTON



With the Senate’s passage of financial regulation, Congress and the White House have completed 16 months of activity that rival any other since the New Deal in scope or ambition. Like the Reagan Revolution or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the new progressive period has the makings of a generational shift in how Washington operates.

First came a stimulus bill that, while aimed mainly at ending a deep recession, also set out to remake the nation’s educational system and vastly expand scientific research. Then President Obama signed a health care bill that was the biggest expansion of the safety net in 40 years. And now Congress is in the final stages of a bill that would tighten Wall Street’s rules and probably shrink its profit margins.

If there is a theme to all this, it has been to try to lift economic growth while also reducing income inequality. Growth in the decade that just ended was the slowest in the post-World War II era, while inequality has been rising for most of the last 35 years.

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The recent period surely will not match the impact of the New Deal. Nothing is likely to, notes David Kennedy,a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, because the New Deal created much of the modern American government. “These are not as dramatic as the foundational moments,” Mr. Kennedy said, “but they’re significant changes.”

Alan Brinkley, a historian of the Depression, added: “This is not the New Deal, but it’s a significant series of achievements. And given the difficulty of getting anything done under the gridlock of Congress, it’s pretty surprising.”

The last 16 months seem most similar in scope to three other periods in the last 80 years. After World War II, the federal government helped build the modern middle class with the G.I. Bill, housing subsidies, the highway system and incentives for employers to offer health insurance. The 1960s — mostly under Mr. Johnson, but also Richard Nixon — brought civil rights legislation, Medicare, Medicaid and environmental laws. Then Mr. Reagan ushered in a period that continued, more or less, until 2008: tax cuts, less regulation and other attempts to unleash the competitive forces of the market.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/business/economy/22leonhardt.html

[impik]

1. Naaa, didn't you hear that Obama is a wingnut?

He's far worse than Bush. How dare you mention the word "progressive" attached to this sell-out?

[livetohike]

2. K&R

:kick:

[Clio the Leo]

3. Kick!!!! NT

[Sebastian Doyle]

4. "Biggest expansion of the safety net in 40 years"??

Well, I suppose so, when you think about it.

There was no "safety net" for INSURANCE CORPORATIONS before then. :puke: