Nice Op Ed here - The Politics of Austerity

[boston bean]

Sums things up nicely.

Explains well the lead up to the predicament we find ourselves in today. One thing it doesn't mention is OWS. Which I believe can change the landscape....

The Politics of Austerity

The economic collapse of 2008 transformed American politics. In place of shared abundance, battles at every level of government now focus on picking the losers who will bear the costs of deficit reduction and austerity.

Fights in Washington are over inflicting pain on antagonists either through spending cuts or tax increases, a struggle over who will get a smaller piece of a shrinking pie. This hostile climate stands in sharp contrast to the post-World-War II history of economic growth. Worse, current income and employment trends suggest that this is not a temporary shift.

The year 2008 marked the emergence of a Democratic Party driven by surging constituencies of minorities, single women and voters under 30. The flowering of this coalition, manifested in the election of President Obama and in continued Democratic control of Congress, was quickly followed by developments affirming the activist, redistributive state: the enactment of a $787 billion economic stimulus bill, passage of the $900 billion health care reform act and rising demand for food stamps, unemployment compensation and Medicaid.

From the vantage point of Republicans, the newly empowered Democratic Party was determined to institutionalize government expansion through oversight of the financial sector, broadening access to medical care and federally mandated environmental regulation. As the national debt grew from $10.6 trillion when Obama took office to $13.7 trillion on Election Day 2010, the stage was set for a conservative revival. Conservatives successfully shifted the focus of American politics to the twin themes of debt and austerity — with a specific attack on means-tested entitlement programs.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/the-politics-of-austerity/