Boxed In

Bernie Sanders, I:VT

The Foundation for Economic Education, (FEE), shot a post across Facebook this evening noting that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I:VT), who is seeking the Democratic nomination in 2016, thinks the middle class is deteriorating. FEE says he is wrong.

Sanders, a socialist, is at least someone who calls it like he sees it, even recently exposing the unemployment numbers presented by the Obama administration and their propagandist partners in media as false. Salon claims FOX News (?), Hillary surrogates and Wall Street are all terrified of Bernie and his ultra left followers.

The FFE article quotes Sanders as saying the following:

The long-term deterioration of the middle class, accelerated by the Wall Street crash of 2008, has not been pretty. Since 1999, the median middle-class family has seen its income go down by almost $5,000 after adjusting for inflation, now earning less than it did 25 years ago.

The FFE disputes Sanders conclusions, presenting a video with highly respected George Mason University Prof. Don Boudreaux discussing wage stagnation.  Boudreaux seems to be refuting a conclusion of former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.



Boudreaux collects a number of hits in his presentation, focusing on a period of approximately 30 years, citing a number of correct notes. However, there are areas missing in his conclusions, as there often are when trumping out statistics. Furthermore, at no point in my lifetime have economic statistics suffered such high levels of manipulation.

With a formal education in the field of economics, I could produce voluminous statistics stating whatever case I wish to make, but I can tell you from the street that income has been stagnant since the crash of 2008. In addition, virtually all of the implemented programs, while some producing temporary gains, have resulted in long term failure.  To place it in simplistic terms, the economy seems "boxed in", with constraints placed upon it by a government seeking to seize increasing control over the citizenry.

The middle class is indeed staggered by orchestration under Obama, with real median household income decreasing and the pathway to wealth exponentially more difficult. But, it is not more progressivism or Bernie Sanders and his platform of socialism the country needs, it is getting government back within its means, individual accountability, adherence to the law and free market capitalism, with a reduction in taxation and, in particular, regulation.