The truth about austerity is starting to hit home. The reality of choking government down to the last gasps of utility have begun to show the citizens of America and world wide that less is not more. We design government as a tool to make our society better and more democratic, not worse off and less democratic, which is what austerity as a guiding principle accomplishes. The trial and error period for this foolish idea has now given us results that cannot be further ignored. The middle class in America has been effectively destroyed by redistributing taxes that once went to improving our society back to the wealthy, where the top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 90%, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States.
The best model to show for how austerity doesn't work when directly applied is what has happened to the Kansan economy. It has been 7 years of failures since austerity was first introduced statewide in Kansas. The results show not only no benefit from austere measures but worse so, a harsh cost to the fundamental state programs that should fuel any modern and progressive success. Kansas has spiraled down in productivity and even though it's wealthy citizens received an initial tax savings, their customer base was so hard hit that now their customers can barely afford to purchase from the wealthy. So what was a windfall in tax savings has been more than offset in business loss, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-kansas-conservative-brownback-economic-disaster-zorn-perspec-0518-jm-20160517-column.html.
Most of us who have an idea about how society should operate in a democracy have been calling this out since the Reagan days when the idea first came into actual policy. We knew back in the 1980's it wouldn't work because the premise for it's conclusion was wrong. When the wealthy have more money for doing less they keep that strategy. The only way to make the wealthy do more for society is to allow them less profit so that if they want more profit they must employ more people by expanding business. Somehow that little bit of logic has escaped the withering minds of the republican party for reasons that can only be nefarious in intent.
The best model to show for how austerity doesn't work when directly applied is what has happened to the Kansan economy. It has been 7 years of failures since austerity was first introduced statewide in Kansas. The results show not only no benefit from austere measures but worse so, a harsh cost to the fundamental state programs that should fuel any modern and progressive success. Kansas has spiraled down in productivity and even though it's wealthy citizens received an initial tax savings, their customer base was so hard hit that now their customers can barely afford to purchase from the wealthy. So what was a windfall in tax savings has been more than offset in business loss, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-kansas-conservative-brownback-economic-disaster-zorn-perspec-0518-jm-20160517-column.html.
Most of us who have an idea about how society should operate in a democracy have been calling this out since the Reagan days when the idea first came into actual policy. We knew back in the 1980's it wouldn't work because the premise for it's conclusion was wrong. When the wealthy have more money for doing less they keep that strategy. The only way to make the wealthy do more for society is to allow them less profit so that if they want more profit they must employ more people by expanding business. Somehow that little bit of logic has escaped the withering minds of the republican party for reasons that can only be nefarious in intent.
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