Saving the Middle Class - Liberally

I am a Liberal, and I support government building a strong middle-class by creating good jobs and preventing Wall Street from cheating working people.

Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, explains how pro-bank, anti-worker policies over the past 30 years have brought the middle class to the brink of extinction, and concludes:

Pundits talk about "populist rage" as a way to trivialize the anger and fear coursing through the middle class. But they have it wrong. Families understand with crystalline clarity that the rules they have played by are not the same rules that govern Wall Street. They understand that no American family is "too big to fail." They recognize that business models have shifted and that big banks are pulling out all the stops to squeeze families and boost revenues. They understand that their economic security is under assault and that leaving consumer debt effectively unregulated does not work.

Families are ready for change. According to polls, large majorities of Americans have welcomed the Obama Administration's proposal for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). The CFPA would be answerable to consumers -- not to banks and not to Wall Street. The agency would have the power to end tricks-and-traps pricing and to start leveling the playing field so that consumers have the tools they need to compare prices and manage their money. The response of the big banks has been to swing into action against the Agency, fighting with all their lobbying might to keep business-as-usual. They are pulling out all the stops to kill the agency before it is born. And if those practices crush millions more families, who cares -- so long as the profits stay high and the bonuses keep coming.

America today has plenty of rich and super-rich. But it has far more families who did all the right things, but who still have no real security. Going to college and finding a good job no longer guarantee economic safety. Paying for a child's education and setting aside enough for a decent retirement have become distant dreams. Tens of millions of once-secure middle class families now live paycheck to paycheck, watching as their debts pile up and worrying about whether a pink slip or a bad diagnosis will send them hurtling over an economic cliff.

America without a strong middle class? Unthinkable, but the once-solid foundation is shaking.

Middle-class-saving policies are obvious, but can't seem to get traction even in desperate economic times. Digby explains why:

As I've noted before, people have been propagandized with conservative dogma for years and the Democratic Party hasn't even been offering much rhetorical support to those who are feeling this awful squeeze. People are turning to the explanations that have been pounded into them for decades about free markets, taxes and deficits and they are scapegoating culprits far more ancient than that.

If liberals hope to persuade people that their philosophy is preferable to the emerging wingnut rage, they're going to have to at least try to explain why. So far it's all been about mechanics and arcane concepts that seem remote and uninspiring. The fact is, as Warren illustrates in her piece, these problems aren't just there because of the current economic crisis. It's been building for decades as a result of those conservative dogmas to which people are clinging for the lack of anything more persuasive. It's highly doubtful that once the crisis has passed that people are going to feel "normal" now that credit's become far tighter and is likely to stay that way for some time to come. This reform populism is at least trying to address these real problems of real people in ways they can see, understand and feel.

Watch Warren discuss saving the middle class here: