New
York City: If a campaign theme can make it there, it can it make it
anywhere — or at least in the 2016 U.S. presidential election? Democrat
Bill de Blasio won the Big Apple’s mayoralty last week in a historic
landslide. His winning campaign was built around a rich vs. poor, “two
cities” storyline. In his election-night victory speech, de Blasio
described income inequality as “that feeling of a few doing very well,
while so many slip further behind” and identified it as “the defining
challenge of our time.”
Team Obama hung Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comment around the Republican
candidate’s neck, but the president didn’t go nearly as far as de
Blasio did this year in making inequality his campaign’s raison d’être.
Don’t be surprised, however, if a former U.S. senator from New York
grabs the inequality baton from the incoming Gotham boss if she makes a
White House run. A recent Time magazine analysis highlighted
income inequality as one of six potential presidential campaign themes
that “Hillary is test driving.” Reporter Zeke Miller noted that in a
recent speech at Yale Law School, Clinton said the nation must “reverse
this tide of inequality that is eating away at the social fabric of our
country.”
Those words are similar to ones found in the mission
statement of the Center for Equitable Growth, a new grouped hosted by
the Center for American Progress, a think tank whose president was
policy director for Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign.
Inequality, according to the CEG, “erodes our economy’s ability to
function efficiently and at full potential.”
Any initiatives the group cooks up could be central to candidate
Hillary’s presidential policy agenda. But would such an agenda be built
upon a distorted premise? Income inequality between middle- and
lower-income Americans has not grown for a couple of decades. And while
much research suggests inequality between those at the highest end and
others has risen sharply, these findings are hardly beyond dispute,
and it’s mistaken to conclude the growing gap has led to stagnant
incomes for everyone else.
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- This site is the inspiration of a former reporter/photographer for one of New England's largest daily newspapers and for various magazines. The intent is to direct readers to interesting political articles, and we urge you to visit the source sites. Any comments may be noted on site or directed to KarisChaf at gmail.
Monday, November 11, 2013
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