Exploring Business And Marketing Box Elder Middle School: Fill & Download for Free

I think it's time Americans wake up.This right here. This is the agenda. Virtually everything else pales before it. And Americans have been in denial about it for decades now.This is a hard Quora answer to write. To discuss all the laws, policies and programs that have brought us to this point would take a book written over months, not something I can type here in a few minutes on my phone. I won’t be able to credit every source or detail every point. But I'll attempt to touch on some broad factors. Forgive me for nutshelling it this way.tbpFirst, realize that today's Republican party is in no way “Conservative.”Today's Republican Party does NOT want to “keep things the same.” No. Even as they purport to embrace a past era of prosperity, they actually want to reverse the very policies and practices that brought that American standard of living about.Did everyone achieve The American Dream? Well, obviously not. There were still poor Americans, and women and minorities were locked out by design. And yet, as a rising tide lifts all boats, household incomes did increase among all demographics. Quality of life did improve. Most Americans looked to the future with hope.Let's be clear. In developing the New Deal; creating Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Disability insurance; setting a minimum wage; legislating civil rights in housing, employment and education; regulating environmental, worker and consumer protections; subsidizing home ownership and higher education via the GI Bill and Pell Grants; investing in highways, airports, schools, national parks and science exploration; and promoting a positive image of America abroad, past Presidential administrations, including GOP ones, were more ideologically Progressive than the Trump Administration is now.Let’s look back. In the 1930s and 1940s, Communism —and Fascism disguised as Socialism — were actual, tangible threats to American freedom. Does anyone remember that?And some people did, in fact, condemn the policies above as pink or even red.Nevertheless, even then, most Americans, Republicans and Democrats, agreed that a certain level of suffering and in America was unacceptable. The reality of abject poverty, particularly of the elderly, children and low-wage workers, had come to light during the Progressive era, and shocked Americans. Americans wanted to be better than that.En Masse, Americans agreed there was a need to ensure that people who worked should have basic food, clothing, shelter and medicine.Contrary to today's narrative, minimum wage was not created as starting pay for teenagers’ part-time jobs. Set in 1938, minimum wage was intended to be a floor at which a full-time worker could achieve sustenance.In advocating for a minimum wage in 1933, Roosevelt said:No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. … and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of decent living.The fight for a minimum wage was intense and long. But it succeeded, in 1938. Having a “bottom floor” for wages didn't only impact those at the very bottom. Wages of all workers continued to rise.The fight for programs to protect those who could not work was also intense and long, but also won. In 1935, with the passage of the Social Security Act, Roosevelt said:Today, a hope of many years’ standing is in large part fulfilled… We have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.”Some decried its passage. But what was its impact? Well, one measure is the substantial decrease in poverty among one of the most vulnerable populations, elderly women:Those who recognized the need to maintain and expand such policies during the 1950s and 1960s didn't have to fall into the “extreme leftist” camp. Among other things, President Dwight Eisenhower expanded both Social Security by signing SSDI (Disability) into law. In 1954, he wrote to his brother Edgar:I oppose (too much government control). But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by…. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon "moderation" in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.Eisenhower was also clear publically, as he said at Lincoln Day box supper in February 1954:Republicans come forward with programs in which there are such words as "balanced budgets," and "cutting expenditures," and all the kind of thing that means this economy must be conservative, it must be solvent.But they also come forward and say we are concerned with every American's health, with a decent house for him, we are concerned that he will have a chance for health, and his children for education.Dwight Eisenhower was not a liberal. But he emphatically believed that Americans’ quality of life was a priority, and warned in 1953 that the country must never prize military might above general welfare:Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.As a reminder, Eisenhower had a long Military career , and was speaking in the middle of the Cold War , when Americans feared Communism and Fascism in a way that was much more tangible than now.Yet most Americans didn't see valuing the public good as a dangerous left-wing idea. Later, President Richard Nixon — also not a liberal — favoredcomprehensive health insurance protection to millions who cannot now obtain it or afford it, with improved protection against catastrophic illnesses. No American will miss basic medical care by inability to pay.…And attempted to pass a negative income tax, advocating a Guaranteed Basic Income — an idea floated by Milton Friedman , also not a liberal.Friedman also supported an Individual Mandate for health insurance, which had been introduced in 1986 by the Conservative Heritage Foundation to discourage “free riders” on the system and promote personal responsibility. Taxpayers, after all, get stuck with the bill for unpaid catastrophic health care.Lots of things happened between then and now. Eventually, the economy did falter, for many reasons too numerous to name. At this time there was a shift in Conservative thought. It clicked in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan.While Conservatives had always been for less government and cautious spending, Reagan famously said in his 1980 inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” (Later, Grover Norquist would say, “Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.”)Now, policies and laws and budgets and regulations began to go in reverse. The narrative began to change. Education and social program budgets began to shrink, and as their quality fell, public support for funding them fell, allowing further cuts that further eroded quality (“Starving the Beast”).Moreover, while Reagan actually raised taxes 11 times during his presidency, he famously slashed tax rates for the wealthy, ostensibly so wealth could “trickle down” to everyone else.Here's what happened:This was known as Supply Side Economics. Its chief architect in the Reagan Administration was Bruce Bartlett. Since then, Bartlett has recognized Reaganomics as a disaster that destroyed the middle class, and since then has been warning against such policies:| I helped create the GOP tax myth. Trump is wrong: Tax cuts don’t equal growth.So, what did happen after Reagan's tax cuts? Well, this:…and this ……and this ……and this……and this.In words, the wealthy have become much wealthier, while the average American worker has barely seen a raise in purchasing power since 1980.In the meantime, the costs of housing, health care and college have increased exponentially. In no state can a full-time worker at minimum wage afford even an apartment, much less food, clothing, medicine and transportation. And it is now literally impossible for a student to “work his way through college.”Instead, they now graduate into the workforce hampered with decades of debt, needing to hold off marriage and home ownership. Meanwhile, tens of millions of Americans are approaching retirement with little or nothing saved.*Meanwhile, the Beast has been starved. The quality of public programs have fallen, as has the quality of life, education, and health care and economic mobility relative to the rest of the world. Even charitable donations have fallen, as a low tax environment makes donations less beneficial to donors.It's into this reality that the Trump Administration, including Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, are opposing protections for preexisting conditions in health care … advocating privatization of Social Security and Medicare … appealing for slashes in Medicaid … withholding payments to insurance companies to provide affordable health care … turning back regulations that protect average consumers in a market crash … dialing back protections on the environment … abolishing a minimum wage … busting unions … increasing penalties for students in college loan debt … making bankruptcy harder for the average American … explode military spending to a level never seen before … and successfully passed a tax plan that renders Reaganomics a permanent trajectory of wealth inequality into Kingdom Come.This is not “Conservative,” people. It's radical. Reckless. Dangerous. And entirely unnecessary, as the massive tax relief to the richest people in the history of the world, during a time of economic expansion, was unnecessary.It's lunacy.Wake up.

Most people would probably choose five highly esteemed and noteworthy people from history; People who are known for their unparalleled IQs and who have advanced the humanities, arts and sciences or whose contributions through their strength in leadership led to the liberation of the disenfranchised all over the world. Leonardo Da Vinci, Mozart, Darwin, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., the list is long as I admire so many enlightened, talented and inspirational people. However, those who truly inspire me wouldn't be found in any history book. They are people from my own life. If I could acquire anybody's life experience and knowledge it would be the following five people:1) GRANDMA BESS-I was her only granddaughter. She shared my off-beat sense of humor. She was truly a pioneer woman. When she was a young teenager her mother died and left her with nine younger siblings to raise (some still in diapers.) It was hard times in those mountains. America was struggling. It was the Great Depression Era. Her father was away from home working on the railroad which was just breaking its way up into the mountains. They were cut off from civilization. A flood had wiped out the town and mine where her father had worked so he had to travel out to find work, leaving his bereaved children on their own in the cabin.They hunted game. They trapped. They fished for wild trout in the clear waters. They sewed their own clothes and did their own school work by lamplight. When their Daddy came home he often brought a bear with him, hunted on the way home and fresh meat to tide the large family over until his next visit. That meant "thum skinny kids had 'um some 'Barr jerk to ett." Bess could skin and hide a bear and have that meat smoking in the rafters within hours, as good as a professional butcher. She was responsible for cleaning house, doing the laundry for a family of eleven (by hand) making her own lye soap, feeding the livestock, milking the cows, entertaining the children and keeping up with their schooling. The day to day hunting usually fell upon her younger brothers but she was responsible for cooking all the meals. I complain about having to clean my carpet with my new vacuum cleaner. I'm spoiled rotten. This "apple" fell far from that hearty tree.I dreamed of my grandmother two nights ago. In my dream she was getting out of her car and turned to see me. She smiled. I gave her a big hug. She smelled fresh, the clean way a house plant smells- like ozone. When I was tiny she used to get a big chuckle from making faces in my salads. She would make the eyes from olives and use radishes for smiles. It made me laugh. She would tape funny little pictures to the bottom of my clear dishes so that when I finished my soup I would get a surprise. Before she died I visited her. I wrapped her in a snuggly blanket and took her out on the patio and served her lunch. I made her a salad with a big funny face and taped a turtle picture to the bottom of her soup dish. She didn't remember doing that for me when I was tiny. Her mind had begun to slip. It made me so sad.I lost Bess ten years ago and I miss her every single day. My friendship with her was very strong. I could use some of her knowledge and pioneering spirit. It would fortify me and prepare me for the trials and sadness life has in store for me. It would strengthen my resolve to have tenacity and not to cower but to face the heartaches head-on and strong, look them in the eye and not back down and to never give up hope. RESOLVE. And SENSE OF HUMOR carry us through some of the most difficult trials in life.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​2) UNCLE ASA-Uncle "Ace" was Grandma Bessie's younger brother. A self-described "Okie-Type" and natural-born leg-puller. From the time we were tiny he'd serve us up "real" bear's milk from his ol' timey 'fridge. Exciting! That it was pink and tasted just like strawberry Kool-Aid didn't really "click" until we were much older. By the time we caught on to the joke it was simply fun to pretend to play along. "Bear's Milk" was a staple at every family visit well into adulthood. In our small mountain town there was a very high population of Native American folks. My brother and me went to "The Rez" (Indian Reservation) summer school where mom worked and had picked up a fondness for the folklore, rich customs and knowledge of indigenous flora and fauna. Both of us learned to have great respect and appreciation for nature from our classmates and teachers. However, nothing compared to the knowledge and skill my Uncle Ace had in the wilderness.Having grown up as a provider for his huge family, he hunted daily. He was a young boy stealthily creeping through the forest, setting deadfalls as the "Indians" showed him, using his steel-jaw traps, homemade bow and flint knapped arrowheads (shells and bullets were far too expensive) laying snares, digging pit traps, and constantly bringing home enough game to sustain a family of nine to survive on. There are grown men who cannot provide for themselves in the wild, let alone a family that large. I have seen some shows depicting sad scenarios in survival which wilt in comparison to the outdoor skills my uncle had to offer. One of these "survival experts" actually advises his viewers to run full-speed down steep canyon faces, eat maggot-infested meat from days-old carcasses and markets his own poorly constructed factory knives bearing his name in shops nationwide and online. He is a showman. My Uncle Ace was the real deal. I have proof.At age six, on a late springtime day while on a picnic outing, he became separated from his family atop snowy Burney Mountain. They called for him but couldn't find him. Heartbroken, they left the mountain without their little boy. Grown people die on that mountain in the springtime. The nightime temperatures plunge into the freezing, in April it is still the winter zone in the Cascade mountain range and frost accumulates on the pines until late morning sunshine thaws. For the next 72 hours the 6-year-old child survived alone on that mountain in freezing temperatures (and not a touch of frostbite.) He did not have a fire. He made shelter and insulated himself with mountain moss. He ate the berries which he knew were not poisonous "because the BEARS WERE EATING THEM!" A tiny child had survived in the pitch dark among bears! In the end, a 400-person search team was almost ready to give up hope. The forest is dense. Needle-in-a- haystack. It took a Native American man, a tracker with real mountain skills, to find him. When he rode down the mountain with the boy on his horse he was not hailed as a hero. His name was not mentioned in the national news. I do not know if his name was neglected due to embarrassment or not. Some heroes simply choose to remain humble. I will use a pseudonym here to honor the hero's family if the latter is the case. Our family knows how the story goes and we are grateful. We use this quote to this day, "The Mountain took him, gave him Her Wisdom, then gave him back."That is what 'Tom Yellowhorse' said that day as he handed over my exhausted little uncle.Although my Uncle Ace has been gone for decades, if I could acquire his experience of SURVIVAL and apply his wisdom and TENACITY to my life, I'd gratefully accept it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​3) JOHNNY BRAZO-My step-daddy. Johnny is a mechanical genius. A "Grease Monkey." He can literally fix anything. From dismantling and refurbishing a classic car or 18-wheeler, to maintaining a backhoe or other heavy equipment, nothing with gears stumps him. He is even adept at repairing home appliances such as washing machines, refrigerators and clothes dryers. He once owned a furniture store and specialized in repair work, and would work for pies the elderly ladies baked him when their washing machines were on the fritz- he never charged them a nickel. It went out of business, of course. I picked up a good deal of mechanical aptitude from my step-father. I wish I had paid more attention to him when I was hanging out with him in his shop, handing him tools as a youngster. He had valuable lessons to teach me and I just wanted to apply my makeup and curl my hair. I'm a girly-girl.He took on a lot of "baggage" when he married my mother. Commendable. Besides us kids he got an ex-husband in the deal. How "hippie" is that? Not only did he look after us kids, in a way he also looked after my daddy, a perpetual "teenager" whom he formed a band with. One big happy family. They were called "Rockin' Chair" and they wore multi-colored ruffled tuxedo shirts and waist high bell-bottom trousers. So cool. They weren't half bad, either. They were half-good. Even today when my biological father hasn't anywhere to go on Thanksgiving (and even while the kids aren't able to attend) they invite him over to a meal. 37 years and still the picture of harmony. From my step-father who had certainly the biggest grudge to bear, but didn't- I'd like to take away his gift of FOREBEARANCE and SELFLESSNESS. I love you, Dad.4) CHARLOTTE BURLESON -My first-through-third grade teacher was a blessing. She was tiny and stylish, a beautiful little lady and everything she taught me was magical. She had traveled. She read books in different languages. She was well-versed in the arts. She was sophisticated. She had her "pets" in the class and I was among her favorites. I remember coming of age with my first lost tooth. I remember how she dimmed the classroom by turning out the lights and announcing to the class she was going to "step out" for a moment. She walked out the door only to re-enter wearing a scarf over her head and sporting fairy wings. She tiptoed up to me, told me to open my mouth and before I could protest, yanked the loose tooth from my head. She proudly held the tooth over her head and proclaimed "TA DA!" in a sing-song voice, handed me a nickel, the bloody tooth in a small jeweled treasure box, then tiptoed back out of the room. The class burst into laughter. Charlotte came back into the room a fraction of a second later (sans scarf and fairy wings) and asked us what happened. We laughed even harder. We all knew it was her pretending to be the Tooth Fairy! I still have that tooth in its precious little treasure chest.We used her first name in class. We called her Charlotte. She was highly unorthodox. She was a nut. That is probably what made her so special. I got to spend overnights and some weekends with Charlotte. Some of these weekends were accompanied by her grandson Christopher, which made it extra fun. Mostly we spent time alone. Charlotte and me. Girl-time. These were special weekends away from home, and she spoiled me rotten. She made up the sofa for me with Peanut sheets- Charlie Brown and Snoopy snoozing with me as she snuggled my small head into a pair of humongous adult-sized disco headphones and played the spoken story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull on the Hi-Fi stero system until tears drifted me off to sleep, upset but delighted at the story. She was never condescending to me. Of course, Richard Bach is appropriate for a first-grader. Even at six years old, her cocktail stories seemed fitting to be told to me just as she would relate them to an adult. Such were the times back then. Had she played Sponge Bob or Barney for me instead (and assuming they had been popular characters in those days) I might have been retarded in my reading growth as a child, instead of exploring Greek Mythology on my own as a 7- year-old. And rightly so. Sponge Bob is condescending. My folks did not mind that she watered my wine (I did not like it anyway) she had their permission to serve me. She had very European values and we were having an authentic French meal; A thimble-full of wine never hurt any child. Not in 1974, anyway. She introduced me to theater and cast me in my first plays. I was Toto in the Wizard of Oz and a student of Ichabod Crane's in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at the college. I relished that experience.We had puppet shows. I stayed overnights with her well into my teen years. She was getting older. The last time I saw her she visited my lunchroom in the middle of break time during high school. I was a freshman and was delighted to see her. She hugged me and gave me a box and told me to wait until she left to open it. She said she could not stay long. She had tears in her eyes. I was sad when she said that. Flavors of Wendy outgrowing Neverland flavoring the atmosphere as I watched her shuffle away forever. I opened the box. Inside was her favorite marionette, the Spanish dancing lady in a beautiful red flared skirt. I cried. I knew it was the last time I would see my beautiful Charlotte. I think she was saying farewell to me that day in her own way. She had other children to "rescue" and I, Wendi.....WENDY, had become a woman and had left Neverland behind.She lived a good long life and left a legacy of gifted students and love in her wake. Charlotte had ELEGANCE and CREATIVITY and as a teacher was very WELL-READ. Most importantly she had more SELF-CONFIDENCE than anyone I've ever known. Everyone should have a "Charlotte" in their lives.5) MY HUSBAND-I am lucky. Truly lucky. I married my best friend. I love him with all my heart and soul and it is an honor to be his lady. I could easily write a list one hundred items long of the qualities and knowledge I'd like to acquire from him but I'll try to keep it short, otherwise you'll think I'm bragging too much. TOLERANCE, WISDOM, GRACE, GENEROSITY, INTELLIGENCE, CURIOSITY, PATIENCE, KINDNESS, DILIGENCE, GRACIOUSNESS, TALENT, LEADERSHIP, CHARM and PERSONALITY. He is my world. I'd only be so lucky to inherit these qualities.

No, I do not. I believe this outcome was planned.As I responded to almost an identical question recently:I think it’s time Americans wake up.This right here. This is the agenda. Virtually everything else pales before it. And Americans have been in denial about it for decades now.This is a hard Quora answer to write. To discuss all the laws, policies and programs that have brought us to this point would take a book written over months, not something I can type here in a few minutes on my phone. I won’t be able to credit every source or detail every point. But I’ll attempt to touch on some broad factors. Forgive me for nutshelling it this way.tbpFirst, realize that today’s Republican party is in no way “Conservative.”Today’s Republican Party does NOT want to “keep things the same.” No. Even as they purport to embrace a past era of prosperity, they actually want to reverse the very policies and practices that brought that American standard of living about.Did everyone achieve The American Dream? Well, obviously not. There were still poor Americans, and women and minorities were locked out by design. And yet, as a rising tide lifts all boats, household incomes did increase among all demographics. Quality of life did improve. Most Americans looked to the future with hope.Let’s be clear. In developing the New Deal; creating Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Disability insurance; setting a minimum wage; legislating civil rights in housing, employment and education; regulating environmental, worker and consumer protections; subsidizing home ownership and higher education via the GI Bill and Pell Grants; investing in highways, airports, schools, national parks and science exploration; and promoting a positive image of America abroad, past Presidential administrations, including GOP ones, were more ideologically Progressive than the Trump Administration is now.Let’s look back. In the 1930s and 1940s, Communism —and Fascism disguised as Socialism — were actual, tangible threats to American freedom. Does anyone remember that?And some people did, in fact, condemn the policies above as pink or even red.Nevertheless, even then, most Americans, Republicans and Democrats, agreed that a certain level of suffering and in America was unacceptable. The reality of abject poverty, particularly of the elderly, children and low-wage workers, had come to light during the Progressive era, and shocked Americans. Americans wanted to be better than that.En masse, Americans agreed there was a need to ensure that people who worked should have basic food, clothing, shelter and medicine.Contrary to today’s narrative, minimum wage was not created as starting pay for teenagers’ part-time jobs. Set in 1938, minimum wage was intended to be a floor at which a full-time worker could achieve sustenance.In advocating for a minimum wage in 1933, Roosevelt said:No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. … and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of decent living.The fight for a minimum wage was intense and long. But it succeeded, in 1938. Having a “bottom floor” for wages didn't only impact those at the very bottom. Wages of all workers continued to rise.The fight for programs to protect those who could not work was also intense and long, but also won. In 1935, with the passage of the Social Security Act, Roosevelt said:Today, a hope of many years’ standing is in large part fulfilled… We have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.”Some decried its passage. But what was its impact? Well, one measure is the substantial decrease in poverty among one of the most vulnerable populations, elderly women:Those who recognized the need to maintain and expand such policies during the 1950s and 1960s didn’t have to fall into the “extreme leftist” camp. Among other things, President Dwight Eisenhower expanded Social Security by signing SSDI (Disability) into law. In 1954, he wrote to his brother Edgar:I oppose (too much government control). But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by…. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.Eisenhower was also clear publically, as he said at Lincoln Day box supper in February 1954:Republicans come forward with programs in which there are such words as “balanced budgets,” and “cutting expenditures,” and all the kind of thing that means this economy must be conservative, it must be solvent.But they also come forward and say we are concerned with every American’s health, with a decent house for him, we are concerned that he will have a chance for health, and his children for education.Dwight Eisenhower was not a liberal. But he emphatically believed that Americans’ quality of life was a priority, and warned in 1953 that the country must never prize military might above general welfare:Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.As a reminder, Eisenhower had a long military career, and was speaking in the middle of the Cold War, when Americans feared Communism and Fascism in a way that was much more tangible than now.Yet most Americans didn’t see valuing the public good as a dangerous left-wing idea. Later, President Richard Nixon — also not a liberal — favoredcomprehensive health insurance protection to millions who cannot now obtain it or afford it, with improved protection against catastrophic illnesses. No American will miss basic medical care by inability to pay.…And attempted to pass a negative income tax, advocating a Guaranteed Basic Income — an idea floated by Milton Friedman, also not a liberal.Friedman also supported an Individual Mandate for health insurance, which had been introduced in 1986 by the Conservative Heritage Foundation to discourage “free riders” on the system and promote personal responsibility. Taxpayers, after all, get stuck with the bill for unpaid catastrophic health care.Lots of things happened between then and now. Eventually, the economy did falter, for many reasons too numerous to name. At this time there was a shift in Conservative thought. It clicked in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan.While Conservatives had always been for less government and cautious spending, Reagan famously said in his 1981 inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” (Later, Grover Norquist would say, “Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.”)Now, policies and laws and budgets and regulations began to go in reverse. The narrative began to change. Education and social program budgets began to shrink, and as their quality fell, public support for funding them fell, allowing further cuts that further eroded quality (“Starving the Beast”).Moreover, while Reagan actually raised taxes 11 times during his presidency, he famously slashed tax rates for the wealthy, ostensibly so wealth could “trickle down” to everyone else.Here’s what happened:This was known as Supply Side Economics. Its chief architect in the Reagan Administration was Bruce Bartlett. Since then, Bartlett has recognized Reaganomics as a disaster that destroyed the middle class, and since then has been warning against such policies:| I helped create the GOP tax myth. Trump is wrong: Tax cuts don’t equal growth.So, what did happen after Reagan's tax cuts? Well, this:…and this ……and this ……and this……and this.In words, the wealthy have become much wealthier, while the average American worker has barely seen a raise in purchasing power since 1980.In the meantime, the costs of housing, health care and college have increased exponentially. In no state can a full-time worker at minimum wage afford even an apartment, much less food, clothing, medicine and transportation. And it is now literally impossible for a student to “work his way through college.”Instead, they now graduate into the workforce hampered with decades of debt, needing to hold off marriage and home ownership. Meanwhile, tens of millions of Americans are approaching retirement with little or nothing saved.*Meanwhile, the Beast has been starved. The quality of public programs have fallen, as has the quality of life, education, and health care and economic mobility relative to the rest of the world. Even charitable donations have fallen, as a low-tax environment makes donations less beneficial to donors.It’s into this reality that the Trump Administration, including Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, are opposing protections for preexisting conditions in health care … advocating privatization of Social Security and Medicare … appealing for slashes in Medicaid … withholding payments to insurance companies to provide affordable health care … turning back regulations that protect average consumers in a market crash … dialing back protections on the environment … abolishing a minimum wage … busting unions … increasing penalties for students in college loan debt … making bankruptcy harder for the average American … exploding military spending to a level never seen before … and successfully passed a tax plan that renders Reaganomics a permanent trajectory of wealth inequality into Kingdom Come.This is not “Conservative”, people. It’s radical. Reckless. Dangerous. And entirely unnecessary, as the massive tax relief to the richest people in the history of the world, during a time of economic expansion, was unnecessary.It’s lunacy.Wake up.