Own Up

The Dems ought to own up to the neoliberal economic choices made during the Clinton era that caused our current economic situation AND helped crush the middle class.  Hardly liberal at all, really.

Money point:

Democrats have really screwed up -- twice. The argument goes like this: Back in the '90s, while the economy was expanding, the IT bubble was bubbling, and capital gains churning was filling federal and state coffers, Clinton -- guided primarily by his economic mentor and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin -- helped ignite a financial-sector privileged wealth production machine that didn't take into account the long-term consequences of American manufacturing decamping to foreign shores. In other words, Clinton pushed the Uruguay Round of GATT, set up China's membership in the WTO, and removed the important barriers that divided retail banking from securities trading. Clinton was highly influenced by the economic-policy practitioners on his team who carried with them all of the biases of neoliberal economics. Those who focused on the importance of manufacturing, of the role of government in seeing to the parts of the economic environment markets would not sustain, the importance of high-wage job creation, were pushed aside.

Government decisions do matter - a lot - to the shape of the future. It's just the people making those decisions don't know how. This is why governing is tricky and requires wise people rather than just smart people who can remember the talking points.