Growing our economy has become a key focal point in political discussions in recent years, and has important public policy implications moving forward.  In the name of "economic growth" and the pursuit of "pro-growth" policies, we have implemented a series of austerity measures that have been devastating to the public at large, while protecting and further enriching the wealthy class in America. 

• An Economy for Everyone ensures we all benefit, not just the affluent

The term "economic growth" is a right wing frame designed to convince us that we should focus our attention on the overall economy, thereby taking our focus away from growing our own families' income.  It's designed to mislead us into believing that we all benefit when things like GDP grows, or the stock market goes up.  We've been conditioned to cheer those kinds of "economic indicators," even though their measure has little to no benefit to the average working family.

GDP per capita is not a measurement of the standard of living in an economy; however, it is often used as such an indicator, on the rationale that all citizens would benefit from their country's increased economic production. Similarly, GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income. GDP may increase while real incomes for the majority decline. ~ Wikipedia

Once we've been convinced of the need to grow our economy, the next step is to convince us that the best way to achieve this is to give wealthy people more tax breaks. But the wordsmiths know you will object to giving rich people breaks, so they re-framed it as "tax relief" to make you feel that the privileged folks are the ones who are suffering and need relief.  Since the government can't operate without income, the actual burden ends up falling significantly harder on us.  In the end, we pay more in taxes, so the wealthy can pay less!  

A recent study by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) does a great job at exposing both right wing frames: "economic growth," and "tax relief."  The CRS study specifically analyzed 65 years worth of data between top tax rates and economic growth.  Although the top tax rates wealthy people pay have never been lower than during this time period, the study found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth.  

Another fascinating discovery was that a correlation was found between reducing the top tax rates and increased concentrations of wealth for this privileged class.  In other words, voting for "tax relief" in the past has led to a transfer of wealth over the past 65 years from millions of hard-working Americans to a few affluent families.  It’s clear from these findings that providing "tax relief" in the name of pursuing "economic growth" is actually harming our economy by unnecessarily privileging the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. 

Is this the new Republican Party, fearlessly transforming itself after failing to roust the Muslim Marxist Mau Mau Marauder and losing seats in both houses of Congress?   Is this the GOP’s painful soul-searching in the face of its accelerating demographic march into national irrelevancy?

Really?

Is this all they got?

Meet the members of the new old Republican Party»

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Michael Takiff is the author of "A Complicated Man: The Life of Bill Clinton as Told by Those Who Know Him," published by Yale University Press. His writing has appeared on the op-ed pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as in The Nation and Salon. We are grateful that he has generously allowed us to publish his work here, as well. Find other articles by Michael at The Winning Words Project here. 

The severity of our nation's divisions is most visible in how they have manifest in the gaping distance between the wealthy elite whose income is derived from capital investment, and the average worker whose income is derived from the investment of their labor.

The speech President Obama will give tonight about the State of the Union is being billed as devoted to the Economy and a "Rising, Thriving Middle Class." Given this focus, it seems apt to look back at the State of the Union Address given by then-President Lincoln in December 1861.

Governor Chris Christie thinks Bruce Springstein "feels guilty that he has so much money, and he thinks it's all a zero-sum game: In order to get poor people more money, it has to be taken away from the rich."

In a country where worker productivity has been on the constant rise for decades, but compensation for their work has stagnated (or gone down relative to the cost of living), the notion that anyone wants to "take" anything from the rich is stunningly wrong. I can't imagine how much anger one must be harboring to frame a quest for fair compensation for increased productivity as "taking" instead of what it is: earning.

A prominent governor in the wealthiest country in the world should not be denigrating poor people by positioning them as "takers" and not human beings who happen to be in a different station in life than he's fortunate enough to be in, and who deserve to be spoken of and lobbied for with as much dignity and respect as anyone else in this country.

Is this the new Republican Party, fearlessly transforming itself after failing to roust the Muslim Marxist Mau Mau Marauder and losing seats in both houses of Congress?   Is this the GOP’s painful soul-searching in the face of its accelerating demographic march into national irrelevancy?

Really?

Is this all they got?

*          *          *

Speaking in Charlotte to the Republican National Committee, Lousiana Gov. and presumed presidential hopeful Bobby Jindal issued a clarion call: “We must stop being the stupid party,” he proclaimed.

Upon deplaning in Baton Rouge the next morning he vowed to seek repeal of the bill that allows state funds to go toward teaching Louisiana children that once upon a time cavemen played fetch with dinosaurs, some of whom may have been fire-breathing dragons.  “What the heck was I thinking when I signed that stupid thing?” he wondered aloud.  After lunch he appointed a blue-ribbon commission to study the danger posed to the Louisiana coastline by manmade climate change. “Boy,” he said, “would it be stupid to ignore 99 percent of the world’s scientists or what?”

(Note to The Washington Post and Breitbart: The preceding paragraph is made up.)

Jindal actually went on to say in Charlotte that Republicans had to knock it off with the “offensive and bizarre comments.” And then, “We must stop insulting the intelligence of voters. ... We have to stop dumbing down our ideas ...”  This after suggesting that most of the federal government could be replaced by “a handful of good websites.”

Not as “offensive and bizarre” as last year’s Todd Akin-Richard Mourdock traveling war-on-women freak show, but dumbed-down?  And really, truly, deeply stupid?  Oh, yeah.  Soon he’ll be forgetting the third federal department he wants to fling upon the ash heap of history.

*          *          *

For decades Democrats struggled to get their policy positions across against the superior messaging strategies of the GOP, who were masters at mind manipulation through focus-group-tested words and phrases steeped with moral resonance. This finely-honed skill-set has won them elections based on people's enthusiasm over the notion that they could be the recipients of "trickle down economics" from the rich; their fear of so-called "Death Panels"; their loathing of dreaded "Death Taxes"; and their anger over their alleged "Right to Work."

With massive resources built up over many years, GOP Strategist Frank Luntz has long been the party's go-to guy for their universally-used talking points. The fact that they pretty much have one guy to whom they turn for their "winning words," and that they are disciplined enough as a party to fall in line behind the use of specific catch phrases, has kept them head-and-shoulders above Democrats who have often been described as akin to "herding cats" when it comes to staying on message.

While the nation's eye is turned to Washington as they move the fight over honoring our promise to pay the debt we have already incurred to yet another day, and with Republicans attempting to tie this obligation to gutting Survival Security programs, we are losing sight of the fact that our debt isn't really our biggest problem in this country; it is merely a symptom. Our lack of will to stand up for average Americans’ right to thriving wages with the same ferocity we fight for the one percent's ability to reap their billions is what has not only created a significant portion of our debt, but is the moral failing that will eventually destroy our economy — and perhaps even our nation — once and for all.

"Let them [who labor] beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, ‘til all of liberty shall be lost."

These words of warning were issued by Abraham Lincoln in his Annual Message to Congress on Dec. 3, 1861, but could just as easily have been spoken 33 years ago in cautioning against Reagan’s supply-side “voodoo” economics; a policy that would go on to concentrate all of America’s future earnings into the bank accounts of the elite one percent, rendering average Americans powerless in their struggle for economic advancement.

Or they could have been uttered 19 years ago, cautioning against electing a Republican Congress that would not allow workers an increase in minimum wages for two ten-year stretches (1981–1990 and 1997–2007), during which their advancement was, for all practical purposes, impossible.

Or perhaps 15 years ago, cautioning against electing yet another Republican-controlled Congress; one that would force the repeal of the Glass-Steagall safeguards for our savings and investments, leaving us vulnerable to the catastrophic loss of our personal wealth at the hands of Wall Street “banksters.”

At each of these times, we had an opportunity to deny political power to those who continued to “fix new disabilities and burdens upon” us or surrender our own political power to them. And each time, we chose surrender.

Gun activist Alex Jones told Piers Morgan this week: "The Second Amendment isn't there for duck hunting; it's there to protect us from tyrannical government." And this odd reading of the Second Amendment's text is being echoed around the blogsphere:

“We have the right to have guns, to protect ourselves from our government, if it ever turned against us. Period.” ~ Internet message board comment

“So why is there a Second Amendment? Is it for target shooters, hunters, personal protection? It was created in order to keep our free society from a tyrannical government.” ~ Letter to the Editor, Aspen Daily News

“[D]o we want only the government, military and the police to be the only ones with guns? That is how Stalin and Hitler and the likes were able to get away with murder.  … We need guns to protect us from government” ~ the Standard-Examiner

You get the idea.

And then the left counters with how absurd it is to compare modern-day America to 1930s Nazi Germany, because our democracy could never become a tyrannical regime like that. And we’re right … to a point.

There’s actually a problem with both sides of this argument. …

In March of 1964 in Queens New York, 28-year-old Catherine “Kitty” Genovese lost her life in a brutal murder. Though it was tragic to have such a vibrant young woman lose her life in this way, sadly, there were many such murders that year in America. What made this one so unique? All you have to do is type "kitty" into Google Search and one of the first results suggested by it will be this tale of Kitty Geneovese. Not Kitty Cat or Kitty anything else, but just Kitty Genovese.

Returning late at night from her job, Kitty was attacked and stabbed twice. She cried out for help in the night. Lights in people's windows went on and off again. She stumbled to her door and slumped over, again crying for help; "I'm dying, I'm dying." But nobody came to her aid, and her attacker, whose name I won't repeat as it should fade from the records of history, returned to continue his assault. He raped her and stabbed her again. Kitty died in the arms of her neighbor Greta Schwartz. Mrs. Schwartz was the only neighbor to come to Kitty's aid out of what police reported as 37 neighbors — 37 witnesses to this brutal rape and murder who did nothing.

Democrats and Progressives have been talking about Gun Control for decades, and where has that gotten us?

Gun-lovers will always win any debate about gun "control," not because they're right on the issue, but because they will argue against the concept of being controlled, railing about their freedom.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Using right wing frames reinforces them as true, even in our own minds.

Using our own frame while making it one that appeals to conservative-thinking people can get them thinking differently about an issue, which makes us winners, not "weenies."

The Right has built the foundation of their political philosophy on the notion of personal responsibility. So when we tell them we want to institute Gun Responsibility Laws, how are they going to argue against that?