text: Hillary's Middle Class Vanishing Act - Donald Lambro ×
  WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Clinton outlined an economic agenda for the country last week that was filled with the old 1930s-style, trickle-down, anti-capitalism rhetoric that is at the center of her party's leftist orthodoxy.
  It's impossible to see how her prescriptions could foster new venture capital, increased investment, broader global markets and wealth creation that are the building blocks for a strong economy.
  She concedes, "There is no greater force for economic growth than free markets." But this is a sharp reversal of the anti-capitalism views she included in her first book, "It Takes a Village," in which she blamed capitalism and free markets for all the ills in the world.
  But now she says, "Markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers ... Fairness doesn't just happen. It requires the right government policies." Her economic policies would mean "pairing growth with fairness."
  View Cartoon Does Clinton mean higher protectionist tariffs on imported goods that will raise the prices of everything we buy at Wal-Mart? She doesn't say. But she does say she would take away pro-growth tax incentives for corporations and that she will go after U.S. companies that manufacture some of their goods abroad to increase global market share and pass the savings on to their U.S. customers. Exactly how raising business costs, as well as the price of blue jeans, shoes and sneakers, will strengthen our economy isn't clear.
  "It's not as if America hasn't been successful these last six years, but the measure of success does not relate to what's happening in households across the country," she said. "It's like trickle-down economics ..."
  The middle class, in her view, is struggling and disappearing, and the answer to this "problem" is to go after rich, successful corporations and the wealthiest among us.
  "To hear it from Democratic leaders and presidential candidates, you'd think the American dream was melting away as quickly as the glacial ice floes in Greenland," said Washington Post economic columnist Steven Pearlstein.
  But Pearlstein, pointing to a newly updated study by economist Stephen Rose, says the "rumors of the demise of the American middle class are greatly exaggerated. In fact, living standards for most Americans are improving.
  "Not everyone is flipping hamburgers or working at Wal-Mart. To the degree that the middle class is shrinking, it is because more people are rising out of it than falling from it," he said.
  The median household-income figure has been widely reported to be about $44,500. But in Rose's readjusted accounting of household wealth, confined to heads of households in their prime income-producing years (29 to 59), the actual median income for a "typical American family" is $63,000.
  To be sure, the number of households in the middle has fallen. Between 1979 and 2004, household incomes from $30,000 to $90,000 fell from 47 percent to 39 percent. But these people didn't disappear or fall deeper into poverty. Those making more than $90,000 jumped by almost 9 percent, while the percentage of poorer households stayed the same.
  That's not an "on-your-own society," it's a wealth-creating society that is dependent only upon its people for its economic well-being. Share this on Facebook Tweet Tags: Jobs