Youre sounding like a conservative here...careful buddy...
Not at all. The deregulated free trade global economy was always the darling of Republicans and Conservadems.
Clinton? In his deeds, particularly wrt trade, Clinton was the best Republican president since Eisenhower, even though the Rightwing hated him desperately and psychotically... His record of fiscal responsibility speaks for itself.
OTOH, if America's financial elite insists on not hiring americans, but rather hiring foreigners instead, then they'll need to get used to the idea of paying higher taxes and more income redistribution if they want this country to remain the kind of place where they want to live.
Under a succession of repub admins and congresses they've succeeded in creating the illusion of growth with borrowing, as opposed to real growth. Having borrowed to the hilt to support the real estate boom, middle america is largely tapped out for many years, and the feds' ability to borrow will shortly arrive at that juncture as well. That's why the threatened collapse of banking was and remains extremely dangerous, because america doesn't run on investment as a means to produce, but rather on credit as a means to consume.
The notion that we can support govt w/o raising taxes on somebody is preposterous, and the notion that raising taxes on the top would harm the economy is equally so. An interesting article, here-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy.../02/AR2010090205017.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
Follow the "political myth" link for more info about so called "small business" and the hooey surrounding it...
One of his more interesting contentions is that keeping the bush cuts for the middle class and raising the top bracket to $1M would create 85% of the revenue that leaving the top bracket at $250K would accomplish... that really should tell us just how strongly income has been skewed, not to the top 1%, but rather to the top .2% and above... It would raise revenues by an estimated $600B over 10 years- not all we need, but it's a place to start. That means that 2 families in 1000 would pay a higher tax rate on that portion of their income above $1M/yr...
Too bad that's not a deal we can just sign up for, because we'd all be there if we could...