Kuttner to Democrats: Be Bold on the Economy

Bob Kuttner is an economist and a founding editor of American Prospect magazine. His has been a consistent voice of sanity on the causes of our current economic mess. His latest article challenges Democrats to provide a real contrast with Republicans on the economy. Over time, Kuttner probably puts more emphasis on opposition to trade agreements than Ideal Candidate would favor. He is viewed primarily as a protectionist on trade. However, he recently has widened his diagnosis to include unwise deregulation-- especially of financial and energy markets--that Ideal Candidate believes to be spot on.

Kuttner's key point for our race is his advice to make not the last 8 years of Bush 43 the issue; but to make the last 30 years of so-called "Conservative" revolution the issue. The backers of the "Conservative revolution" of the post-1973 era are not real conservatives, but actually devious supporters of policies that amounted to the unprecedented overthrow of exactly those policies that built the US as a technology-based manufacturing nation. Nostalgia is not the point. But figuring out how the next 30 years can be better for the average American family than the last 30, is precisely the point.