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Happy Talk

Have Americans been so fat and happy for so long and become such believers in our own exceptionalism, that we can’t face hard realities? Certainly our politicians think that’s the case—we continue to hear the President’s numbing sugar-coated talk about green jobs and job training programs that will turn the unemployment rate around.

By Jonathan D. Miller | Updated on June 20, 2011

 Have Americans been so fat and happy for so long and become such believers in our own exceptionalism, that we can’t face hard realities? Certainly our politicians think that’s the case—we continue to hear the President’s numbing sugar-coated talk about green jobs and job training programs that will turn the unemployment rate around. Every week he’s at another factory in shirtsleeves wearing goggles. Meanwhile many of our public high schools graduate students with barely minimal functional reading and writing skill sets, and colleges pamper students with grade inflation and pay football coaches multiples of engineering and science professors.

And on the Republican side—we get the same old, same old—by cutting taxes and shrinking government we’ll stoke employment growth. One Presidential candidate—the former Minnesota governor—double downed recently calling for significant cuts in corporate and capital gains taxes which he says would increase GDP by 5%. It’s pure sophistry, numbers pulled from thin air.

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