THE MESS CONTINUES, U START TO SEE THE GOP AND DEM. SEPERATION! 1990—Congress passes the H-1B visa program, permitting U.S. businesses to import college-educated foreign workers for high-tech and knowledge economy jobs. By the early 2000s, close to a million Americans have been replaced by foreigners, even though studies by Rand and others assert that there is no shortage of Americans to fill such jobs. 1993—For the first time since World War II, a major piece of legislation—President Clinton’s budget—passes Congress without a single yes vote from the opposition party. In a virtually unprecedented party-line vote, not a single Republican supports Clinton’s tax increases. 1993–1994—Hampered by partisan gridlock, the 1993–94 Congress becomes one of the two least productive legislative sessions in half a century, with the second lowest percentage of major legislation passed. 1994—The CEO stock option boom takes off. 70 percent of CEOs now receive stock option grants and by 2000, grants of millions of stock options become the norm, hugely increasing CEO pay. Corporate executives overtake the inherited rich as the biggest portion of the nation’s richest 1 percent. 1995—Partisan gridlock shuts down the government after Republicans take control of the House for the first time in 40 years and Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich sets up a confrontation with President Clinton over the budget. Eventually, with polls showing the public blames Republicans more than Democrats, Gingrich backs down. 1999- General Electric CEO Jack Welch is named “the ultimate manager” of the 20th Century by Fortune. Nicknamed “Neutron Jack” for the weapon that kills human beings but leaves buildings standing, Welch reverses the employee-friendly policies of his predecessor and wins favor on Wall Street for cutting 25 percent of GE’s workforce – 130,000 jobs. As one executive put it, “Working for him is like a war – a lot of people get shot up.” 1995–2000—By balancing the federal budget and generating budget surpluses, the Clinton tax increases of 1993 help to lower inflation and interest rates and to generate the nation’s strongest steady economic growth period since the 1960s, boosting the real wages of average middle class workers. 2001–2003—President George W. Bush pushes massive tax cuts through Congress each year, starting in 2001, despite opinion polls showing the public favors using budget surpluses inherited from Clinton to increase spending on education, health, and Social Security, or to reduce the national debt. May 2003—At a White House ceremony, President Bush thanks “my friend Dirk Van Dongen” for helping to move the Bush tax cuts through Congress. Unknown to most Americans,Van Dongen is a Washington insider, field marshal of the “Gang of Six” — the six major business organizations that anchor the Tax Relief Coalition that lobbied for tax cuts
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 23:26:50 +0000
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