Who Stole the American Dream? (61 page)
Read Who Stole the American Dream? Online
Authors: Hedrick Smith
39
A domestic Marshall Plan
Horizon Project, “Report and Recommendations,” February 2007,
http://www.horizonproject.us
.
40
Management and labor doing give-and-take
Nick Bunkley, “G.M. Contract Approved, with Bonus for Workers,”
The New York Times
, September 29, 2011; “GM, UAW Pioneer a Competitive Path,”
Detroit News
, September 28, 2011; Bill Vlasic and Nick Bunkley, “In Deal with Ford, Union Wins Wage Increases and Additional Jobs,”
The New York Times
, October 4, 2011.
41
Big Three carmakers planned to invest
Joseph B. White, Jeff Bennett, and Lauren Weber, “Car Makers’ U-Turn Steers Job Gains,”
The Wall Street Journal
, January 23, 2012.
42
Manufacturing employment
Floyd Norris, “Making More Things in the U.S.A.,”
The New York Times
, January 6, 2012; David Wessel, “Factory Floor Has a Ceiling on Job Creation,”
The Wall Street Journal
, January 12, 2012.
43
Cost advantages of China
“Moving Back to America: The Dwindling Allure of Building Factories Offshore,”
The Economist
, May 12, 2011; John Bussey, “Buck Up, America: China Is Getting Too Expensive,”
The Wall Street Journal
, October 7, 2011.
44
A few companies such as General Electric
John Schmid, “Master Lock
Reassessing China,”
JSOnline, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
, January 1, 2011; Eduardo Porter, “The Promise of Today’s Factory Jobs,”
The New York Times
, April 4, 2012; Annie Lowrey, “White House Offers Plan to Lure Jobs to America,”
The New York Times
, February 4, 2012.
45
In all, some 25,000 manufacturing jobs
James R. Hagerty, “Once Made in China: Jobs Trickle Back to U.S. Plants,”
The Wall Street Journal
, May 22, 2012.
46
“The American people themselves”
Gardner, “American Experiment.”
47
More than half
“Tea Party House Members Even Wealthier than Other GOP Lawmakers,” Center for Responsive Politics, January 4, 2012,
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/01/tea-party-house-members-wealthy-gop.html
.
48
“We are the 99 percent”
Brian Stelter, “Camps Are Cleared but ’99 Percent’ Still Occupies the Lexicon,”
The New York Times
, November 30, 2011.
49
“Powerful thrust of energy”
Gardner, “American Experiment.”
1
Powell’s personal manner
Linda Greenhouse, “Lewis Powell, Crucial Centrist Justice, Dies at 90,”
The New York Times
, August 26, 1998.
1
“The danger had suddenly escalated”
Thomas Byrne Edsall,
The New Politics of Inequality
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1984), 113–14.
2
“There has been a significant erosion”
Ibid., 13.
3
“Revolt of the Bosses”
Ted Nace,
Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy
(San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2003), 137–51.
4
Powell warned the corporate community
Powell, memorandum, “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” August 23, 1971,
http://www.aspenlawschool.com
.
5
Business was being victimized
Ibid.
6
“Business must learn the lesson”
Ibid.
7
In a private session
Nixon meeting with Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca, White House tapes, cited in Tom Wicker,
One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream
(New York: Random House, 1991), 515.
8
Nixon administration was swept along
Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson,
Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 97.
9
“He didn’t know much”
Excerpt of interview of William Ruckelshaus for the
Frontline
program “Poisoned Waters,” September 3, 2008.
10
“Most of the people”
Ibid., July 28, 2008.
11
His package also included
David Vogel,
Fluctuating Fortunes: The Political Power of Business in America
(New York: Basic Books, 1989), 62–63.
12
“The most ‘anti-rich’ tax reform”
Edwin L. Dale, Jr., “It’s Not Perfect, but It’s the Best Yet,”
The New Republic
, May 3, 1969.
13
Business sprang to life
Vogel,
Fluctuating Fortunes
, chap. 8, “The Political Resurgence of Business.”
14
The chief executives
Hedrick Smith,
The Power Game: How Washington Works
(New York: Random House, 1989), 31.
15
“If you don’t know your senators”
Leonard Silk and David Vogel,
Ethics and Profits: The Crisis of Confidence in American Business
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), 65.
16
Quickly expanded their agenda
Edsall,
Politics of Inequality
, 121–26.
17
The National Association of Manufacturers
Vogel,
Fluctuating Fortunes
, 193–200; Nace,
Gangs of America
, 137–42.
1
“Fifteen years ago, the businessman”
“The Swarming Lobbyists: Washington’s New Billion-Dollar Game of Who Can Influence Whom,”
Time
, August 7, 1978, 14.
2
“Business’s new lobbying weapon”
“A Potent New Business Lobby,”
Business Week
, May 22, 1978.
3
The decisive force
“The Swarming Lobbyists.”
4
“Never seen such extensive lobbying”
“Carter Dealt Major Defeat on Consumer Bill,”
CQ Almanac
1978 (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1979).
5
A disastrous defeat
Hacker and Pierson,
Winner-Take-All Politics, 126–27
.
6
Council on Union-Free Environment
“Council Is Formed by NAM for Union-Free Environment,”
The Washington Post
, December 2, 1977.
7
It passed the House
“House Passes Bill Aiding Union Drives,”
The New York Times
, October 7, 1977.
8
“What the filibuster does”
Ray Marshall, interview, June 14, 2011.
9
Douglas Fraser
… resigned Jefferson Cowie, “ ‘A One-Sided Class War’: Rethinking Doug Fraser’s 1978 Resignation from the Labor-Management Group,”
Labor History
44, no. 3 (2003): 307–14.
10
Some wins for labor
“Carter Signs Minimum Wage Bill, Giving Raises of 45 Percent by ’81,”
The New York Times
, November 2, 1977.
11
Federal minimum wage fell
U.S. Department of Labor, “Federal Minimum Wage Rates Under the Fair Labor Standards Act,”
http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart/pdf
; and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “B-2: Average Hours and Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Workers on Private Nonfarm Payrolls by Major Industry Sector, 1964 to Date,”
http://www.bls.gov/ces/#tables
.
12
The first priority
“Congress Clears Trucking Deregulation Bill,”
CQ Almanac
1980
(Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1981); “Congress Clears Airline Deregulation Bill,”
CQ Almanac 1978
(Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1979); “House, Senate Advance Bills to Curb FTC,”
CQ Almanac 1979
(Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1980).
13
The first major bankruptcy reform
Lynn M. LoPucki and William C. Whitford, “Corporate Governance in the Bankruptcy Reorganization of Large, Publicly Held Companies,”
University of Pennsylvania Law Review
141, no. 3 (January 1993): 674–75, 688–92, 719; Robert Lawless, email, January 6, 2012.
14
Labor union contracts
Lawless, email, December 21, 2011.
15
Banks got top priority
“Congress Approves New Bankruptcy System,”
CQ Almanac 1978
(Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1979), 179–82.
16
“A big part of the selling”
Elizabeth Warren, interview, February 6, 2006.
17
Instead of tax increases
“Congress Preparing Tax Lop-offs: Capital Gains, Retired Get Biggest Relief,” Associated Press, October 15, 1978;
How Capital Gains Tax Rates Affect Revenues: The Historical Evidence
(Washington, DC: Congressional Budget Office, March 1988), 34,
http://www.cbo.gov
.
18
“Business began to see”
Arthur Levitt, interview, April 20, 1986.
1
“This hallowed spot”
Martin Luther King, Jr., speech, “I Have a Dream,” Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/english/mlk_transcript.pdf
.
2
“Deep public concern”
Excerpt of interview of William Ruckelshaus for the
Frontline
program “Poisoned Waters,” September 3, 2008.
3
“No one could remember”
Russell Baker, “Capital Is Occupied by a Gentle Army,”
The New York Times
, August 29, 1963.
4
“Probably the most thoroughly segregated city”
Martin Luther King, Jr., letter from the Birmingham Jail, in
Reporting Civil Rights
, part 1 (New York: Library of America, 2003), 778.
5
“A community of fear”
Harrison Salisbury, “Fear and Hatred Grip Birmingham,”
The New York Times
, April 12, 1960.
6
By his personal involvement
King, letter, 784–85.
7
“Money is color-blind”
Andrew Young, interview, February 8, 2011.
8
A deal slowly emerged
Hedrick Smith, “A Dozen Men Hammered Out Birmingham Agreement in Home of Negro Executive,”
The New York Times
, May 11, 1963.
9
“Promissory note”
King, “I Have a Dream.”
10
“He shook hands”
John Lewis, interview, April 6, 2011.
11
It fell to Lyndon Johnson
Nick Kotz,
Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 18–19; Taylor Branch,
Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–65
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 177.
12
Johnson was challenging King
Kotz,
Judgment Days, 1
8–19.
13
Bloody march at Selma
Lewis, interview, April 6, 2011.
14
Twenty million Americans
Philip Shabecoff,
A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003), 103–10.
15
“I remember”
Excerpt of interview of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for the
Frontline
program “Poisoned Waters,” June 4, 2009.
16
“There was anger”
Excerpt of interview of Will Baker for the
Frontline
program “Poisoned Waters,” November 20, 2008.
17
“Now or never” Richard Nixon, “
Statement About the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969,” American Presidency Project, January 1, 1970,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu
.
18
The Nixon White House moved
Shabecoff,
Fierce Green Fire
, 103–10, 121–27.
19
“It exploded on the country”
William Ruckelshaus interview excerpt,
Frontline
, “Poisoned Waters,” September 3, 2008.
20
Major new consumer organizations
“56 Groups Set Up a Consumer Union,”
The New York Times
, April 29, 1968.
21
Nader’s network
Vogel,
Fluctuating Fortunes
, 101–03.
22
Put Nader on its cover
“Who Runs America: A National Survey,”
U.S. News & World Report
76, no. 16 (April 1974).
23
Nader filed a lawsuit
“G.M. Settles Nader Suit on Privacy for $425,000,”
The New York Times
, August 14, 1970.
24
Politicians had gotten
Vogel,
Fluctuating Fortunes
, 40–46.
1
“Prosperity for all”
Richard Nixon, quoted in Lizabeth Cohen,
A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
(New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 125.
2
“The Great Compression”
Paul Krugman,
The Conscience of a Liberal
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007), 54.
3
Wage of $5 a day
Henry Ford,
My Life and Work
(New York: Garden City Publishing, 1922), 126–27.
4
Virtuous circle keeps on generating
Palley, “America’s Exhausted Paradigm.”
5
“It was an economy”
Krugman,
Conscience of a Liberal
, 79.
6
“The job of management”
Frank Abrams, quoted in
Fortune
, October 1951.
7
“Maximizing employment security”
Steven Greenhouse,
The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker
(New York: Anchor Books, 2008), 74–76; Krugman,
Conscience of a Liberal
, 73.
8
“Caring runs in the veins”
Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.,
In Search of Excellence
(New York: Warner Books, 1982), 238–39.
9
Trade union strength
“Union Membership Trends in the United States,”
Congressional Research Service, August 31, 2004,
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=key_workplace
.
10
“Treaty of Detroit”
Greenhouse,
Big Squeeze
, 74–76; Krugman,
Conscience of a Liberal
, 49–51.
11
“More than half the union contracts”
Greenhouse,
Big Squeeze
, 75.
12
“Classless society”
Richard Nixon, quoted in Lizabeth Cohen,
Consumer’s Republic
, 125.
13
But the prevailing pattern
Economic Policy Institute,
The State of Working America
, February 1, 2011,
http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/charts/view/201
.
14
The poorest 20 percent
Economic Policy Institute, “Income Inequality,”
The State of Working America
, April 1, 2011,
http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org
.
15
The tax system reduced
Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Individual Income Tax: Personal Exemptions and Lowest and Highest Bracket Tax Rates, and Tax Base for Regular Tax: Tax Years 1913–2008,
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=175910,00.html
.
16
“High taxes”
Robert B. Reich,
Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), 37.
17
That phenomenon was so striking
Claudia Goldin and Robert A. Margo, “The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid-Century,”
Quarterly Journal of Economics
107, no. 1 (1992): 1–34.
18
“Time of unprecedented prosperity”
Krugman,
Conscience of a Liberal
, 54.