makers and takers. i mean, consider that the gop message on the one hand they re saying we need to be talking about the middle class more. we know we need to do that. we need to change those talking points, but in the sequester conversation have they said anything about the middle class? no. they ve been talking they won t even talk about what tax breaks they would be willing oop holes they would be willing to close at the benefit of the middle class. they won t even say the word middle class. i think karen has a great point. the republican party is in the middle of this soul searching, but like they can t sort it out this week, and it s march 1st in a couple of days, and in the meantime, really what they ve got is this internal politics around tax cuts where the house leadership the leadership see noz way to sell any kind of revenues to the membership, and they haven t figured out this new set of policies that they kind of in theory know they need to start pitching that really
look at the hostility. president obama was right to talk about head start and how we start kids out and make sure that we actually have kids who are able to grow into the jobs of future that we need, and that was met with hostility and people have laughed it off and said that s never going to happen, we re never going to spend that s part of the social contract. why is it that african-americans, latinos, people of color are getting further and further behind. that says that the social contract is failing to keep up with the reality of this country. and, jillian, he puts it bsh packard puts it in the context of business specifically. before it was general electric and i can t remember what the other sort of uses two examples. now we are caught between wal-mart, which is the lowest prices for the least pay, and apple, which is kind of an elite, high consumer culture located on the coasts. absolutely. we ve lost the sense of the middle in between. it s back to lovely jobs an
will again because i think it s a powerful comment. he writes owe the roosevelt republic when a social contract underwrote american life. it included a strong middle class, strong safety net, high marginal tax rates, a while male in the decades since the mid 1970s, you could call it the reagan republic, but i prefer the unwinding, the social contract has frayed to the point of disintegration. that s that i think is a very astute observation and is perhaps at the root of a lot of this. not just has the social contract completely fallen apart. again, until i would say this year we haven t even been having an honest conversation about the demographics of this country and what the social contract should look like, right? one of the things i contend about the republicans is that when they keep attacking government, they forget that probably more people have had a positive experience with some kind of government or have some kind of need for government than maybe in the past, and so t