‘A Giant Sucking Sound’

inthesetimes.com — Presidential contenders Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have been spending a lot of time in Ohio, promising the swing-state voters they’ll bring back middle-class manufacturing jobs by getting tough on China. Both candidates recognize that a healthy middle class brought us out of the Great Depression and fueled a half-century of economic growth. The federal government, with programs such as the G.I. Bill, was once a true champion for the American middle class. But as manufacturing plants have closed over the last three decades, millions of middle-class Americans have lost their well-paying jobs—along with their homes—and have fallen into poverty. Both Republicans and Democrats bear responsibility for this catastrophe through their support of tax and trade policies that encourage corporations to increase profits by outsourcing middle-class jobs to low-wage countries.

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