Lost Decade? More criticism of Meet the Press

Did you lose a decade? Did, we of the United States and other westernized nations lose a decade?  I am referring, of course, to the ten year period that ended on December 31, 2009 (Please! Let’s not get into whether or not that was really the end of “The decade.”  I don’t care).

I’ll Let David Gregory, from this past Sunday’s Meet the Press explain my question:

“A lot made about the notion of this being a lost decade–lost opportunities, lost wealth not just for the rich, but for Americans all over the country with the stock market going down so far.”

This was the decade dominated politically by Bush, Cheney, and Rove that included 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ended with the current financial crisis.  Your stock portfolios are down, unemployment is way too high, and our debt is soaring.  I found Doris Kearns Goodwin’s response to Gregory’s question very telling.  She first explains that,” We have fewer jobs, fewer money in the stock market, we feel less safe.  There’s a whole series of markers.”  She goes on to explain that, “on the other hand, as always happens, the potential for renewal is in this decade.”

So it is obvious to Ms. Goodwin that the answer is absolutely yes, we have a lost or wasted decade but President Obama will save us.  Columnist David Brooks goes with the flow of renewal by pointing out the Tea Party people are now a political force due to their passion, and that they could become a positive force.  E.J. Dionne of Meet the Press and the Washington Post called it a,  “squandered decade.”  

I think the designation of the meaning of this past decade belongs to the historians that will review our era 50 or 100 years from now.  We are too close to the past few years to know their impact, in part because we each had a role in what has occurred, and therefore we each have our biases, but also because the impact of these past 10 years hasn’t played out.

Think about this:  Who among us that lived through the stagnant years of the late 1970s (the Jimmy Carter years) and early 1980’s would have expected that period of economic ennui to evolve into the period of economic efficiency and quality that led to gains in economic strength for the U.S. and the world?  Who in 1965 would have thought that our limited involvement in Vietnam would still be a major factor in policy making in 2010?  And as our parents and grandparents celebrated Allied victories in Europe and Japan, could they have even guessed at how the effects of WW II would play out into wars in Korea, then Vietnam, and yes, even to the Middle East of 2010?

Lost decade?  No.

Tagged as: congress, david brooks, e.j. dionne, Health care, health care reform, health reform, insurance, lost decade, medicaid, medicare, meet the press, nbc, obama, senate health care bill, single payer, squandered decade, tea parties, universal health care