Excerpts
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to preview next week’s midterm elections and discuss the current mood and priorities of American voters.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Well, speaking of growth, we’re looking at an economy now that is — what, they put out GDP numbers the other day. It’s growing at 3.5 percent, more than it has in years. The unemployment, the rate is the lowest, Mark, it’s been in years. Wages are finally showing some life. They’re started to come up, consumer confidence up.
And yet none of this is translating into good news for the party in power.
MARK SHIELDS: No.
There’s an irony. The stock market, just take the Dow Jones average, is up 10,000 points since Barack Obama has been in the White House. And you’re right. The last six months have been the best six months of growth in the past 11 years. So it really is good news.
The problem is, Judy, that’s big picture. And people don’t feel it. The median income, family income, has been down every year since 2006. It is lower now than it was in 2000, in the year 2000. The share of wealth that goes to the top, 1 percent in the country has doubled.
And so there’s a sense that the rising tide has lifted all yachts. But it hasn’t lifted all boats. And that’s really what it is. It’s not a knock on the overall big economy. It’s what my life is, where my own chances of success and providing for my children or my family are, if anything, more threatened than they were.
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