[analognoise]

I don't buy the lines about the elite - regular people voted in the republicans and the neocons who favored these policies.

It's hard to pin it on "the elite" when they were voted in after explicitly explaining their views. There's a large section of the populace that would rather other people do worse than have everyone do better - and they got exactly what they voted for.

We can't pawn it off on "elites". Same with "rent-seeking behavior" - if you incentivize it that way, you get exactly what you structured the policies for. It's the people's fault, not some high and mighty class that's smart enough to look at the policies and come to the same conclusion everyone else would (and did).