djplong - The Concept of 'The American Dream' came into existence in the late 1940's with the building of Levittown. The little house in the suburbs with a dad who drove to work in his Ford or Chevrolet, a stay-at-home mom, with four kids (this was the boomer generation being born), one dog and perhaps a white picket fence. http://tigger.uic.edu/~pbhales/Levittown.html

The reality of this dream has gone away, but we try to hold onto it and believe in it. This is why people continue to refer to The American Dream. That is why everyone thought every American family should own their own home. We need to realize that the American population of today bears little resemblance to the one in the dream. In the 1950’s 4% of children were born out of wedlock. Today that number is greater than 40%. The divorce rate continues to rise, but the number of divorces is actually falling because of our changing societal mores – we no longer get married. Abortion was essentially unknown but is very common today.

Today we deal with single parent families, blended families and families in which both parents work. None of these in any way approaches the nuclear family of the dream. It does not matter what caused these changes, the changes are real and there is no indication we will ever go back to the dream.

The American people need to construct a tax code and emphasis that deals with today’s situation, not that of the Cleavers. Our push for everyone to own their own home led to the housing bubble and the consequent shocks to the American economy. Ask yourself, when is the single parent of three kids find time to mow the lawn, trim the bushes, clean a large freestanding home, etc. The answer is that she does not have the time to do all this. The answer is that she cannot. While our vision is for everyone to own their own homes, trying to make that a reality has destroyed our rental market, priced homes out the reach of others and further isolated the man of the family from his parental responsibilities.

I could go through the details of having to move to mass transit both in intra-city travel and inter-city travel, but I will not. I simply leave with the statement of Charles Handy…”Why to we make driving cars free and taking the railroad expensive?” I urge you to think about this and hope you come to realize that this is a product of ‘The American Dream’

Let’s look at today’s realities and come to grips with them in a manner that does not require in the metaphor of the ubiquitous ostrich and tick our heads underground