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Who helps more people into the middle class, the left or right?

The left has promoted access to the middle class through promoting public education including higher education, home ownership through things like the GI Bill, and unionization so people could make a decent living at their jobs. Until recently, I would have said the right's work your ass off and maybe start your own business worked about as well or complemented the other approach, but with the outsourcing of jobs, stripping workers of health care and pensions, and allowing monopolies to crush mom & pop start ups, and government subsidies and no bid contracts to some favored cronies, I'm not sure if people at the top of the GOP care about access to the middle class at all. I know a lot of Democrats support similar economic policies to the GOP, so this is more about the ideas than parties.

Public Comments

1. My understanding is that people who are considered Middle Class are capable of helping themselves, and lead comfortable lifestyles. What help do they need?
2. Well, when Democrats say they want to tax the 'rich,' they generally end up taxing the middle class. OTOH, when Republicans say they want to cut taxes on the middle class, they usually end up cutting taxes signficantly only for the rich. So, as someone clinging to the lower rungs of the middle class, I'm not feeling a lot of love from either side.
3. The simple answer is in the rhetoric we hear from the parties. On the left, we hear about taxing corporations and making them pay their fair share. That is why we have outsourcing and companies leaving America and moving overseas. On the right, we have tax cuts across the board, but the left yells its for the rich. If EVERYONE got a 10% tax cut, yes, the people who make the most, saves the most. That is high school economics. A man making 30 grand a year will save 3 thousand dollars. A man making 300 grand a year, cause he owns his own business, saves 30 grand a year. The harder you work, the more you would save. I am a conservative Democrat and the party left us a long time ago when Ted moved so far to the left, only people further left is Karl Marx and Joe Stalin.
4. As a woman who is facing an ever widening wage gap, I can tel you the only recourse we have is to work hard and open our own businesses..which we are doing twice as often as men are these days. Even though we do better in college in EVERY subject, have broken down the barriers to the workplace..the wage gap continues to widen (granted, widens more under republican leadership than democratic) but neither party is addressing it. If the reps tuned into us 52% of the population they would be guaranteed a victory. At least you can't stop free trade.
5. neither were stuck in the middle without anyone.
6. The middle. There is not clear lines of distinction in political philosophy anymore. Moderate Republicans and Moderate Democrats make up the largest portion of our government.
7. neither really when you look at them...
8. The left help people move up into the middle class. The right helps people move out of the middle class and into the poor class.
9. The middle class can a should help themselves. Both parties interfere with the middle class too much.
10. I believe the Democrats like keeping people below middle class. It's a great potion of their voter base. The've promised poor people so much for so long... I just don't see that much movement. Ps. Did you realize that LBJ had to rely on the republicans to push thru many civil rights and equality laws? Alot of those southern Dem strongholds did not want equality and de-segregation.
11. Both of them have their share of blame, but probably the biggest hurdle to becoming Middle Class is the "Progressive Income Tax" system, and the estate tax system. While Republicans aren't totally opposed to either of these, they want them to have less effect than the Left. It's really very simple. It makes no difference how much money you make, if you manage to hang onto some of it each week, month, year, you can accumulate enough to put it to work and earn more. If a person doesn't have the discipline to do that, it's not the fault of either party. If they do, then what penalties do they incur along the way? More income taxes? Having a big chunk of it taken away when they die, and they can't have the benefit of leaving their family better off for their own future? Yeah, public education, higher education, blah blah blah. I've known nine self-made millionaires in my life, and I mean personally and on a first name basis. Only one of them had a college degree, who are you fooling with this business about higher education? Still, who put the programs in place that made it possible for any moron to get into college, whether or not they could ever earn a degree, and borrow money to do it? Has this lessened the amount of "education" in a degree? Has it increased the costs? Is it possible for anyone to work their own way through college without loans now? Do people graduate with a depressing level of debt, so much that it prevents them from home ownership for years? Has it always been this way, or did the Left's "fixing" of the education system have anything to do with that? What keeps people out of the middle class is looking to government to get them there. That's not how it works. The people that get into the middle class are those that found a way to not be prevented by the government. It has nothing to do with Left or Right.
12. Middle Class? What's that? I have vague memories of being Middle Class, way back when I was child. That was when there were very few working poor becuse if you worked you could afford rent and food. Not so much anymore when where I live the average wage is about $10-11 per hour and the average rent for a 2 bedroom apartment is about $1600/mo and the average house costs $420,000. So again I say there is NO Middle Class anymore.
13. Correct on all counts. But lets add to the story. . . Until the last 30 years or so, the conservative (NOT the neo-conservative) focus on individual hard work, entrepreneurship, etc. was the "other side of the coin" to the liberal (not particularly Democrat) concern with how to change large-scale social forces in ways that promoted economic progress for the general population. And most people understood that BOTH approaches were not only useful, but vital. The origins of the liberal things you mentioned (education policy, unions, etc.) are more or less familier to most people. But the origins of the "entrepreneural ethic" (for want of a better term) are not. That ethic was the norm in the 19th century. You can even read books and articles from the time that regard being self-employed as the logical and proper goal of any "first-raate" person. Large corporations--as well as large government--were not only mistrusted, but as the antithesis of the republican virtues extolled by the founding fathers such as Jefferson. In the 20th century, as large scale industrialization became inevitable, that ethic remained--but added the idea of professional (or artisan/blue-collar) careers as worthey goals--essentially Americans were co-operating with the inevitable on this point. But the large corporation--adn the goernment--were regarded as public trusts. And if corporations often did not live up to this ideal, to an extent it tempered the drive for profit with some sense of ethics and responsibility (most of the time). The so-called "neo-conservative" ideology basically sneers at this. Profit--not value--is the standard of value. Spin--not facts and accountability--are the basis of policy. Ethics are regarded as no more than the penalties in a basketball game--to be violated when convenient. ANd the balance (represented by the ccomplementary relationship between conservative and liberal) between individual effort and public efforts to facilitate opportunity for all has been lost. PS: I notice several answers repeating the "the middle-class don't need help" myth. This self-deception tha tthe middle-class somehow are entirely self-made men/women is pure nonsense. The middle class are the ones who benefit from--and depend most on--social programs--including things like the GI Bill and public education--but also on things like mortgage tax breaks, retirement tax shelters, subsidized studnet loans, and a host of other programs. I'm not criticizing--but to pretend the middle class "doesn't need" the nasty liberal socialist programs is utterly preposterous. They--not the poor--are the biggest beneficiaries.
14. Wow. Good question. Crabby Blindman's answer is so dead on and thorough, I can only use my answer to point back to his.