If I had to point to one single thing that drove this country deeper into unequal territory and bolstered the oligarchs' share of the wealth, it would be the lowered capital gains tax to 15 percent. Far too many of the one percent of the one percent, like Mitt Romney, shirked their tax burdens by making sure their income was characterized as capital gains instead of earned income like 99.99 percent of the rest of us.

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Listen to George W. Bush and remember that when he uttered those empty promises about how wonderful the economy would be if we just lowered tax rates, he wasn't elected president yet. Then he was elected, and he got that tax cut passed, and he got it extended, and extended again. What happened? A lost decade in terms of economic growth.

Here's what that looks like:

Stunning, isn't it?

The Bush/Gore debate and the Romney/Obama debate are bookends, but we have the benefit of seeing, rather than predicting, what Bush tax and economic policy did to this country. It's right there in the graphic. It will take much longer than four short years to fix it and set the course for more equality and less oligarchy, but one thing is certain: Mitt Romney isn't the one to do that, since he's just a repeat of George W. Bush.