A favorite liberal tactic is to ignore the economic cycle and compare times of recession to an economic pique of the past. This chart from a 1997 Heritage Foundation article illustrates this point about the Reagan years:

We are currently in a recession and families are struggling, but let’s not pretend this is some sort of fundamental failure of capitalism since socialist policies have NEVER abolished the economic cycle anywhere in the world. Oh, wait, that’s not true, under Soviet communism it was like a depression all the time, so not much of an economic cycle there. When the economy is back on the upswing, the middle class will be getting ahead once more, unless Barack Obama manages to do more damage to the free market system that is.

In the following video Drew Carey discusses the tremendous gains in standard of living the middle class has experienced over the past few years and decades: