It felt like a vacation from Washington. Catching up when I got back last night was depressing. It seems like Republicans control things even when they're in the minority, thanks to the 60 vote rule in the Senate.
What's depressing me is that Obama's economic recovery bill -- which everyone insists on calling the stimulus bill --has been made worse in all the ways that economists were already unhappy with. That is, less investment spending and more tax cuts.
How do they get away with it? And is it worth the few Republican votes they will get in the process? And they are santimoniously crowing about how we can't afford to add that much to the national debt for our children? When, as Jay Bookman clarifies in his AJC column this morning, of the $10.6 trillion debt, $8.35 trillion of it was run up during the Reagan, Bush I and Bush II presidencies?
Isn't there some way to have it be accepted as fact that the Republican tax cut mantra just doesn't work -- everybody but them says so. Why are we still being held hostage to that false premise?
I don't even want to know the details of the compromise bill. I don't want to play along with the idea that bipartisanship is a good idea. I want Obama to use his power to mobilize the public and force through a plan that will work -- not some watered down, gutted, "best we can get" substitute.
Then I read Mickey Nardo's blog for a couple of days ago and felt better. An excerpt:
But the reason it was a good day is that I’m sort of over the assault. Whatever they think and whatever they do, it can’t be like it was. For one thing, our economy is sliding in palpable ways. As they attempt to blame that on Obama, their logic becomes increasingly bizarre. We’ll have a real DoJ, and a real State Department. Independent of our disasterous wars abroad and at home, we’ll have rational, honest people dealing with them. Sooner or later, either the Republicans and their media will settle down, or be marginalized in the country’s affairs. Short of a Right Wing Coup, we are no longer governed by these people who are currently acting so badly. Any notion that they are going to join in the attempt to deal with the mess they made is simply a waste of time and energy. And keeping up with their antics is simply demoralizing - it interferes with my world view and mental health. I hope others are beginning to feel that too.
All in all, we are so much better off.
And when Dick Cheney spouts off his told-you-so predictions of another terrorist attack, just remember: he assurred us that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, long after it had been proved that there weren't.
Ralph
As I read it, Obama named it "recovery" instead of "stimulus" for a reason. He wanted to emphasize that it is a long term solution, not just a short-term stimulation of the economy.
ReplyDeleteThat's why the Republicans insist on calling it a stimulus. And all the news media are playing along with them. They want to dismiss the importance of investment spending, infrastructure, etc. in favor of their cherished tax cuts.
It doesn't fit with their mantra that government is the problem (takes too much of your money) and that government can't fix the problem. Unless, of course, Wall Street and Corporate America need government help to stay afloat. Then it becomes a necessity.
By the way, Mt. Vernon, Iowa is a picture postcard town of about 2,500 people. Though small, being a college town with about 1,500 students plus faculty, it's far more sophisticated and prosperous than typical small towns.
ReplyDeleteIt has just recently added a second traffic light, but it has one surprisingly good restaurant and the kinds of shops that cater to college kids.
And they seem to have excellent town-gown relations. For example, the library on campus doubles as a city library, i.e. it's open to the town residents as well.
Any worries I had about over-population from Atlanta's explosive growth were balanced by driving from St. Louis up to mid-Iowa. There's not much but open land along the way.