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Please check out my post on The Moderate Voice
Please check out the guest Post on The Moderate Voice. You may recognize the author.
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I don’t usually do this,,,, but
Deb Cupples at Buck Naked Politics has written a Pulitzer quality summation of where tax cuts fit into a stimulus package. One of her zingers goes as follows:
It’s astounding that with such facts of recent history staring us all in the face, some Republican politicians are still chanting the old, worn-out lines about cutting corporate taxes.
Deb Cupples-Buck Naked Politics.
Her take on the GOP insisting on the cuts and Obama’s capitulation is a great read for anyone truly interested in making our economy better.
Nancy Pelosi should also read this article instead of the shenanigans outlined in my previous article.
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Principle Meets Unemployment
As you read this article at least 40 people will lose their job. 40 people like you and me are having the conversation with their wife or husband. The spouse probably knew it already by the look in their spouse’s eyes. After the conversation come the questions. After the questions, mom or dad has to explain to a son or daughter why they won’t be able to live in their house anymore and why they won’t be able to go to the same school anymore. As you read this article at least 45 people will be so disillusioned they will decide to put down the highlighter and not to open the want ads. They will have run out of energy to look for a job. They have already given up on staying in their house. They looked at the costs of COBRA and decided the only option was to try not to be sick. Yesterday, these people were just like you and me. They weren’t lazy. Some were the best worker on the line. Many were accountants, engineers and plumbers who were only a few years from retirement. But, a minute ago, that all changed for ten of them.
The ten who will lose their job as you read this paragraph may have voted for a Republican. Representative John Boehner (R-OH) is their leader. Today on Meet The Press he summed up his answer to those ten people who lost their job.
He seems to sound like the jobs of those ten people will just be a sacrifice on the alter free markets and conservative politics. Then Boehner goes on to throw the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb on his website by telling people the stimulus package will fund contraceptives and abortion. Those ten people who voted for him may literally lose their house while he horse trades on “principle”. Those unemployed Republicans might save their house by finding a job in a rubber factory. Can’t he just walk down the hall and ask Speaker Nancy Pelosi to get that stuff out of the bill? Maybe, Boehner’s goal is to get the stimulus package he wants or just kill the bill altogether.
The ten people who lose their jobs as you read this paragraph may have voted for a Democrat. Their leader is of course President Obama. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) however was responsible for the abortion and contraception loopholes. She told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week that she had, “No apologies,” for putting those controversial loopholes in the bill. What the ten people who will lose their jobs while you read this paragraph need is a job. They could care less about controversial add-ons to a bill.
As you read this concluding paragraph, the rest of the forty people will lose their job. While the United States House of Representatives is interested in something else, their constituents are losing a job every four seconds. There is really no question among both conservative and liberal economist. They tell us a stimulus package is our last resort. Republican leaders seem to secretly think a stimulus package is not really needed. I wonder how many jobs lost per second would constitute a need for stimulus for Republicans. House Democratic leaders seem intent on sabotaging the legislation because they can. I wonder when Pelosi will actually be the bipartisan her President wants her to be.
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Blagogate black politics and irony
The Irony of Blagogate is becoming comical. Beyond trying to profit from appointing President-Elect Barrack Obama’s successor in the Senate, Governor Rod Blagojevich seems to be willing to dismantle black politics in Illinois to get away with it. Representative Bobby Rush of Illinois and Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, obviously willing participants, have decided to play the race card in Governor Rod Blagojevich’s controversial appointment.
The irony of Blagogate is how the Governor’s every move has made the chances of a white replacing the only sitting black Senator much higher. He immediately tainted Illinois Representative, Jesse Jackson, Junior by trying to offer the senate seat for favors or money. Although the U. S. Attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, effectively cleared Jackson of wrong doing in his criminal complaint against Blagojevich, Jackson finds himself smeared by the appearance of impropriety. The irony is deliciously compounded by the fact that his rival, Burris, is being defended by Rush. Rush would seem to be representative of old racial guard to whom Jesse Jackson Senior is most closely identified. Jesse Jackson Junior and Barrack Obama have worked very hard to separate themselves from the old guard.
People like Bobby Rush are not yet interested in relinquishing their control of racial politics to the post racial (whatever that is), crowd like Obama and the younger Jackson. The irony keeps coming in the Blagojevich scandal. Rush who seems to be an advocate for Roland Burris today, refused to endorse Obama in his 2004 Senate campaign in favor of the white candidate Blair Hull.
Besides not getting the memo on a post racial United States, I wonder why Burris and Rush would tie their political boat to the sinking ship that is Blagojevich. By not denouncing any Blagojevich appointment, they have potentially put at risk any black appointment to the position. By Burris allowing himself to be used by Blagojevich, he has helped set up a special election where a white might win. Rush and Burris want us to separate the appointor from the appointee. I wonder why they didn’t separate the appointee from the appointor. By all accounts, Burris is a good man. Why tarnish his image by associating him with a crook forever?
So where do Rush and others really stand? Do they really care about real black representation? They seem to be less interested in putting a black in power and more interested in putting the right kind of black in power. They would like to continue left wing politics of persecution to the detriment of all other considerations. Blagojevich, Burris and Rush all point to the legality of the controversial appointment. Surely they understand how perception is reality in politics. If they don’t, they should ask Jesse Jackson Junior.
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Dangerous Fickle
Tonight I listened to NPR’s Daniel Schorr wondering if there was “any light at the end of this darkening tunnel.” His function for NPR is “news analysis.” After his analysis, I needed some psycho-analysis. Before I jump off the bridge, however, I will attempt to go a little bit farther toward the answer he seeks. His only consolation was to hope President-Elect, Barack Obama could lead as well as we had all hoped.
I submit Obama can’t cure our ills without our help. What we need is a river of Ritalin and some focus. Americans have the attention span of a kitten in a room full of catnip filled balls. Most of the time, this phenomena is a cute distraction. An example of this distraction is our kids who would rather send a text message because it saves time. It becomes sad and dangerous when our national ADHD affects policy. Our abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviet Union withdrew in the eighties is an excellent example of how we as a people can jerk a mandate away from our leaders in a heartbeat. Don’t get me wrong. I am not one of those left-wingers who believe we were partially responsible for 911. I think, however, had we not ignored Afghanistan, our lives would be much easier today. Afghanistan is just one more in a long line of examples of our inability to focus on something long enough to finish the job. Ironically, another of those examples, energy policy, faces us today.
Faced with dollar and a half gas, we have an opportunity to reduce our dependence on oil. Reducing dependence will take money just as it takes money to dry out an alcoholic. You can bet we will get amnesia about four dollar gas when there is an attempt to tax gas to the three dollar level. There will be those refuse to pay another cent. They would rather give it to petroleum exporting countries than spend the money trying to break our addiction. Americans were focused completely on energy policy when gas was four dollars a gallon. Now that gas is back to 2003 levels, we want our Hummers back. When a tax is mentioned, we will listen to anyone who will justify the status quo and ignore all arguments to the contrary.
Contrary to how it looks today, Wall Street and the banking system will rise from its ashes. When that day comes, it will be time to revamp our regulation of the financial system. Our collective amnesia will again make us susceptible to free market worshiping interests. They will tell us how well the free market works and we will forget all about the two trillion dollars* it took to fix the last free market orgy. Again, while the house is on fire, we are totally focused on the problem and are willing to give our leaders a mandate for action. Once the house is rebuilt, we could care less about keeping it from burning down again.
Daniel Schorr hopes for the hero of hope. I say the hero is or memory. Let’s resurrect our collective memories and give support to those who would help us fix our problems. In the coming days, right wingers will ask us to abdicate our personal responsibility which they regularly champion. They will ask us to let the lobbyist and other financial interest write legislation which will effectively allow the fox to guard the hen house. Left wingers will take the opportunity to make us feel guilty for our success as a nation. They will ask us to redistribute oil money and regulate the market engine into oblivion. We should resist these impulses however good it may make us feel. We should help the new President build a consensus and stick with it. When our pocketbooks feel the pinch of three dollar gas and higher mortgage rates due to common sense regulation, we should stick with the program.
* My guess of the final tally of economic stimulus and bank welfare it will take to recover from this mess.