Well, based on the latest economic figures it seems pretty clear that all that talk earlier this year about how the economy is beginning to bounce back and by summer we should see employment picking up was just wishful thinking at best. Or maybe it was just cover to allow Washington to concentrate on how much we should slash government spending in return for raising the debt ceiling.
It's painfully obvious to most of us that unemployment is the number one problem facing our country, but Washington just ignores the millions who are hurting, and looks for more ways to take money out of the economy, throw more government workers out of their jobs, and ensure future retirees won't have much to look forward to in their later years.
President Obama is looking more and more like President Hoover every day. Here he is, the one man with the bully pulpit and the oratorical skills to convince Americans that we must first put people back to work, then worry about our debt problem, but instead he's engaged in cutting more spending.
He needs to stand up and convince Americans that putting people back to work will actually reduce our federal debt - and reduce the budget problems of the states. Workers pay federal, state, local, and sales taxes, revenue that goes into state and federal treasuries! This is such a simple concept that one almost wonders if ignoring it could be considered tacit evidence that the President and both parties are working together to dismantle the middle class and starve the poor.
Our federal government was conceived as a structure supported "by the people, for the people." In other words the government was envisioned as the mechanism where the people ("by the people" through their self-imposed taxes) help make life better for all of us ("for the people"). Here we have this supposedly smart President sitting at the wheel of this impressively powerful car called the government, and he just sits there, key in the ignition. All he has to do is turn on the engine and put this big car in motion to help get people back to work (we saw George Bush turn on the ignition and put the car in motion, but instead of helping Americans, he used it to invade a country of his choice and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people.)
Politicians tell us they are more concerned about our debt than unemployment because that's what the people are demanding. Well, of course that's what they're demanding because that's what you have been telling them is our number one problem! Where is our President in all this? Mute. This is a guy that is so articulate that he convinced millions of us to vote for a black man with a strange name instead of a war hero! If he can do that, surely he can convince Americans that unemployment is our biggest problem, that if we put people back to work it will reduce the debt and provide tax dollars to hire back laid-off teachers and policemen. This will increase demand and companies will start hiring workers to meet that demand and it will just begin to snowball. Instead, Obama is sitting at the wheel of the car, watching the Republicans make the car less powerful. Brilliant!
Back in the 50s and 60s the Democratic and Republican parties concentrated on how to make America better. When one party's leaders faltered like Hoover or Obama, the other party would counter with a leader they thought had better ideas. When Hoover let the country slide into depression, the Democrats ran Franklin Roosevelt who was able to get the country moving.
President Obama, in my opinion, does not deserve to be re-elected but he most likely will because the opposition party has no one even half as smart. Today's Republicans don't want to make America greater, they want to make America a third world nation run by white Christians for white Christians. Really.
After dinner last night I asked my son (a 30 year-old liberal who has said he will not vote for Obama in 2012) if he thought America will eventually become a progressive nation in the European mold (greater government services and safety nets) or will we continue on our path to becoming a backwater nation for a few decades. He believes we will bounce back and see a renaissance of greatness. Good, I'm glad he's optimistic.
I'm not as optimistic. I think the first indication of how our future will look is the success or failure of the recalls in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan. These are the states where angry, energized, people are pitted against the wealthy. The second indication of our future will be the House and Senate races in 2012. If the loony, class-war Republicans keep the status quo or make gains in 2012, our future looks grim.
--Trakker
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