Lacking Stimulation

When I was in college, I did quite a bit of study of government and was fairly politically active.  For a couple years, I was the head of the College Republicans at my university and considered a career in government and politics.  However, as the time approached to get a real job, I decided that politics was not for me.  The main reason is that politics in American requires one to spout the extremist and impractical beliefs of your core constituency.  And you have to suck up to stupid people.  Neither was too appealing to me.  [NOTE: I’m no longer a Republican.  I’m not a Democrat either.   If you want to label me, I’d say I’m a common sense libertarian.]

 

The stimulus bill in the Senate is the epitome of what is wrong with politics in American today.   Our economy has hit a rough patch.  President-elect Obama says that we could use some fiscal stimulus to get us out of this recession, and we could get some of our infrastructure fixed to boot.  That all sounded like a pretty good idea.  But insert that idea into our polarized, partisan political environment, and the wheels fall off.  The idea is sound.  The bill is bad.  And both parties are to blame for how this got screwed up.

 

DEMOCRATS:  “Yes we can.”  The new party in power was going to get the trains running again and put American back to work.  The time to act was now.  But the Democrats just couldn’t control themselves as long as the tab was open.  Only 13% for the original stimulus bill had anything to do with infrastructure.  There were big chunks in there to extend unemployment benefits, unemployed health insurance and aid to states.  All that was fine.  But then there were the unusual items; the items that don’t really seem related to stimulus.  Millions of dollars for the CDC to raise AIDS awareness.  Millions of dollars for climate change studies.  Are there lots of unemployed meteorologists out there?  How is this going to help a machinist in Toledo?  I mean, this is deficit spending here.  We should have some discretion on what we do with the money.  Plus, these easy targets allowed an isolated Republican minority to point out that Obama & Company were just the same old tax-and-spend Democrats, and progress ground to a halt.  Stupid.   A smartly written bill could have sailed through Congress.  Now even some Democrats are questioning large chunks of the $900B tab.

 

And then there is the irresponsible way President Obama has pressed the stimulus.  Almost daily, he stands in front of a bank of microphones to say that, if we don’t pass this stimulus bill, it’s going to be 1931 all over again.  Depression the likes of which Americans have never seen.  Dust bowls.  Locusts.  Plague. 

 

I’m not economic expert.  I don’t know if he’s right or not.  But even if he is right, he’s not helping the situation.  Consumer spending is a large part of our economy.  As house values and 401k values drop, people feel poorer, even though their monthly disposable income may be unchanged.  So they lower their consumption.  And every time Mr. “Yes We Can” stands up to read from the “Grapes of Wrath,” he further tightens people’s spending.  Maybe 5% less people decide to eat out for dinner.  Maybe 10% decide to forgo a vacation.  That’s real money hurting real businesses that provide real jobs.  So I don’t really care whether President Obama is right and/or whether beating down the economy is a shrewd political move.  It’s irresponsible.  

 

REPUBLICANS:  Not to be outdone, the Moral Minority has said some stupid things too.  I will give the Republicans credit for pointing out some of the questionable items in the stimulus, and reminding us all that this is deficit spending – we are borrowing from the future here, so we might want to do it somewhat wisely.  But that is where the intelligence ends.  The Republicans want more tax cuts.  In theory it sounds like a good idea, but it’s fiscally irresponsible.  Forget the stimulus package for a minute.  Our deficit is big and getting bigger, in large part because the last administration decided to expand the welfare state by giving drugs to old people.   They financed this buy cutting taxes.  I thought the Republicans were the business party.   Increasing costs while lowering revenue is bad for business, and you don’t need an MBA to know that. 

 

Look, I ‘d love to see my taxes lowered.  But I’d also prefer to live in a country that is not leveraged to the hilt like some South American nation.  If you want to cut taxes, the only responsible way to do it is to make a corresponding cut in spending.  Otherwise, that deficit the Republicans are so worried about grows.  Plus, unemployed people don’t pay a lot in taxes, so I’m not sure how much tax cuts will help.

 

So here we are.  The Democrats are arguing that growing trans-gender studies is going to put America back to work.  Our president s giving anti-Roosevelt speeches; we have everything to fear including fear itself.  And the Republicans want to cut taxes for an increasingly unemployed populous.  The fact that our country is prosperous is more a tribute to capitalism than it is our current representative government.

 

Tags: congress, economic news, economic stimulus, economic stimulus bill, economy, government, President Obama