REPUBLICANS BORN AGAIN, DEMOCRATS IN DENIAL

The Republicans now have a lot to say about the Stimulus Bill.

We hear revisionist history from Republicans in Congress stating that the New Deal legislation did not work. The real indication of whether New Deal legislation worked is the fact that the voters reelected Roosevelt by even bigger numbers in 1936 than he received in 1932.

We hear this same sort of revisionist history from Republicans and Democrats who state that prohibition did not work. Prohibition did reduce alcohol consumption, but it did not address the issue of overcoming addictions. Nor did it end the huge profits people could sop up from alcohol production and sales. Addiction and greed had their way: history has to follow the leader.

I do not know why we should even consult the Republicans these days. Their ideas, their mismanagement, their lack of oversight, that got us into this economic mess. A mess this bad did not happen by accident: it took Republican teamwork in the Congress and in the White House.

Representative Zack Wamp of Tennessee said this during the Stimulus Bill debate on Friday afternoon 13 February 2009:

“Just because Republicans spent too much money after Sept 11 and lost our way on financial matters does not mean we should allow the Democratic party to wreck our ship of state.”

I for one cannot take their change of heart and repentance seriously.

If these guys had been aboard the Titanic, they would have told us — as water sloshed around our knees — that twenty lifeboats are enough, that the problem is not the fault of the crew or the iceberg, and that it is the fault of other ships that they are not around to pick up the survivors. They would complain that the lifeboats cost too much.

Where were these Republicans when we needed them to

oppose President Bush’s tax cuts that had a way of concentrating power?

Oppose President Bush’s expensive war in Iraq that had nothing to do with the details of 9/11?

Oppose President Bush when he spent billions on the illusion of security and to reduce our personal rights?


THE CALL TO ACTION

I hear some criticize the Republicans for placing abstract principle over basic safety, which is bad policy to say nothing of bad politics. Well, there is nothing wrong with upholding abstract principles in principle. When they are stupid abstract principles, it is quite another thing.

2008 and 2009 will prove conclusively that the free market is a myth if not an outright crock.

The Democrats are not heroes in this mess, either. They have to date exhibited complete denial about the toxic assets. The government cannot avoid this issue. It must assess the bigness and badness of toxic assets in detail, and then eat them.

The government failed in its duties to regulate and stop laws and programs that promoted excessive exuberant greed. It now must take its punishment to save the nation and its economy.