During my 2 month hiatus from blogging, I took the time to re-evaluate my views of American politics. I talked to a lot of really smart people on multiple sides of the political spectrum, from Rhodes scholar liberals to hyper-libertarian activists, to conservative idealists to optimistically blind liberals, and even one admittedly raging socialist. I talked primarily about this economic stimulus that the new President is pushing. There actually seems to be a consensus within these political minds: something has got to be done to deal with this failing economy, but everyone is scared to spend too much money.
Liberal bloggers, now calling themselves “progressives” are certain that their new Christ has got the right idea. Throw thousands of unrelated projects together to create one giant “stimulus” project that takes place over several years, create several temporary jobs to fulfill these projects, make every state and every special interest group happy by giving them a few b/million dollars and then hope for the best when having to pay it back some day. And if Republicans don’t vote for this bill, they are not looking out for the best interest of their constituents.
The President is calling on “bi-partisanship.” This means supporting him because he won. When President Obama was calling Senate Republicans poop-faces today for not supporting him, he threw in for at LEAST the third time in recent weeks the fact that Democrats won the elections.
Bi-partisanship is nothing but one ideology conceding defeat to another. And that is exactly what this President is asking for and is probably what he is going to get.
So says the New York Times.
The negotiations in Congress will test whether Democrats, who say they won a mandate in November to pursue their goals, are willing to give up some favored long-term policy initiatives to win over more Republican votes.
They may have won a mandate from their districts, but Republicans that were re-elected also were handed a mandate to do everything they can to defeat these measures.
Tags: bipartisanship, stimulus
February 8, 2009 at 12:27 am |
The interesting thing for me is Obama and his disciples are behaving as though they won by some kind of landslide… it wasn’t that far off. Nearly half of the people who voted were NOT supporting him or his ideals of how to run our government. This is not a democracy, it is a Republic and that gives the minority rights as well. We do not have to automatically bend to the will of a majority! I hope the Republicans can hold this pork package off. Nice post. I have a similar mind set and have recently come back from a month long hiatus myself. Come visit my Blog, I think we have some similar views.
Http://Revolution2010.wordpress.com
February 8, 2009 at 8:59 am |
I do not understand why people are having diffculty understanding. The number of unemployed people (11.6 million) and the unemployment rate (7.6 percent) rose in January. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 4.1 million. The Department of Labor reported today that nonfarm payroll employment fell sharply in January (-598,000) and the unemployment rate rose from 7.2 to 7.6 percent. Payroll employment has declined by 3.6 million since the start of the recession in December 2007, …. most of this mess happening only in past three months! And some wonder Obama is pushing so hard for a stimulus package. Is the Herbert Hoover approach, do nothing, all we need, leading us to a twelve year depression ??