Lost in the din of the triumphal declarations of the nation "speaking with one voice" calling for a Restoration of the Reign of George W. Bush, is the fact that on key policies -- tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, privatizing Social Security and Medicare, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- the Republican agenda remains deeply unpopular. It's one thing to decry "government spending" but it's quite another thing when that means grandma is going to be moving into your basement because they stripped away her monthly check. The vast majority of Americans never supported a "privatize-and-pillage" attack on Social Security. Yet many of the Republican candidates in 2010 are on record supporting all manner of schemes to dismember Social Security.
President Obama might have squandered what was the only opportunity we might have for decades to restore the idea that government can be a public good capable of fighting effectively against entrenched power. But Wall Street got off scot-free and homeowners facing foreclosure got only the "Home Affordable Modification Plan" (HAMP), which appears to have been little more than a political ploy to give the appearance the government was doing something at a time when the number of foreclosures was shooting through the roof.
Now we're hearing the first mouse-like squeaks from Robert Gibbs and Harry Reid that maybe there should have been a "modification" of the Senate filibuster rule. That suggestion is about eighteen months too late. Obama, along with Reid, Max Baucus, and other Democratic Senators, internalized the notion that the Republicans had a 60-vote requirement to get anything passed. They told us that they had no choice but to try to court hacks like Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, and Olympia Snowe. ("Yes We Can! But.") "The professional Left" tried to warn Obama that if the filibuster wasn't addressed it would render him just another Washington politician in the eyes of those who had put their faith in his "Change" agenda.
In the final analysis, it's the things that can't be measured in opinion polls that matter most. People tell pollsters they don't like "spending" but even the most vociferous Tea Baggers (if they're not rich) don't want grandma's Medicare thrown to the business-suited wolves over at Aetna or HCA. The "stimulus" of $787 billion was too small and larded with too many tax cuts to make it viable; it also did very little to stop the draconian lay-offs at the state and local level, (which collectively totaled about 195,000). The $820 billion bailout of the big investment banks (TARP) did nothing but reinforce their predatory practices and reckless gambling habits. The incentives are still the same. And they're at it again gambling on billions in "synthetic" toxic waste knowing the federal government has got their backs.
In the 1990s, the major "bipartisan" policies that Bill Clinton enacted before and after he faced a hostile Republican Congress were all disastrous for the country: NAFTA (outsourced jobs), the Telecommunications Act (gave us Fox News), and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Commodities Futures Modernization Act (which Larry Summers loved), set the nation on the trajectory that produced the "worst economic downturn since the Great Depression."
What was needed the past two years was nothing short of a wholesale reaffirmation of the role of government in society. But truculent cloture rules, backroom deals, and dizzying amounts of lobbying cash proved that even with a liberal Democratic President in power and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress Washington was as fucked up as ever. The Obama people have told us repeatedly that we're in the "worst economic downturn since the Great Depression." Yet the reforms the Administration offered to deal with the crisis were mild at best.
If the Republicans win enough seats on Tuesday to take the House of Representatives, Government Oversight Committee Chair, Darrell Issa, and other attack dogs will be set loose to gnaw at the ankles of every Obama Administration official. They'll ferret out people with their hands in the till and feign "shock" at the "corruption" they've uncovered. The corporate media will follow every detail of the Republicans' investigations with the same rapt attentiveness they showed covering the Clinton "scandals." They'll "dirty up" President Obama going into the 2012 re-election campaign (which has already begun).
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So "; it also did nothing to stop the draconian lay-offs at the state and local level." is not too accurate.
It isn't about the size of government because both parties grow government. The size of government grew under both Reagan, Clinton and Bush. The administration also foolishly thought they could compete with the republicans by appointing a goldman sachs economic team while using harmless reformist rhetoric for their base without realizing that wall street and the banksters would accept nothing less than the total capitulation proposed by the republicans.
First of all, his claim that progressive policies are popular and more moderate ones are not in empirically verifiable. We will see what happens on Tuesday but from the polls it appears that he is just simply factually wrong.
Two, the filibuster is not the problem. The problem was Obama not being forcefull enough and allowing the senate do dither. He should have written a healcare bill and then used his huge majority and popularity at the beginning of his term to push it through.
Three, The economy did not tank due to any governmental policy or law. The economy tanked because Americans are not as productive as they once were, and because of forgein competition.
This statement is a testament to how toxic the Dem brand is right now. There would have to be the political equivalent of a Superfund to clean it up.
The Dems were warned in 2008 that the public is voting against George Bush and not the republican party.
The trouble is the people who gave that warning were Republicans and the Dems scoffed.
2010 bears out this warninig.
Obama and Democrats have cut medicare by $500,000,000,000.
You say "more tax cuts to the rich and corporations" then when asked what you mean you say "just wait"
Cuts to Social Security and Medicare and other "entitlements"? What cuts have been made so far and why?
Your grandchildren will look back and wonder how their grandparents were so clueless to not vote for Obama.
These are not the 1990s. This is a period of a depressed economy and a crappy job market. People want more jobs and a healthy economy. They don't care about nonexistent skeletons in Obama's background. And I say nonexistent because nothing has come out about the guy that is in any way scandalous.
The public didn't buy Whitewater. The media loved the story, but the public, according to polls, wasn't that interested. The media loved the Lewinsky scandal, and oh how the right wing squirmed when it failed to affect Clinton's approval ratings. Ten years after he left office, Bill is happily on the campaign trail. Where's George W. Bush?
If the GOP pursues impeachment, it WILL backfire.
THAT is the extent to which they are going after him.
If recall is correct, Bush did none of these things:
1. Signed executive order banning gov't involvement/funding abortion
2. Signed legislation allowing people to carry guns in national parks
3. Pushed through corporate/Republican influenced medical insurance reform that basically saves the current private system (and no public option)
4. Continues the Bush/Republican war strategy
5. Refuses executive order to overturn DADT
6. Is public about protecting marriage between one man and one woman
7. Orchestrated a recovery that benefits private enterprise
8. Reduced the size of gov't
9. Gave one of the biggest tax cuts in U.S. history (to middle class)
AND did most of this using the legislative branch (based on U.S. Constitution best practices)
You missed that for the last 365 days Obama's deficit has been over $1.7 trillion.
You missed that Obama and the Democrats have INCREASED the size of government spending.
You missed that Democrats will allow the largest tax increase in US history on January 1, 2011.
I think teabaggers are making up excuses to hate Obama.
The reasons don't matter. Each man hoad to face his own circumstances.
But where were the protestors when Bush did it and thratened to veto if anything was changed?
And if the people did not support Obama's $1.065 Trillion dollar plan, then why did he win a landslide? He said in the campaign he was going to do it.
Spoken like someone who has spent his entire life in academia. Government IS entrenched power. Keeping it on absolutely as short a leash as is humanly possible is only prudent.
Too many profs come to college as a freshman and never leave at all. That's hardly a diverse perspective of the world.
And under Republicans it's even worse. Now capitalism wants government to indemnify against risk. They won't spend unless the game is so rigged at taxpayer expense that it makes a mockery of the word capitalism.
The Constitution is based on the belief that people have inalienable rights. Corporations, unions, political groups or any entity that is not a person, does not. Therefore, any corporation, union, political action committee or any entity that is not a person, derives its rights exclusively from laws passed by congress or by the state from which it was chartered.
That's it. Get that passed, then e can regulate these entities with impunity.
As long as the Left continues to blindly support the Democratic party this will be the pattern.