Voters are angry, and for good reason. Jobs are gone; poverty is up; one in four homes, the leading source of savings for Americans, is underwater, worth less than the mortgage. Many who voted for Obama are discouraged; some argue there isn't a whit of difference between the parties. An increasing percentage say they will vote against the incumbents simply to protest what is going on.
But there is a great difference between the two parties. It's personified by the contrast between the positions of President Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner.
On taking office, faced with an economy losing 750,000 jobs a month, President Obama called for a bold recovery program, a package of tax cuts, infrastructure spending, support for education and renewable energy, and extended unemployment benefits, food stamps and health care support for those who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Although he supported bailing out the banks, Boehner said no to helping out Main Street, with zero Republicans voting for the plan in the House. In the Senate, Republicans worked to weaken the plan, making it smaller and stuffing in upper-end tax breaks like the alternative minimum tax that have little jobs impact. In the end, the Recovery Act spending, according to any independent economist, helped to stave off a far worse collapse, but wasn't big enough to create the jobs we need.
Now President Obama calls for adding $50 billion in investment in roads, runways and rail, for creating an infrastructure bank to mobilize private capital to rebuild America, for a range of tax breaks for small business owners. Boehner's plan is to keep tax rates where they are -- and to cut $100 billion from domestic spending next year -- a folly that would add hundreds of thousands to the ranks of the unemployed.
President Obama is for ending the deduction for Wall Street managers that enables them to pay a lower rate of taxes than their chauffeurs. Boehner is for protecting the tax break, as well as the Bush tax cuts for millionaires earning more than $250,000 a year that would add $700 billion to the deficits over the next decade.
President Obama is for investing in renewable energy, increasing fuel standards and driving the U.S. to recapture a lead in the new green industrial revolution that is sweeping the world. Boehner mobilized oil and gas interests to help dilute and stop energy legislation.
President Obama pushed to regulate the big banks, and establish a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would protect consumers from abuse by banks, insurers and credit card agencies. Boehner mobilized the bank lobby to oppose reforms, and calls for repeal of the consumer bureau.
President Obama pushed to extend unemployment insurance; Boehner opposed.
President Obama pushed health care reform, not only to extend coverage to all, but also to end abusive insurance company practices of denying those with pre-existing conditions, or setting a cap on what is insured each year. Boehner joined the insurance lobby in opposition.
Obama says we need a new foundation for the economy, with investment in education and training, in research and development and in modernizing our infrastructure. Boehner is opposed.
Obama would repeal the tax break that rewards companies that move jobs overseas. Boehner defends the tax break, and calls for more of the same trade treaties that helped lose one in three manufacturing jobs over the last decade and left the U.S. borrowing more than $2 billion a day from abroad.
And this is only on economic questions. For those thinking of staying home or casting protest votes, take another look. Boehner recently opened a Boehner for Speaker Fund, raising millions from corporate political action committees and lobbyists for Republican congressional candidates. The first big check came from a Wall Street bank.
Follow Rev. Jesse Jackson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/revjjackson
That's what he said TWO YEARS AGO.
It must be campaign season once again.
You forget that Peolsi pushed the bailout of the corrupt Wall Street firms.
I suggest that "we, the people of the United States," are ultimately going to have to be the people who bring about change -- and when we do so, it will be a change that both the GOP and the Democrats fear and resent. So will thousands of K-street "residents" who, along with most of the Congress, suddenly might find themselves facing criminal charges brought on the basis of nothing less than the US Constitution itself.
Our Constitution consists of a few thousand beautifully-handwritten words, inscribed upon one venerated piece of vellum. It's a document of "guiding principles." And none of these may be more important to all of us now than The Impeachment Clause ... Article 2, Section 4:
"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Brilliant in its simplicity. Breathtaking in its scope. "All civil officers." Any offense, outrageous to trivial. Due process of law. Mandatory. Unconditional.
Word twenty-four. "Treason." Twenty-five. "BRIBERY." Word six. "ALL." Word thirteen. "SHALL." Twenty-nine. "CRIME."
Our Founders didn't require five thousand pages to declare that this thing which we're supposed to call "lobbying," "campaign contributions," or worst, "corporate freedom of speech," is ... a monstrous crime.
It's crime pursued by GOP and Democrat alike.
"The love of money," Reverend. "The Book" is right.
http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson09132010.html
Sometimes, things have to get worse before they get better.
That strategy of hustling votes for Blue Dogs has been played out since the 1980's.
I would say the ONE thing that Obama completely ignored was encouraging innovation. Innovations is was has kept American jobs well paying providing growth over the past 30 years. I don't think Obama really understand what encouraging innovation means. Simply talking "Green" is not in itself being innovative.
To whatever extent Obama is truly bipartisan it won't be clear until Nancy and Harry are ouf of the picture.
Looking at the way you framed the differences between the two parties looks as if it really comes down to how you envision the country clawing its self out of the government-induced economic implosion caused by easy credit and the drive to expand subprime lending:
Democrats = give money away to the unemployed and poor, hoping that their propensity to blow it all on consumer items instead of saving it will create more jobs, thus creating a virtuous economic cycle. A ridiculous idea when faced with long-term structural employment and weak economic fundamentals.
Republicans = give tax breaks to the those that own businesses and the rich, hoping that those that actually own businesses and know what it takes to create sustainable jobs will do a better job of allocating the money toward money-making, profit-creating, job-spurring, sustainable economic activity. And will do so in a more efficient way that the government with its shovel-ready jobs on the bridge-to-nowhere will do.
Personally, I would Wall Street and Business before government-controlled welfare/workfare programs any day. Doing so creates sustainable economic activity not just jobs that cost more to create than they are worth.
Kai
Since you've put it so neatly, I'll oblige you and say let's do it your way, by golly; the republican way!
But then, wait a minute... We HAVE done it your republican way: Greed, deregulation, trickle-down, tax credit for those very thoughtful and oh so capable wealthy, small government aka pick yourself up by your own boot straps and oops too bad, so sad you don't own any boots government... Yeah, even you should get the picture. It led to a financial crises second to the Great Depression!
Get real. But I give you this much: It takes balls to advocate so shamelessly the failed economic policies of the past decade.
You must either have a wry sense of humor or you've been living on Mars up until this very moment.
You also assume that you have tried it ‘my way’? You haven’t: Small government with small taxation and spending powers, that is without bias, regulating market processes not market outcomes and leaving the rest up to free market economics and individual achievement. This has not happened and is not happening now. The government has been trying to dictate market outcomes by manipulating it to create ‘social good’ or reward special interests instead of regulating the process in an unbiased way. It resulted in a credit bubble, a housing bubble, and a moral hazard bubble ,which, in turn, led to a financial crisis. Taking big government out of the equation would have remedied these bubbles much earlier and have led to a softer landing.
You are also tying in deregulation and greed with the Republicans, when there are no shortage Democrats that fall into this camp. Another reason to limit the powers of our federal government since both parties use their powers to take from one group and give another.
Finally, not sure what you have against people picking themselves up by their own bootstraps and relying on individual achievement to get ahead and/or become rich instead of waiting for someone else to work for it so you can just take it from them.
Kai
That $50 Billion "Infrastructure" Plan
Obama's Thatcherite Gift to the Banks
By MICHAEL HUDSON
http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson09132010.html
I can smell the newest giveaway looming a mile off. The Wall Street bailout, health-insurance giveaway and support of real estate prices rather than mortgage-debt write-downs were bad enough, not to mention the Oil War’s Afghan extension. But now comes a topper: the $50 billion transportation infrastructure plan that Obama proposed in Milwaukee – cynically enough, on Labor Day. It looks like the Thatcherite Public-Private Partnership, Britain’s notorious giveaway to the City of London underwriters. The financial giveaway had the effect of increasing prices for basic infrastructure services by building in heavy financial fees – guaranteed for the banks, who lent the money that banks and property owners used to pay in taxes in more progressive times.
The Obama transport plan is like a Fannie Mae for bankers, based on the President’s guiding mantra: “Let’s help Wall Street put Americans back to work.” The theory is that giving public guarantees and bailouts will enable financial managers to use some of the money to fund some projects that employ people – with newly created, NON-UNIONIZED companies, presumably.
Here's another stand out part of that article.
"But Obama’s infrastructure plan is for Wall Street investors to get the windfall – as property owners or as mortgage lenders making much larger loans against the enhanced site value. Balzac said that behind every family fortune is a great theft, and I would add that behind every great fortune is a public-sector giveaway. The largest asset in most families, billionaires as well as small homeowners, is land. The key to its site value (“location, location and location”) is transportation and other public infrastructure. The land grants to railroad barons after America’s Civil War, for example created the largest American fortunes for the ensuing century."