Stiffening the Backbones of Democrats
Submitted by anonymous on March 10, 2010 - 11:46am
You know what we need to juice up the performance of our weak economy? Viagra.
Yes, America needs a new Viagra, specifically targeted to stiffen backbones - in particular, the limp backbones of Barack Obama's team, as well as the flaccid spines of Democratic congressional leaders. Where's the drug industry when we really need it?
The Obama-ites seem incapable of firm stands. They excite us by boldly addressing our economic woes, then they seduce us by proposing stout actions. But when it comes time to follow through - it's droopsville.
Take America's job crisis. Obama and the Democrats eloquently empathize with the plight of struggling families who are falling out of the middle class. They point out that after Wall Street banksters crashed our economy and created the Great Recession, which began in December 2007, the number of jobs available to Americans has plummeted by more than 8.4 million. Since then, another 2.7 million jobseekers have come into the workforce. That leaves us in a hole that is 11.1 million jobs deep.
The White House and Congress correctly note that our economy must not merely stop losing jobs, it must create more than 400,000 new positions a month for the next three years just to get us out of this hole. Nothing is more important, they tell us, blowing kisses of compassion and promising satisfaction.
"Our three most important priorities in this Congress," says Rep. Bob Ethridge, a North Carolina Democrat, are "jobs, jobs, jobs." Obama himself has titillated the hopes of working families by proposing a $266 billion national emergency program to put America to work.
Strong stuff - let's get it on!
Sure enough, after a lengthy romancing of their Republican colleagues (who are devout believers in an abstinence-only job-creation policy), the Democrats finally made their move last week. With the support of five GOP senators, the "jobs, jobs, jobs" bill passed in both houses of Congress.
But ....
What a letdown. To win those five Republican senators, Democratic leaders shriveled their job investment program from a robust $266 billion to a frustratingly puny $15 billion. Even such phony Casanovas as Sen. Chuck Schumer had to confess that the "package is not a panacea; it's not going to solve everything."
Everything? Chuck, admit your impotence. At most, this bill might stimulate the creation of 250,000 new jobs - a bit short of the 11 million that America needs just to get back to where were in 2007, much less the need to create an economic path to lead us into a bold future of new, sustainable, middle-class job creation.
In fact, the Democrats' response is even weaker than it appears. Rather than directly creating jobs that pay workers, the $15 billion is going into tax breaks for businesses. The convoluted hope is that the money will "encourage" the recipients to hire a few people who're suffering from long-term joblessness. This trickle-down approach is even more pathetic than trying to fight a house fire with a squirt gun, for it doesn't even put the squirt gun in the hands of the people caught in the fire
What the Democrats have done is to pass a do-nothing Republican bill, a reality that was blurted out by Sen. Orrin Hatch, one of the five GOPsters to vote for it: "This is a conservative approach to help put our economy back on track through tax relief, not government spending."
What a fraud. And an insult. Remember when Wall Street bankers shouted "Fire!" two years ago? Both parties rushed to the rescue, not with "conservative" tax relief, but with trillions of public dollars that they put directly in the hands of the same Wall Street arsonists who started the fire.
We expect pious Republicans to consider millions of struggling American workers to be less worthy than a few greedheaded bankers, but not the Party of Roosevelt. Yet one Democratic leader said of this feeble bill, "Better something than nothing."
Maybe they're fooling themselves - but not us, and certainly not the jobless. This bill is nothing. And if Democrats don't stiffen their spines, they'll be nothing, too.
© 2010 Creators.com
Sanders: Obama Has Tragically Lost the Youth, Antagonized Unions
by Sam Stein
A trio of the Senate's leading progressives expressed concern on Wednesday that President Obama has squandered the transformational political coalition that propelled him into office, concluding that he will pay a price for it.
Speaking at a progressive media summit, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called it a "tragic mistake" that the White House fruitlessly chased Republican votes on health care rather than take advantage of the ripe environment to pass legislation.
"What is very sad is we had hopes that [the] election was transformational in the sense of bringing people into the political process who have never been in it before," Sanders said. "I tried very hard in Vermont to bring young people into the political process. It is very hard to do. Obama did it. But you know where those young people are now? They are not in the political process. They really aren't. We have lost them. We have antagonized trade unionists. We have not done well with seniors. I don't think we have done well with women. And I think that was a tragic mistake."
Certainly, the Vermont Independent was tossing red meat to the liberal crowd. A cadre of bloggers, talk show hosts and radio personalities at the forum repeatedly pressed the senators in attendance to be more aggressive at selling the Democratic agenda -- whether on television or in discussions with the White House.
Alongside Sanders, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) acknowledged that the president's commitments, specifically in regard to health care reform, had come up short. Discussing the idea of Medicare expansion, he said that the Senate didn't have the will to pursue such a policy because "the president wasn't going to fight for it."
"I know that a lot of you are discouraged about what has happened in the last year," Brown said. "Discouraged that the conservative, moderate wing of the Democratic Party too often seems to holds sway over both caucuses."
Echoing the Ohio Democrat, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich), admitted that frictions exist within the party over the best path of governance. And, as a result, the message and achievements suffered.
"Not only do we struggle among ourselves because of our differences. But we are not all on the same page all the time," she said.
The harshest indictment (certainly when it came to assessing the job done by the president) was delivered by Sanders. The Vermonter proclaimed that it was a tactical error to start the health care process by stressing the need for legislation to get 60 votes. And he called it only practical that constituencies -- most prominently the nation's youth and its union members -- will sour on the president after he backtracked on campaign promises.
"I happen to believe that Obama ran the best campaign I've seen in my lifetime," Sanders said. 'I think the mistake was made after the election -- that we forget about the grassroots in this country, we forget about the trade unions and we say to them, 'Well, when we campaigned we [were] telling you we were opposed to McCain's tax on health care benefits, but now we have changed our mind.'"
"I think what we have got to re-engage in, is a progressive clear agenda," he added. "I think we have got to go out and rally the American people, get the young people involved again... and engage the grassroots in this country in a significant political battle as we bring forward simple straightforward progressive legislation that takes on the special interests."
Post new comment