- Jun 6, 2007
- 852
- 483
- 910
The American people could be making it worse for themselves voting the Republicans back in power in Washington this November. The Democrats did a terrible job during the past two years but the Republicans are fully cuplable in Washington's failure during this time. One example would be the Republican Party's egregious perfromance on the Economic Stimulus bill! The Republican Party's solution was an approximately $400 billion stimulus bill principly focused on small business and big business tax cuts as the answer. This was outrageous considering that many econominists of both major parties affiliation publicly stateted the stimulus bill had to be in the trillion dollar range to generate the economic lift to turn the country's economy around. The ultimately passed $814 billion stimulus bill (really $750 billion if one considers the one year fix to the alternative minimum tax provisions in the tax code cost around $70 billion dollars) was woefully short on infrastructure and other stimulus spending and America's business community recognized this and consequently cut staff and spending wihich skrocketed the unemployment rate. The Republicans were completely unreasonable and uncooperative about this bill. The bill's must haves alone totalled about $350 billion dollars which the Republicans never recognized; this is so if one considers the needed spending in the bill such as the unemployment and unemployed health insurance assistance programs, the medicaid assistance and essential education assistance for the states which desperately needed the money because of a drop in tax revenue because of the recession, the $400 or $800 Making Work Pay Tax credit, the mirror or corresponding $250 payment to Social Security recipients and the needed Food Stamp Program increase. In the balance of the bill the Democrats were irresponsible in their social program spending but again the balance of the bill had to have Federal government spending which created jobs quickly like the "shovel ready transportation infrastructue" spending, any economist worth his or her salt will tell you that this direct government spending is the best way to guarrantee the creation of jobs which the country desperately needed. The Republicans never even tried to negotiate their $200 to $250 billion business tax cuts and reduction of the social program spending for their support for a $900 billion stimulus bill which is what the country needed at that time. In short, the Republican party failed in doing its duty for the American people on the stimulus bill issue?
Another major issue for the country over the past two years was health care reform. It is true that the Democrats effort here was a disaster, the bill they passed is going to cause a financial crisis for the nation, the country can't afford the insurance entitlement program for low income familiies the bill created, etc.. But again the Republican party was not there for the American people on this matter, again the Republican party ignores the problems of lower income Americans because solving this issue causes problems to their party's platform. The Republican party fails to recognize that health insurance is too expensive for lower and middle income American families, a five digit yearly health insurance bill is unaffordable for these Americans. Buying health insurance across state lines, health saving accounts and other Republican party smoke isn't enough to address this problem. The Federal government is going to have to help these families buy health insurance, it is going to have to pay a significant portion of the costs. The funny thing about this whole specific issue is that two of the best Republican Senators that served in the U.S. Senate over the past twenty-five years made statements over the past two years pointing a spot light on the answer the country needs on this speciifc issue! Senators Bill Frist and Bob Dole both made statements indicating that it is the right thing to do for the Federal Government to do to create a program to help these Americans buy "catastrophic" health care insurance coverage. It is quite revealing on the arrogance and aloofness of the current Republican Party when they ignore or pressure to change their finest living members!
The recently passed financial reform legislation provides another great example where the current Republican party is not committed to doing the right thing for the American people. America just went through the worst Recession it experienced in the last seventy-five years, unbelievably the credit-markets seized up, the stock markets lossed over forty percent of their value and were at the brink of collapse and the American economy threw the whole world into a recession and leaders throughout the world were as mad as hell at our de-regulated, casino capitalism atmosphere that exists in America. And the Republican party is like America doesn't need a major overhaul of its financial regulation system everything is fine. The facts speak for themselves here! The Republican party has criticized the bill for giving Federal regulators the power and resources to step in and take control of a financial institution that will cause systemic problems and wind down that institution, they say things like this will create perpetual bailouts. This is the lamest, most irresponsible, most dastardly criticism that a political party could make on such an issue. Any competent analysis of our country's economy will underscore the interdependcy of big financial insitituitons, if one suddenly does very poorly or fails it affects others, the American people in fact see this on a almost a daily basis - when one big bank or insurance or like company "stock" does significantly well or bad it often causes a similar effect on other like businesses stock. If one examines what transpired in the markets during the recent recession one will see this connection; when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt many other stocks in the stock market dropped in value precipitiously which led to careful scrutinization of bank stocks by investers which led to worries over the banks (savings and loans) specifically Washington Mutual and Wachovia which were among the weakest in their category, investor fear led to the stocks of these institutions dropping in value dramatically which led to a run on these banks by deposiors which resulted in these institutions permanent demise. For knowledgeable and responsible people their wasn't an issue that Congress had work to do in this area of stopping individual financial institutions from causing systematic harm in the American economy only apparently among politicians that call themselves Republicans was there an issue!
This commentary is definately not advocating that the American electorate vote Democrat in the upcoming election because the Republican party has not changed from the Republican party that existed during the George W. Bush Presidency which asleepness partially caused the Great Recession or because the Republican Party has gotten worse because they found religion they don't deficit spend now because that violates the principles which the Republican party stands for! What this commentary is advocating is that Americans don't let their disillusionment with the Democrat Party's performance move them to just vote Republican in the races being held Novemeber 2, Americans need to look at each candidate whether Democrat, Republican, Independent, etc. and vote for the best candidate! America needs good legislation passed in Washington in upcoming years if it is going to be the great country it can be for all Americans and Congressional votes will likely come down to a handful of votes, every American should vote November 2 like the well-being of the country is in their hands because it very well may be!
Another major issue for the country over the past two years was health care reform. It is true that the Democrats effort here was a disaster, the bill they passed is going to cause a financial crisis for the nation, the country can't afford the insurance entitlement program for low income familiies the bill created, etc.. But again the Republican party was not there for the American people on this matter, again the Republican party ignores the problems of lower income Americans because solving this issue causes problems to their party's platform. The Republican party fails to recognize that health insurance is too expensive for lower and middle income American families, a five digit yearly health insurance bill is unaffordable for these Americans. Buying health insurance across state lines, health saving accounts and other Republican party smoke isn't enough to address this problem. The Federal government is going to have to help these families buy health insurance, it is going to have to pay a significant portion of the costs. The funny thing about this whole specific issue is that two of the best Republican Senators that served in the U.S. Senate over the past twenty-five years made statements over the past two years pointing a spot light on the answer the country needs on this speciifc issue! Senators Bill Frist and Bob Dole both made statements indicating that it is the right thing to do for the Federal Government to do to create a program to help these Americans buy "catastrophic" health care insurance coverage. It is quite revealing on the arrogance and aloofness of the current Republican Party when they ignore or pressure to change their finest living members!
The recently passed financial reform legislation provides another great example where the current Republican party is not committed to doing the right thing for the American people. America just went through the worst Recession it experienced in the last seventy-five years, unbelievably the credit-markets seized up, the stock markets lossed over forty percent of their value and were at the brink of collapse and the American economy threw the whole world into a recession and leaders throughout the world were as mad as hell at our de-regulated, casino capitalism atmosphere that exists in America. And the Republican party is like America doesn't need a major overhaul of its financial regulation system everything is fine. The facts speak for themselves here! The Republican party has criticized the bill for giving Federal regulators the power and resources to step in and take control of a financial institution that will cause systemic problems and wind down that institution, they say things like this will create perpetual bailouts. This is the lamest, most irresponsible, most dastardly criticism that a political party could make on such an issue. Any competent analysis of our country's economy will underscore the interdependcy of big financial insitituitons, if one suddenly does very poorly or fails it affects others, the American people in fact see this on a almost a daily basis - when one big bank or insurance or like company "stock" does significantly well or bad it often causes a similar effect on other like businesses stock. If one examines what transpired in the markets during the recent recession one will see this connection; when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt many other stocks in the stock market dropped in value precipitiously which led to careful scrutinization of bank stocks by investers which led to worries over the banks (savings and loans) specifically Washington Mutual and Wachovia which were among the weakest in their category, investor fear led to the stocks of these institutions dropping in value dramatically which led to a run on these banks by deposiors which resulted in these institutions permanent demise. For knowledgeable and responsible people their wasn't an issue that Congress had work to do in this area of stopping individual financial institutions from causing systematic harm in the American economy only apparently among politicians that call themselves Republicans was there an issue!
This commentary is definately not advocating that the American electorate vote Democrat in the upcoming election because the Republican party has not changed from the Republican party that existed during the George W. Bush Presidency which asleepness partially caused the Great Recession or because the Republican Party has gotten worse because they found religion they don't deficit spend now because that violates the principles which the Republican party stands for! What this commentary is advocating is that Americans don't let their disillusionment with the Democrat Party's performance move them to just vote Republican in the races being held Novemeber 2, Americans need to look at each candidate whether Democrat, Republican, Independent, etc. and vote for the best candidate! America needs good legislation passed in Washington in upcoming years if it is going to be the great country it can be for all Americans and Congressional votes will likely come down to a handful of votes, every American should vote November 2 like the well-being of the country is in their hands because it very well may be!
