Stoopid Stuff

Stimulatio

Has it really come to this? Have we, at long last, finally reached the point where political leaders are not just irrelevant, not just obstructionist, but are the primary roadblock to doing anything about anything?

Barack Obama, his economic advisers and cabinet members and respected economists of all stripes have spent the last two months explaining to us in no uncertain terms just exactly what the problem is, how big it is, what the consequences are and what is most likely to be an effective solution package. We have seen the numbers, read the reports. We know, as does President Obama, what is stimulative, what creates jobs and utilizes available resources, and what does not. Immediately upon his inauguration, Obama, working with legislators, began preparation of a large economic stimulus package.

First the Republicans milked the President's naive attempts to "compromise" in order to bring them on board. Many of us wondered, "if you are convinced that your plan represents the best course for America to follow, then HOW DARE YOU allow a losing coterie of rejectionists and obstructionists force you to water down what you presented as necessary to avert catastrophe?" And then, predictably, House Republicans, every one, to a man and a woman, voted against the very compromises they'd demanded.

I suppose this was predictable. The Republican party in America is at a crossroads - representative of only a shrinking fractional slice of the population, but afraid to soften their rhetoric of racial and tribal hatred and failed economic ideologies for fear of losing even the meager support they have today. And it's worth mentioning that due to the large majority the Democrats hold in the house, none of those negotiations were even necessary.

But this awkward dance with so-called "centrists" in the Senate is beyond inexplicable - it is borderline obscene. As much as many of us like Bill Clinton, we were frequently appalled by his political flexibility. He didn't seem to hold any core positions, but would shift and triangulate to whatever was the most popular political ideology. His ideology meant nothing, his promises all turned to ash as he played out a grand game without seeming to care about the actual outcome. What we have seen of Barack Obama in the last couple weeks is disturbingly similar.

Held hostage by a group of bloviating narcissists led by Susan Collins and Ben Nelson, Obama pandered and praised as they weakened some of the best provisions in the legislation in exchange for a ridiculous, regressive tax refund for the purchase of an automobile or a home. Oh, the automobile you purchase doesn't have to have even a minimum set of emissions standards, and the house you buy will likely continue to plummet in value for another year at least. While additional funding for states, who need to spend that money NOW, in your community, was slashed.

Why? What were they trying to accomplish? Cutting 80 or so billion dollars out of a nearly 1 trillion dollar package doesn't seem to change much of the calculation long-term. And yet, much of what they cut was some of the most effective stimulus spending possible for a government to undertake, while the tax credits they put in are worthless in that context. There can be only one explanation, and sadly, it is the obvious one. In 21st century American politics, it isn't about doing the best you can for your country and your constituency. It's about the politicians themselves, what they can gain personally, without regard to any genuine harm or damage done. In our celebrity-infatuated rock-star culture, personalities are something we can cling to, identify with, love or hate without having to invest the time and effort to learn what is actually at stake.

In Washington, the coin of the realm is power, and Susan Collins and Ben Nelson have it. They could thumb their noses at the new administration, tearing much of the heart out of Obama's first big package, and then stand in the glare of the cameras and claim to have facilitated the passage of the bill.

Obama needs to learn that the world is NOT the one in which he'd LIKE to be President, it is the one in which he IS President. The days of good-faith negotiation in the best interests of the American People, to whatever extent they ever actually existed, are well and truly over. He has to stand firm, to say "I believe this is the best course for our nation, and if you won't allow it to be implemented, you need to stand before the public and explain to them why". He needs to say, "the idiot who last occupied this position showed us in detail exactly what doesn't work, so anyone still pushing these clearly failed and discredited ideologies can expect nothing but scorn".

In short, we need President Obama to save us from ourselves, from what we have become. Because if he continues to allow the system to define him, he will fail, and that failure would have serious consequences for us all...

posted by mikey @ 10:55 AM