1) Federal budget can’t grow faster than family budget – Arbitrary government, and will be destroyed by the Republicans themselves the first time they see the need. This is for “feel good” general consumption. Tie the spend to the NEED, not an artificial factor. This also means that no stimulus money can be spent, because family incomes are shrinking…translation = “Cut spending during a recession”.
2) Universal access to health care and securities entitlements – Needs definition. “Access” to health care isn’t the problem, affordability is. Fixing “entitlements” is probably also referring to Social Security which is what Bush tried (and failed) to do with privatization, which given what actually happened to the economy would have been disastrous timing.
3) Lower Taxes – Needs definition. However, I bet this is for the wealthy, which is fine (in general), but the first (Bush) stimulus bill taught us that in these uncertain times, the wealthy (banks in that case) held on to the money as a hedge against the recession (or used to buy other healthy banks). I don’t see how we should suddenly believe that giving that money to the wealthy private or other corporate citizen would yield different results until the economy bottoms out.
4) Keeping energy and fuel costs low – The supposed $3,000 cost per household for the current plan is fuzzy math, but even if that were the case, I’ll wait for details. I’m sure this means 75% drilling for oil, R&D money to oil companies, and a paltry little towards wind and solar. This article implies (by even mentioning them) that there will be some kind of meaningful investment here. I tend to doubt it.
5) Ending bailouts of the financial system – I’m all for it. Let’s see them do it. If the massive spending doesn’t fix things, then the Republicans are wrong here too (they just want to spend less). This is an attempt to say that they don’t want to cripple the country financially long term, NOT that they are saying that dumping money in this area doesn’t help…they just say that it’s unsound fiscal long term policy. Which may be right, however if the economy recovers, they can’t argue the impact…they just have to wait to see if it really killed the country long term. Which it might. I’m not a fan of the spending here either, but the Republicans are making a 15 year from now argument, not a 2 year from now argument. Per another thread on this site, it’s quite clear none of you will be giving Obama credit if it works, but you will blame him if it fails, so I’m not sure it’s pertinant really.
6) Keep the cost of living low – I don’t even know what this means from a Bill perspective (without details). It’s a nice concept, lets see what they came up with.
Where were all these republicans in the first 4 years of the Bush administration? I love that they are all now saying they saw this problem in 2001, but that it wasn’t until the Dems took over in 2004 that the whole discussion was quashed. Why couldn’t they do anything in 3 years when they controlled everything? They certainly weren’t busy challenging Bush on war plans (ok, small dig there, but seriously…they could have done something if they truly saw a financial crisis looming during that time, so either admit you didn’t know or that you didn’t do anything…can’t have it both ways…and the change in the mix of dems and repubs should speak to who most Americans blamed for that…if you care…).
All of that being said, I would LOVE it if Republicans could give up the current childish mantra of “I hope he fails” to “I have an idea”. I would like to think that no one voted for their Republican reps just to have them give up and hope for failure as opposed to well, um…governing. If saying ‘no’ and wishing for failure has gotten tiresome, I’m all for it. I can discuss and argue policy, but when you just whimper and cry in despair, well, we just have to move on without you. Keep taking that spine-growing medicine, and welcome back to governing!!
Jack
