Great Recession

Absolutely Reckless And Irresponsible Republican Leadership In Congress: Reason For Economic Crisis About To Get Worse!

Ronald 1 Comment

As we near the last week before the Debt Ceiling Crisis leads to a potential total collapse of the American economy and puts Americans into a second Great Depression, it is important to understand that this crisis has been caused to a great extent by refusal of Republican leaders in Congress to be responsible for disciplining their party membership to do something that was automatic over the past century, but has become a political football because of the decision of the party to refuse to cooperate on anything with the President they see as illegitimate!

Instead of seeing the good fortunes of the American people as the most urgent responsibility they have as leaders, they have chosen to refuse to even cooperate with each other, as egos and ambitions have become more important than doing what is right–to prevent default on the national debt and work to resolve the budget issues and create the proper environment for job creation!

John Boehner has performed horribly as Speaker of the House, and his name in history will be besmirched as a result! He has been unwilling to cooperate with President Obama, and has failed to assert his leadership over his “Troops” in the manner needed in the present crisis!

But Eric Cantor, House Majority Leader, is an even bigger villain, egotistical and totally ambitious to accomplish his own ends, and refusing behind the scenes to cooperate with Boehner, and instead tying his future to an extremist, anarchist, militant movement of reckless “flame throwers” (The Tea Party Movement), who refuse to understand that successful politics MUST be based on the art of compromise!

At the same time, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, overly ambitious to become Senate Majority Leader, openly has made the defeat of President Obama his major goal, and therefore has lost all credibility to claim a desire to resolve the issue of the debt ceiling in any form. Instead, he would prefer to let the President and his party take all responsibility and blame for the raising of the debt ceiling!

These three men, along with Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona, have shown disrespect, and lack of cooperation with the President in a way that no one can ever quite remember occurring to this extreme state, with any other President, no matter what the personal differences or ideological disputes that might have existed!

So the Republican Party will pay heavily for this lack of leadership by their party spokesmen, and the country is going to suffer further from the economic collapse caused by the outrageous policies of the Republican Congresses that led to the Great Recession, and now in danger of becoming a second Great Depression!

The Republican Party Again Doing What They Are Best At: Self Destruction!

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The Republican Party has suicidal tendencies since the years of the Great Depression.

When the Great Depression began in 1929, the party in Congress refused to abandon laissez faire economics, and some even fought President Herbert Hoover’s attempt to provide some public works projects and federal aid through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

During the New Deal years of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the party stood in the way of reform and change and continued to decline.

As World War II came on, most Republicans were isolationists who failed to see the threat of Fascism and Nazism.

As World War II ended, Republicans set out to to weaken labor unions and set back the New Deal, and after two brief years in control of Congress in 1947-1948, they lost control and saw Harry Truman stage an upset victory in the Presidential campaign.

The party pursued the Joseph McCarthy anti communist agenda in the late 1940s and early 1950s, undermining America’s effort in the Korean War, but with a popular World War II general, Dwight D. Eisenhower, they were given another chance in 1952, and won back control of Congress, but with their conservative agenda, lost control again after two years.

From that point on, the party failed to gain control of Congress for 40 years in the House, and 26 in the Senate, and after six years of a divided Congress under Ronald Reagan, lost the Senate again in 1986 and for the next eight years.

Despite Eisenhower’s personal popularity, it did not transform into party control after two years, and while Richard Nixon won over a divided Democratic Party in 1968, he could not translate his victory into a Republican majority, and Watergate damaged any hope again of a soon to occur change in party loyalties and success.

Ronald Reagan managed a divided Congress with Republican control of the Senate for six years, but again it did not change party loyalties and success in the long run, and the party was bitterly divided during the administration of George H. W. Bush, with Pat Buchanan helping to divide the party and lead to the defeat of Bush in 1992.

Then in 1994, the Republicans gained control of Congress for the next twelve years, but Bill Clinton, despite personal problems leading to impeachment, was able to control much of the political agenda.

After the Republicans won the battle over Florida’s electoral votes with George W. Bush in 2000, it seemed as if finally they had become the majority party, but September 11, two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the economic collapse of 2008, took away any gains it seemed that the party had made.

While they won the House of Representatives in 2010, the emergence of the Tea Party Movement has now destroyed any chance of Republican success, as again they are seen as obstructionist in so many ways, and public opinion polls still see the party as to blame much more for the economic recession we are suffering through, rather than to hold Barack Obama accountable.

With an image of negativism, concern only for the rich and powerful special interests, isolationism, corruption, and obstructionism, the Republican Party is again in the process of committing political suicide, and relegating itself to minority status in American politics!

The Coming Implosion Of The Republican Party: Congress And The Presidential Race!

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Just as Barack Obama shows evidence of great fund raising, an all time high, and the Republicans show weakness in fund raising, the Republican Party is facing an implosion on both the Congressional and Presidential campaign level!

The Debt Ceiling Crisis has shown chinks in the armor of the Congressional Republicans, as the leadership of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell has split the Republicans on Capitol Hill, into the predictable split between Establishment Republicans and the Tea Party Movement freshmen in the House and a few in the US Senate!

Boehner has been pressured by his deputy, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who is obviously trying to overrule Boehner and push him out, as everyone in the know is aware of Cantor’s personal ambitions to be Speaker of the House!

McConnell, convinced that no deal on the debt ceiling extension can be reached, has come up with a plan he thinks will help the Republicans win control of Congress and the White House in 2012, declaring he cannot work with Obama. His plan is to allow three votes of disapproval on extensions of the debt limit–one now, one in the Fall and one in the Summer of 2012, assuring an extension of the debt but with only Democrats voting for it, giving Republicans a campaign issue to be used in the upcoming election, and avoiding the financial uncertainties of NOT raising the debt ceiling.

Tea Party freshmen are furious at McConnell, and Boehner who has backed him, so a rebellion within the party is in evidence, with Eric Cantor leading it in the House and Jim DeMint and Rand Paul in the Senate!

The thought that the Republicans will somehow be able to use this debt issue as a way to win control of the executive and legislative branches in 2012 is a real long shot, as it is not as if the Republicans did not raise the debt ceiling SEVEN times under George W. Bush! It is much more likely to reverberate against them, and with a split party in Congress, actually cause them to lose seats in both chambers and likely lose control of the House of Representatives, where a switch of 25 seats gives Democrats control, not all that hard to attain!

And with Michele Bachmann surging as the real threat to Establishment Republicans and Mitt Romney, we could see Bachmann become the nominee, and end up as the Barry Goldwater of 2012, as to imagine her winning the White House and helping her party to win control of both houses of Congress requires hallucination on a major scale!

To top it off, IF Sarah Palin or Rick Perry, or both, end up running for the Presidency, still hard to imagine or conceive, it will only complicate the situation even further, and undermine GOP hopes for control, so it is now more likely that they will go back to minority status, through their own ineptness and incompetence, and failure to recognize the needs of the American people in the midst of the aftermath of the Great Recession!

Tim Pawlenty: Another George W. Bush On Tax Policy?

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Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has been considered a serious, if dark horse, Presidential nominee. Many people have seen him as having fewer faults, and as avoiding ridiculous or outrageous statements or actions, and therefore as having a good shot at the nomination, even though he tends to be quite boring and uninspiring!

But even if he is seen as better than Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann, and put into the short list with Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, Pawlenty this week destroyed any illusion that he could be President, by demonstrating total irresponsibility on the tax and spending issue!

Pawlenty sounds like a second George W. Bush, who cut taxes, put us into two wars not paid for in Iraq and Afghanistan, and started a Medicare Prescription plan unpaid for by tax increases. Bush doubled our national debt, and there had been a $3 trillion surplus when Bill Clinton left the Presidency!

On the tenth anniversary of the first Bush tax cuts, which made the rich richer and the poor poorer and the middle class disintegrate, Pawlenty came up with an economic plan strangely reminiscent of Bush.

He argues for further tax cuts and further spending cuts, and claimed there would be a five percent economic growth rate annually under his plan, because cuts in taxes on corporations and the wealthy would create new economic activity!

The problem is that this policy of Bush did exactly the opposite, and with lack of regulation, led to the Great Recession, which is still existing in many ways, if not officially.

So Pawlenty has learned nothing, and shown himself to be totally reckless and delusional, all to gain support of the right wing of the GOP, but not the way to win the nation, which is suffering still today from the failed Bush policies.

So, just like that, Pawlenty’s likelihood of success is lessened, and leaves rational thinkers to feel that only Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman makes any sense, assuming the Republican Party regains its senses!

Three Key Events Of June 5 And 6, Which Transformed America , Commemorated

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While the author was away for a week’s vacation in Montreal and Quebec City, three key events, which transformed America, were commemorated.

Historically, the first event was D Day, the invasion of Normandy, France by the United States, Great Britain and the Free French, on June 6, 1944. This was the beginning of the final push against Nazi Germany, opening up a second front in the war against Adolf Hitler. Thouands of Americans and other allied troops died on that day and in the days that followed on a great mission, and this is what makes the World War II generation called by many the “greatest generation”!

So on the 67th anniversary of that pathbreaking event, one needed to stop and think how rapidly we are losing that generation, with the minimum age of those engaged in that great battle now being 85! We can never do enough to salute the bravery and courage of those who perished, as well as those who survived that crucial moment in World War II, allowing us to be the society we are today!

Secondly, on June 5, 1967, 44 years ago, the Six Day War of Israel versus Egypt, Jordan and Syria, began after information came to the Israelis of an imminent attack, and their decision to commence a war of pre-emption. The war lasted just six days, and led to Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, the Sinai Desert, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank.

Out of this war came the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the rise of Yasser Arafat, and two generations of terrorism, which have affected the security and safety of Israel, the United States, and all western nations. And attempts to negotiate peace on the occupied territories has led to return of some land to Egypt and the Palestinians, recognition by Egypt and Jordan, but failure to recognize Israel by other Arab nations, and attempts by the US to promote a comprehensive peace, meeting with utter failure and constant tensions in the area.

But to expect Israel to return more territory without guarantees of security, safety, and recognition of their right to exist, is to dream the impossible.

Finally, exactly a year after the beginning of the war in the Middle East, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, brother of the slain President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles immediately after winning the California Presidential primary. Considered the front runner for the Democratic nomination for President, RFK was murdered by a Palestinian Arab named Sirhan Sirhan, who worked in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel, and was angry over RFK’s open support of the Israelis in the Six Day War a year earlier.

So RFK became the first victim of Palestinian terrorism, something not recognized for a long time. And America lost its possible future President, and one has to wonder how he would have performed as President of the United States.

Many have seen RFK as a transformative figure, who would have changed the course of American history in a major way. We will never know how his impact would have affected us, but we are well aware that we had an opportunity for a major change to the left, and instead descended into Republican conservatism which has put America in a precarious state in the past 40 years, and has caused the Great Recession that we are still reeling from in 2011!

Barack Obama: Calm, Cool, Steady Manager Of Crisis

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The American people are very fortunate to have Barack Obama as their President in these times!

Not only his reaction to the Great Recession with the effort to revive industry and banking, and his attempt to aid the state governments in difficult times; not only with his concern about national health care for all; not only with his emphasis on education reform to help America return to educational greatness; not only his emphasis on restoring American prestige in the world scene by promotion of diplomacy; but also because he has proved to be a calm, cool, steady manager of crisis, as proved when he saved the ship seized by Somali pirates in April 2009, and more dramatically, the accomplishment of the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden this past Sunday!

The opposition Republicans have long promoted the myth that only they can defend the nation from terrorism and preserve our national security. But as it turns out, that is far from true in the past, and is certainly now destroyed as a myth as a result of the flawless military operation conducted on Sunday in Pakistan!

Barack Obama’s historical reputation has been improved dramatically by this great moment in our history! It will be one of the first sentences in his biography, certainly in the first paragraph when history is written in the future!

This is a moment for all patriotic and fair minded Americans to salute President Barack Obama as a man of courage, principle, and dignity! Thank God Barack Obama is our President!

The Die Is Cast: The Midwest And The Presidential Election Of 2012

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With the struggle going on over public service workers in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, as well as other states, it is clear that the future of organized labor is at stake, but also the future of the Democratic Party and President Barack Obama.

With the reality that organized labor is a large part of the base of the Democratic Party, it is clear that the battleground for victory for the party and its President will be the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa–the heartland of the country.

Also realize that the Republican Party had its birth in the Midwest, and that Barack Obama won all seven states, and nearly won next door Missouri.

To win in 2012, Obama MUST win most, if not all, of these Midwestern states, hit hard by the Great Recession and now led by Republican Governors determined to strike vengeance against the base of the opposition party, organized labor.

And with growing interest in former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, as the one GOP candidate for President who has few negatives, other than not being well known, it could be that President Obama will face a strong conservative opponent in Pawlenty.

The Extremist House Of Representatives: Totally Out Of Control, Even By Its Leaders! :(

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Overnight, the House Of Representatives became the most extremist it has ever been, as even its leaders–Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor–could not control its fanatical movement toward budget cutting way beyond their wishes or any sense of reality! 🙁

Dozens of programs were cut, and many government agencies were slashed up to 40 percent in a mad orgy of striking out against the federal government!

The Republican Party, in so doing, abandoned any sense of sobriety or common sense, and set up a confrontation with the Democratic controlled Senate and President Obama, and it now looks likely that there will be a government shutdown which will affect every American, and be noticed within a short period of time after the deadline for extension of the budget, taking place on March 4!

The Republican Party is proving itself captive to the Tea Party Movement, and is showing itself to be anti labor, anti environment, anti women, anti children, anti poor, anti consumer, anti elderly, anti health care, anti education, anti public works spending, anti government agencies, anti space program, anti military even! 🙁

The country, in the midst of the Great Recession, no matter how much people deny it, is facing a House of Representatives which has no concern about the future of its own citizens, as extremist right wingers, who could be considered fascist in nature, hijack the “People’s House”! 🙁

This is a day to mourn, and the worst is yet to come, with the shutdown of the government imminent, and the chamber taking off next week for the President’s Holiday. And the Republicans are said to care about citizens? What a mockery of the truth of their agenda, which is just to continue to enrich those who have and promote extremist religious views! 🙁

Barack Obama’s “Sputnik Moment”: Promote Technology, Research And Development, And Education!

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Word has leaked out that President Obama will call, in the State of the Union Address, for the nation to meet its present “Sputnik moment”, a reference to the challenge that the Soviet Union presented when it went into space ahead of the United States a half century ago.

That shocking moment motivated the nation to move ahead, and Obama will promote the idea of investment in technology, research and development, and education as essential for the nation’s future.

Already, the GOP has made clear it wants no such agenda, as it means increased government spending, but without any such investment, including in infrastructure of the nation, there is no way to create enough jobs or economic growth to recover from the Great Recession we have suffered in the past three years!

There can be no compromise with lunatics, and that is how the GOP is coming across with its impossible and reckless attempts to gut the federal budget! 🙁

It is reassuring to see that Obama has a vision of the future, and he and his party must fight “tooth and nail” for the principles and programs they believe in!

The Crisis Of The States: The Worst Is Yet To Come! :(

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With Republicans taking over the House of Representatives and many state governorships and state legislatures, the center of crisis will descend upon many of the states of the Union! 🙁

A Census Bureau report demonstrates that the Great Recession caused the loss of 30 percent of the states’ revenues in 2009, due to the high unemployment rate, the dramatic rise in foreclosures of housing, and the tremendous investment losses in the state pension funds.

The result is large budget deficits and increasing social service demands. Unemployment benefits, medicaid, and workers compensation needs became dramatically higher.

The year 2011 will be the worst ever in pressures on states, with the need to have tax increases and service cuts to deal with the largest budget deficits ever seen.

Forty states have reported a combined total of $113 billion in deficits, and the federal stimulus aid that the Obama Administration gave in the past year to avoid the loss of jobs and services in the public sector now is coming to an end. The Republicans show no interest in the suffering that will occur, that will cause many more unemployed people and horrific cuts in services, including education, health care, police and fire protection! 🙁

The only rhetoric we hear is that there must be reduction of federal spending and overcoming the federal budget deficits, as no one is thinking about the human costs that will occur across the country! 🙁

The budget gaps are particularly dramatic in California, New York and Illinois, and it will affect not just the general public in these and other states, but also the issue of state pensions and state worker employment.

So the economic crisis is far from over, and will almost certainly be reaching its peak over the next few years! 🙁