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With two months before midterms and things looking dire for the home team, Obama is rolling out what amounts to another stimulus package. And much like the other, it is going to be weak and fairly ineffective, thus leaving voters and the people of America little better off, but further despondent than before. Oh, and it just might lose Dems the midterms this year.
With a golden opportunity to prove that this president and Dems across the board are willing to do what is right by the American people, Obama has rolled out a proposed fifty billion job creation, infrastructure investment program. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate every little drop that gets tink. . . er, trickled down on us, but frankly fifty billion is too little, too late. People are dying for lack of jobs out here and fifty billion isn't going to do it, either for meaningful job creation or infrastructure upgrades.
On the back end of this little bit of sugar comes the bitter medicine of more tax cuts and tax credits. This is the same game Obama and the Dems played with the first stimulus, let sixty percent of the money go to actually stimulating the economy, but throw in the other forty percent as tax cuts in the vain effort to appear bipartisan or some similar nonsense. But this time Obama is outdoing himself, proposing tax cuts and tax credits totaling 130 billion.
Wait, let me get this straight, the vast majority of this 180 billion stimulus-in-all-but-name is about more tax cuts and tax credits?
Don't get me wrong, Obama and the Dems directed their tax cuts more at the regular person than Bush ever thought about doing, and I did appreciate that little check I got in the mail from the IRS, but the simple Econ 101 fact of the matter is that tax cuts and tax credits are the least effective economic stimuli going. If you're going to incur more debt in order to try and stimulate the economy, it is the wise thing to try and get the most bang for your buck.
I know, I know, we supposedly live in an era when we need sixty votes in the Senate to pass anything, do anything, advance anything. But that is simply not the case. I know that this is a novel concept, but follow me for a bit. First, make that 180 billion dollars nothing but job creation, double the number to 360 billion and create a jobs program the likes that haven't been seen since FDR. Enforce party discipline in the grand tradition of LBJ, ram the bill through the House, and let the 'Pugs filibuster in the Senate. Yep, let them go to a real talk all night, pee in a bottle filibuster.
Come out swinging! You will be beating a bunch of Republicans over the head for being obstructionist on a jobs program, at a time of high unemployment. Show the people that this administration and the Democratic party are willing to fight for the people and you will see the people flock to the Democratic banner in the fall. Standing up and fighting is not a bad thing in politics, in fact it is expected. But the Dems have not shown any fight for far too long. This would be a great time to show that fighting spirit, right here, right now. Not to mention that we will get a true stimulus package, not just a faux stimulus.
But if this turns out to be more of just the same ol', same ol', well, that's what we'll get in the fall. Despondent people, people whose hopes and expectations were raised, then dashed, people who voted for a champion, not another politician, these people will simply stay at home.
You want to win this election, then urge your representatives, urge the White House to give us a true jobs creation bill, a true stimulus, one will truly help all of us. Yes, those on the right will give us hell, guess what, they're already giving us hell on this faux stimulus package. If we're going to be damned anyway, might as go all the way. And while the right will wail and scream, those who see the fight and understand the truth, those whose lives would be changed for the good, those people will come out and stand with the Democrats.
It's worth a shot, in fact, it's one of the few shots all of us have left.
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