By all accounts, the American economy today remains crippled but hangs tough, in recovery from one of the most disastrous failures of our mortgage loan and investment banking systems in history during the presidency of George W. Bush. Latest figures show that third-quarter growth in the overall economy rose 2.5% -- not a huge jump, but significant nonetheless after a full two years of economic contraction nationwide. Today, while banks are back in business paying huge bonuses and corporations sit on $1 trillion in profits, we still suffer from high unemployment, which stubbornly remains at over 9%. Private sector job growth has improved since President Obama's 2009 Economic Recovery Act passed Congress. That help became law while Democrats controlled the House of Representatives and had the 60 votes needed in the Senate to override a Republican filibuster. After almost three years, the Democratic 2009 stimulus has done its job, creating more than 2 million jobs while providing $340 billion in tax cuts for small businesses. However, with no further public funds forthcoming, state and city budget shortfalls have led to job cuts among public services workers such as teachers, police and firefighters, further adding to public sentiment of economic pessimism.
Meanwhile since the 2010 election--in which Republicans won the majority in the House of Representatives 242 Republicans to 192 Democrats and Senate Democrats lost enough seats to ensure incessant Republican filibusters would prevail--legislative gridlock has ensued. The election, far from pushing the political culture toward reasonable solutions, guaranteed one thing: that Republicans would have more power to pursue a blatant political goal of blocking any further fiscal stimulus, such as President Obama's American Jobs Act, while also seeking to defeat the president in the 2012 election.
Republicans made one argument in 2010 that resonated with voters as the economy continued to tank: "Government is the problem, and Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress are in charge." Their plan was to avoid political promises or any substantive proposals that might distract voters from their campaign attacks on Democratic incumbents. Said Neil Newhouse of the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, "The smart political approach would be to make the election about the Democrats." Explicit in this argument with Mr. Obama still in the White House was the promise that Republican majorities would present a roadblock to Democrats' longtime stance as defenders of federal action at all levels of American life. Without a great deal of introspection, voters took the bait and backed some of the most anti-government conservatives in the modern era.
Today, the result of that election is Republican-led gridlock. The 2010 voters who backed Republicans, therefore, must ask themselves before the next election whether or not their choices at the ballot box were in the best interest of our country.
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Location:Maitland FL
My comment would be the answer to the following question (which we have touched upon previously): Assuming that our voting process is fair and accurate, and assuming that few people would vote contrary to the economic interest of their family and their local community; then refer to your irrefutable documentation of the distribution of wealth (and therefore, power for action), in this country, why would the people who have been delegated to the group with the much smaller portion of wealth, so zealously fight for, let alone, vote for the political candidates who are clearly instruments of the the small group who have amassed the great majority of the countries' wealth? It seems to me that the wealthy and powerful few should have angered the majority of the voters but rather have enlisted them to demand even more inequality. I am reminded of people walking around with signs on their back that read: "Kick Me!".
ReplyDeleteCharles, thanks for raising that question. A lack of participation and attention perhaps in the democratic process on the part of many segments of our society might be one reason for people voting against their own self-interests. But I also give credit to the Republicans' exceptional proficiency in the dark arts of political "strategery" for providing cover for many voters whose extreme views on marginal or faux issues (birtherism, prayer in school), while also making many folk easy targets of political manipulation and misinformation campaigns. The right wing also finds opportunities to capitalize on ingrained attitudes on other narrow issues, such as gun control and immigration, turning them into Republican base voters. In the past, once they win the election, these opportunists usually do little to nothing to promulgate laws supporting those causes. Since 2010 and the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, supporting unlimited campaign contributions of unidentified corporate donors, though, the Tea Party caucus has been effective in blocking spending to address the pressing issues of jobs and economic fairness. We can only hope such blatant Republican-led corporatism, with its renewed spotlight by Occupy Wall Street protests spreading worldwide, is finally shining light on the economic struggle most of us have felt powerless to challenge.
ReplyDeleteFor many Southerners, their sense of collective identity (white, Christian, conservative values, "Real Americans") trumps their perception of economic self-interest.
ReplyDeleteThis attitude is partly a lingering reaction to desegregation and the Civil Rights era and partly a mental image of social welfare recipients that pictures lazy minority in the foreground and liberal intellectuals in the background.
Conservatives have also exploited regional labor differences, with white Southerners more than happy to take a decent manufacturing job away from a union worker in the North because the South was so poor for so long and good jobs were hard to come buy.
In other words, the Republican Party has pulled off a spectacular "bait and switch" strategy that has convinced any middle and working class Southerners that their interests are aligned, when in fact the Republican party first loyalty is to the rich and the corporations they control.