The stimulus bill passed the House Friday, with no Republicans voting in favor of it and only seven Democrats voting nay. Then, it passed the Senate with only three Republican votes.
Now do you get it? Hope? Change you can believe in? No, this is more like change back to the old order of business and hope for the best. Democratic supporters naturally view this as a panacea, a cure-all. Republican supporters are almost certain it is going to wreck the economy and possibly put us firmly on the irreversible road to socialism.
As is usually the case, the truth probably lies somewhere in between the two extreme viewpoints, which is precisely the point. Remember when George W. Bush ran, promising his own brand of change, including a more civil public discourse? The only real change was from one of Democratic policies to Republican, with Bush touting tax cuts as the one sure answer for every situation both good and bad. Unfortunately, the was the only true policy change aside from those necessitated (or at least inspired) by the events of 9/11. Everything else remained the same. Bush actually grew the size and scope of the federal government, serving to further increase an already impressive mountain of debt. His unfunded mandates in education, and both of his wars, initially botched, and ran on borrowed money and time, exacerbated the situation.
By the time Obama came along, America was ready for a change, as it usually is after eight years on the average. This time it's the Democrats turn to offer the hoped-for change-but is it really change? An increase in welfare funding and grants to such organization as ACORN might in some cases by appropriate and understandable, maybe even necessary. We can have that debate. We can honestly discuss the need for funding of alternative energy sources and medical reform, and all of the other provisions in this bill, but let's call it what it is. This is more than just a stimulus package, this is a Democratic sponsored and taxpayer funded political pay-off to Democratic Party interest groups with a few targeted tax-cuts included just to take the edge off the pain.
And I for one am sure it will do some good in some areas. We obviously need more investment in infrastructure. There also needs to be some aid to state governments, who have, after all, been through no fault of their own severely impacted in a good many cases in no small part due to the incompetence and overbearing demands of the federal government. I am so serious about this, in retrospect, I am not even sure it would be appropriate to demand accountability insofar as how the states spend the money, but I guess there has to be some degree of oversight.
Be that as it may, this humongous porker of a bill is obviously a Democratic wish list of pay-offs and gifts that would have come about if times were as good as they now are bad, just like those Bush tax cuts. They are going to do some good, but they are going to also increase the debt, add to inflation and, in the long run, do little if any good as far as economic stimulation goes. What we are looking at is a long-range economic malaise that would probably best be compared to the Jackson-Van Buren years from 1832 to 1840, and might possibly even approach or even surpass those of the Great Depression.
Hopefully, things won't get that bad, but here's a clue-we have been digging this hole for years, and it's not going to go away overnight, nor can we spend our way out of it without making some tough, hard choices in the way of government waste reduction, which this bill most assuredly will not do.
Things might improve just enough in the short term to warrant in the minds of most voters an Obama re-election, but I truly dread the long term consequences of this bill, and further Democratic initiatives, which would over the course of the next eight years be even more greatly compounded by the appointment of two to three, at least, Ruth Bader Ginsburg clones to the Supreme Court, to say nothing of the countless federal court appointments.
By the time another eight years (or possibly four) rolls around, people will be yet clamoring for yet more "hope" and "change" (the oldest campaign slogans in the world, incidentally), and they will gravitate to the nearest guarantor of this promise.
This time, of course, it will be a Republican who will, in all seeming sincerity, announce to the nation that "It's time for a change", and we all will undoubtedly collectively fall for it-again. And, just like the last time, it will be a change from Democratic orthodoxy to Republican orthodoxy.
Hope and Change?
More like "Bait and Switch".
