02.05.09
President Obama reminds us GOP’s economic ideas got us into this mess, and class warfare
President Barack Obama’s Op-Ed in the Washington Post today, The Action Americans Need.
In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.
I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We’ve seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.
Every day, our economy gets sicker — and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now.
[…]
So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington’s bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn’t written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the test of our time.
More of this. It’s key to remind Americans every day that the failure of Republican economic strategies is why we are in this mess to begin with, and he was elected to move in the other direction. The Congressional GOP’s “misguided criticisms” must be met with the frank repudiation they deserve by Democrats. More of this please.
And also this one from CNBC which talks about how Congress loves to bail out the rich and bankers, but not the American people, When Class War Is NOT Class War.
Class war?
That’s what lots of people are calling this move to limit executive compensation at companies that are on the Federal dole.
Oh, please! That’s not class war, it’s barely a class skirmish.
When it comes to the real class war, the stuff that matters, not just optics about CEO earnings, the rich are thrashing the rest of us, just like they always do.
It’s class war when Washington passes a $700 billion TARP bailout for Wall Street with feverish haste, but struggles to pass an $800 to $900 billion stimulus package for everybody else.
Think about that for a second.
Bail out the banks, no problem! But give a helping hand to poor, working class, and middle class people? That we have to debate endlessly. Washington knows how to bail out the rich, but our incredibly popular President is having trouble bailing out the other 99% of the country.
That, my friends, is class war. And it’s so institutionalized that we don’t even realize it’s going on. The establishment in this country is so tilted in favor of the folks at the top, that we scream “socialism” when executives at banks that have taken billions of dollars of bailout cash from the government because they ran their companies into the ground aren’t allowed to earn more than $500,000 a year.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s not a real victory for the proletariat, or the middle class, as everyone in this country likes to think of themselves. It’s totally symbolic.
When you go below the symbolism and look at the substance—sure there are salary caps, because we already gave these banks hundreds of billions of dollars—it’s pretty clear which side is winning this war.
Great article. And remember, as far as the traditional media is concerned, it isn’t class warfare when money is taken from the poor and middle class and given to the rich, i.e. the Bush tax cuts. It’s only “class warfare” when it’s pointed out that the rich are getting richer, and the poor and middle class are getting poorer.