The election of Barack Obama was stunning and inspirational, but the greatest significance is that it was a total repudiation of the Republican party”s war on the middle class and of their “trickle down” economic theory, which has now been proven to be a failure on three occasions.
It was first tried during Herbert Hoover”s term in office, ending in the stock market crash of 1929 and the depression, which followed. FDR came to the rescue with a plan that focused on putting people back to work on infrastructure projects like dams, bridges and highways. We still enjoy the benefits of them today.
The second time around it was called Reaganomics. By the end of the Reagan/Bush third term, our national debt had soared from $1 trillion to $5 trillion, we were suffering from a severe recession and Bill Clinton”s campaign mantra was “It”s the economy, stupid!” The peace and prosperity that followed during the 1990”s is a warm and pleasant memory now.
The third strike was of course, George W. Bush”s eight-year stint, during which the wealthiest tiny percentage of Americans and the corporations they owned got huge tax breaks, while the middle class saw their wages go down, the tax burden shifted onto their backs and onto the absurd national debt, now totaling nearly $11 trillion.
Of this $11 trillion debt, $10 trillion was added during the Reagan, Bush and Bush administrations. This has been accompanied by the largest growth in Federal Government in history.
Americans have finally learned that the Republican economics theory simply does not work, that there is nothing “conservative” about them. How can they explain their reckless debt accumulation coupled with the fact that we have nothing lasting to show for it? While our debt has soared, our infrastructure has crumbled, we have 10 million Americans out of work, we are more enslaved to foreign oil than ever and our standing in the world has been greatly diminished.
The Republicans have failed by every metric; there is literally nothing they can point to with pride. Americans have finally come to realize once and for all that the Republicans don”t believe government is a force for good or that it is possible to work successfully. They prove it every time we allow them to.
A Republican letter writer wrote the day after Obama won that the coming depression would be his entire fault and the Record-Bee saw fit to print it. The fact is that the stock market, which has been sinking like a stone for 13 months now, looks ahead 6 to 12 months and is a harbinger of things to come.
Next year will be bleak indeed, but the fault is hardly Obama”s. These Republican letter writers blame the Democrats for the darkness at night, the brightness at noon; the fact that everything is wet when it rains and for the drought when it doesn”t rain. The fact is that George W. Bush, his Republican Congress and Supreme Court have screwed things up so badly that a little green man from Mars would likely have beaten any Republican like a drum, even though they nominated the only one among them who could claim to have any distance from Bush.
It is very likely, and we can only hope, that never again will a Republican be allowed to seize control of our government. Without a successful government we have no hope of prospering, protecting our environment, providing education for all, having national security or any of the other vital functions that government provides.
It is my hope that Americans finally realize that we can no longer experiment with failed Republican theories and that the Republicans will become a minority party that will represent the three R”s; the Rich who don”t want to share, the Religious who want to impose their beliefs on all and the Rednecks who don”t like anyone that doesn”t look like them.
If each of those groups represents 10% of the population, that would make them the party of 30% of the electorate. This might lead to a viable third party that can add something positive to the debate. The rest of us will pursue the American Dream of prosperity, peace, freedom and equality for all as envisioned by the Founding Fathers.
Lowell Grant is a resident of Lakeport. Guest commentaries are solely the opinions of the individual writers and do not necessarily reflect the views or endorsement of the Lake County Record-Bee or its management.
