To listen to the shrill and panicked tone of the “tea baggers” today, you would think that Obama took a perfectly good country with a strong economy and ruined it in less than a year because he hates America. All you need for proof is the suddenly very important national debt, the same national debt that according to Dick Cheney, “didn”t matter, Reagan proved that!” which is what he told Former Treasury Secretary Paul O”Neill just before he was fired in December 2002 when O”Neill tried to warn him about the consequences of unfunded tax breaks for the wealthy and two wars.
Yes, it”s true that even though Reagan ran as a conservative, the national debt tripled during his tenure. Government grew at the fastest pace in history up until that time, a pace not exceeded until another great conservative named George W. Bush took office. It”s supposed to be bad form to mention these facts. This goes against the taboo of mentioning anything negative about our government or country prior to Jan. 26, 2009.
To quote Joe Conason of Salon (March 27, 2009), “In our time, the Republican Party has compiled an impressive history of talking about fiscal responsibility while running up unrivaled deficits and debt. Of the roughly $11 trillion in federal debt accumulated to date, more than 90 percent can be attributed to the tenure of three presidents: Ronald Reagan, who used to complain constantly about runaway spending; George Herbert Walker Bush, reputed to be one of those old-fashioned green-eyeshade Republicans; and his spendthrift son George “Dubya” Bush, whose trillion-dollar wars and irresponsible tax cuts accounted for nearly half the entire burden.” I invite you to use your computer to look up a graph of the U.S. national debt by year; please don”t take my word on this topic.
There are only three ways to stimulate an economy. First, the consumer can spend more, second, businesses can spend more and third, the government can spend more to prime the pump of the consumer and business. No other forms of economic stimulus exist. Why is it then, when the consumer and business economies have been crushed (both before January, 2009), leaving only government spending as the last resort, do the Republicans become so rabid about forcing the government to stop spending now? The simple fact is that people always vote their pocketbook and to allow the economy to recover before the election would be tragic for their hopes of regaining control. Only by saying “No!” to everything and blocking or stalling every possible positive move proposed do they have hopes for their own success, regardless of the pain they cause the general public. They serve their ambition, not the people.
Why does the press allow this to fly under the radar? Why do they allow a failed Dick Cheney to make silly statements like “during our term in office we were not attacked” and “We kept America safe!” without screaming “You lie!” at the top of their lungs? Could you imagine a journalist with integrity, like Edward R. Morrow, allowing this nonsense on his broadcast? Sadly, in today”s world where ratings are all that counts, the broadcast media and press pander to what they feel to be the wider audience as cash is king so the truth goes begging. They want you to forget the debacle of the past decade that brought us to this precipice. Forget that your health care costs have more than doubled in the past 10 years, crushing your family. Forget anything bad that happened “before Obama,” or B.O. Pretend that everything was just ducky before that anti- American communist, socialist feminist, Nazi foreigner came to town. Sorry, B.O. amnesia doesn”t pass the smell test for anyone with a brain.
Lowell Grant is a weekly columnist for the Record-Bee. E-mail him at c21vintage@aol.com.
