Sunday, July 31, 2011

Blame the Black Guy? REALLY?

Is that really all you've got?

I've had it up to my eyeballs with faux conservatives blaming Barack Obama for the economy.

Make no mistake about it. The mess we're in isn't the current administrations fault. It was Republicans who cut taxes and didn't have the political cajones to pay for their tax cuts by reducing spending. They just borrowed the money to make up the shortfalls.

And these people call themselves conservatives? FOR SHAME! There's nothing conservative about borrowing money.

The deficit doubled under Reagan and tripled under Bush. The Republican party replaced democratic "tax and spend" economic policy with a new "borrow and spend" model promising that in the long run this would lead to a golden age of prosperity that would catapult the economy forward by freeing up money for the private sector to invest. This money, they promised, would trickle down and make the whole country more prosperous.

There's also nothing conservative, by the way, about implementing major economic policies based on unproven, untested economic predictions. Frankly it's unwise to base economic policies based on proven and widely accepted economic projections. Economic projections can change when the wind blows. Real conservatives base their economic policies based on what is, not what should be or might be ten years down the road. The conservative solution to our economic woes is to raise taxes AND cut spending sufficiently to begin paying down our debt. That's right... not just balance the budget, actually start paying off the debt. And do it NOW. THIS budget session. Don't just pass some lame-ass law telling someone else THEY have to do it five or ten years down the road. YOU DO IT. NOW.

Needless to say "trickle down economics" has been a less then stellar success. The land of milk and honey we were promised never materialized. Instead what has happened is the the wealthiest people in the country have hoarded away a fortune and the gap between the rich and poor is wider than it's ever been before.

Anyway I digress... I was saying that the recession was, in fact, a REPUBLICAN blunder and talking about how our debt skyrocketed on the watch of these supposedly conservative administrations.

Then, to add injury to... well, injury... we were robbed blind right under the noses of the last Republican administrations political sycophants in the SEC. The recently deregulated financial services industry, the very people who benefited most from these lopsided policies, diddled away trillions by selling mortgages to people they KNEW couldn't afford them. But they didn't care, because as long as the loans lasted through the quarter (at a significantly reduced interest rate, nod nod wink wink) they got their bonuses. The economy was torpedoed under the Republican's watch, and it was so badly damaged that it's still struggling to recover.

Now... If you honestly believe that the economic devastation that these criminals wrought on our economy could really be fixed in just two years I suggest you stop reading right now because I'm about to say something you're going to find very insulting. Please stop voting. You're just too stupid. It took the republicans decades to bury the economy. Did you really think one person was going to swoop in and fix it in two years?

And what do the Republicans have to offer NOW?

They're blaming the black guy! They honestly expect me to believe that the president is wielding some mythical blank check, waving it around in a pork barrel frenzy and spewing forth federal money like water from a hose and that this is what's dragging down the economy.

And all over the country people are buying it! It seems impossible. The only explanation I can think of is that people are believing this crap because they want to believe it. It looks to me like the Republicans have decided to tap white America's latent racism rather than accept responsibility for their role in our predicament and adjust their policies to reflect that maybe they've made some mistakes in the past. If you can offer me some other explanation I'd love to hear it.

Be warned though, Urk's Outpost is a BS Free Zone.

The Republicans are still trying to sell the same magical thinking they've been pawning off on the illiterate masses for a generation. "Don't worry," they say, "as long as we don't raise taxes in the long run it will lead to a golden age of prosperity that will catapult the economy forward by freeing up money for the private sector to invest. Of course in the meantime we'll need to cut spending by breaking our agreement with the working class and screwing them out of the Social Security payments they've been FORCED to make their entire lives. And we'll have to neglect a few old people to death by cutting medicaid and medicare. But don't worry! Because in the end these investments will trickle down and make the whole country more prosperous."

Uh... No wait... We're not supposed to phrase it that way any more. Now we're supposed to say, "Don't worry, because in the end these investments will CREATE JOBS and make the whole country more prosperous".

Voodoo f&*^%*g economics. It's no more true now than it was then. It's the same old song that got us into this mess, but now instead of wanting to borrow the money, they want to take it out of the hides of the working class, the elderly, and the poor.