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The Republicans correctly sense a once in two decade opportunity to reach their goals of reducing the Federal government to a niggling irrelevancy and they aren't going to let up. They are not concerned about economic recovery, per se, for several reasons. One, big business has edged its way out of the recession and sees no great threats ahead. Two, keeping the economy in STALL position would assist their party, greatly, in recapturing the White House in 2012. Further, the American economy is shrinking as the engine of the world and many businesses do very well overseas. They don't need our recovery quite so much as they once did. As one example, one of the largest American founded companies, GE, now gets more than half of its revenues from other nations.
Throughout the last fifty to sixty years, we have had a regular pattern in regard to economic activity as it relates to political parties in power. The Democrats would typically overheat the economy and the Republicans would come in to cool it down. The only question was what stage of overheating or freezing the economy would be in once every four years when the voters would choose a new president. If the Republicans went too far in dampening the economy, they would likely lose on election day.
That pattern was broken with G.W.Bush. The Republicans spent Federal money like drunken sailors to try to secure their elections in 2004 and 2006. In the latter case, it didn't work. When Clinton left the White House in January, 2001, some mean minded staffers took keys from the word processors, especially the W's. When Bush left office in January, 2009, some mean minded Republicans had already taken a stable economy, the nation's prosperity, with them. Bam. Gone. Obama came into office with economic deep dust to clear.
I would argue that the recovery on which we have entered is not fully virtuous in economic or moral terms. The near death experience of 2008, mediated by bailouts and massive Federal infusion of cash, was not enough to change the way most American businesses now operate. The bad to horrid practices, the predatory adding of fees on top of fees and secret charges that appear on bills, have not been shaken out. The larger practices of fraud and borderline fraud that led to the collapse of 2008 also have not been stopped.
It is just possible that we now have a national business culture of cheating of many different types, a business culture which depends on cheating to keep the numbers up. Fairness to workers in wages and benefits remains a distant dream, while the top and near top of corporations take home millions whether their company prospers or not. Banks, like Bank of America, have not yet weaned themselves from gouging their poorest customers for the highest charges (by one estimate, 17% of bank customers pay 90% of the fees). We had a false prosperity built on shaky credit up until September, '08, but short term mentality of the near rape of customers by banks, credit card companies and a host of other businesses was part of the false prosperity. Those practices continue.
So, the Republicans want to wreck the economic recovery by using a meat ax on Federal spending. They think they can move public anger in that direction because many people were pushed into a blind rage by the massive TARP program, the auto company bailouts and the efforts to help mortgage holders. Given what took place in 2008 and ‘09, chopping the Federal government doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to many people. Until, of course, you start to see the impact in your own life and those around you.
The discretionary part of the Federal budget is the smallest portion. Defense, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and entitlements take the lion’s share. You could shutdown the entire Federal apparatus, save those programs, and still be running on deficit spending.
Make no mistake, the Republicans, lacking a comprehensive, coherent program and any new ideas, are sowing the seeds of their own election defeat. Every program they cut, every ax they swing hits someone, somewhere and many of those someones are back in Republican states and districts. Most of the time, the affairs of government go on as a sort of background noise in people's lives. Win or lose on specific cuts, the Republicans are about to get the nation's full attention in ways they will likely live to regret.
Doug Terry, 3.4.11
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