The Democrats and the Republicans in Congress seem to agree on one thing: there is a crisis.
And if we accept that without a second thought, we're not setting ourselves up for the long-run. If we accept that there must be a bailout today for bad businesses applying bad business practice, we may win 2008. But we're not going to have much of an argument in a couple of years when people ask:
Why did you give $700 billion to all the people in the country who don't need it?
This is why we must change our narrative to the truth: This economic crisis didn't start in 2008. The economic crisis started on January 20th.
1981.
The day that Reagan took office was the Beginning of the End for the Economy. It was the beginning of the untangling of decades and decades of hard-fought regulation that was put in place to prevent this very situation from happening.
Repeat: Reagan was wrong. FDR was right.
Historically, Reagan should have known better. Just as Clinton should have known better just as Bush should have known better just as McCain should know better.
The Industrial Revolution was a perfect real-world example of why the market doesn't work on its own. As long as the same people are setting prices and wages - the Invisible Hand is entirely visible and entirely on top of the lower and middle classes, pushing downward.
Repeat: Government regulation works. The free market is a fairy tale.
Where are the Economists when we need them? Where are the people pointing to the Great Depression and all of the Government programs that actually push an economy from the sinkhole to unheard-of heights? Why can't we spend $700 billion to create jobs in a Government-run, counter-financial system - one that will create jobs and will be built upon solid business practice?
Repeat: Government is on our side. The Republican Party is not.
And yes - this is partly Clinton's fault. As was made very clear today, D's aren't always better than R's. My own representative, Jim McDermott, cast a terrible Yea vote for this bill. Jim, you should know better. Nancy, you should know better. Obama - you should know better too for supporting anything going solely to Wall Street.
But why would they know better when we sit at home and do nothing? Why aren't we flooding the streets? Why aren't we shutting down the inner-workings of our society until our politicians listened to us?
Repeat: The Dems are on our side, but we need to make it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt.
We need them to realize we don't want Bush to have the power he has now, much less more power. We need them to know that we'd rather have our money back than hand it over to CEOs and greedy businesses. We need them to realize all of these things... because they obviously haven't realized it themselves.
But we can't start with this narrative, that Wall Street needs a fix. It doesn't need a fix. Their business practices cannot be rewarded. If we're going to put $700 billion in to the Economy, I want National Health Care. I want help with my bills, my debt and the educations of my fellow man. I want a rebuilt infrastructure and I want to be able to get from A to B without gas. I want solar, wind, geothermal...
The only thing, in fact, that I don't want is a Democratic Congress to put $700 billion in the hands of the people who it should be taken away from.
If the economy needs to be fixed this week, then demand that the people who have destroyed it for the last 27 years pay the tab and don't ask farmers, school teachers, postal workers nor policemen/women for their last dime. This mess is because of greedy politicians and businesses. And if we're going to be asked to pay for the cleaning, I expect them to do the sweeping instead of paying $700 for a broken broom.
This crisis is not new, and if we continue acting like it is then the Republican Message, after 27 years, has achieved total victory.
Hell no, anyone?