President Barack Obama's belief in bipartisan government and reasonable compromise is a desirable one. In time he may be able to achieve much more of his cooperative goal. I had hoped that, from the start, cooperation from the Republicans would exist in reasonable measure, especially on matters as urgent as addressing the economy, but that has been sabotaged by the Republicans in Congress.
Such a hope for cooperation has already proved a frivolous dream as evidenced by the party line vote against the House stimulus package. That vote has been followed by the intransigence of John Boehner and John McCain, who scream for more tax cuts for the rich, the very policies that began with Ronald Reagan. Supply side economics was a stupid idea in 1980, just as no down payment loans without income verification, were a stupid idea in this decade. These tenets are but two of the Republican ideas that brought us to this mess.
President Obama needs to understand that he won an election that was a rejection of the economic policies that have been destroying the middle class and this country for three decades. He must take actions and pass bills that are an effort to change the rubbish of Reagan to policies that will benefit this country as a whole. If he cannot get the people who created the doomed ideas to adopt intelligent policies in place of their ruinous ones, then he must pass these bills without their help. He has offered much already and has been rebuffed. He has to keep in mind that this election was a massive repudiation of Republican failure.
I hope, too, for bipartisanship; but it may not come until the ignorance and blundering of current Republicans has been remedied at the ballot box.