Your party is on life support. Before you decide that pulling the plug on yourselves is the best way to end your misery, there are a few things you might want to consider.
I know it looks like a huge leap from where you're standing, but follow me into the land of reality for just a moment. You can always go back to your fantasy world if the light is too bright for you over here.
You people really don’t get it, do you? That so-called "conservatism" was an utter failure? What began 30+ years ago with Reaganomics has morphed into what amounts to welfare for corporate America. While the average middle class worker has seen his income flatten over this period, the average CEO has seen his income explode. In 1970, CEO’s made approx 25x their employee’s salary. Today, that number is 500x what their employees make. What happened to all the wealth that was supposed to "trickle-down" to the working class? We’ve seen nothing but stagnant salaries (no increase even in the minimum wage for over a decade!) and outsourcing of jobs to cheap foreign labor. We’ve seen corporation after corporation lose sight of their long-term health and viability, in favor of short-term goals and quick profits. We’ve seen them run their companies into the ground as they cook their books to fool their shareholders and steal their employees’ pension funds. And for all this, they’ve been mightily compensated with outrageous salaries, bonuses, pensions and even severance packages when they screw up.
While the cost of living, healthcare, college tuition, housing and property taxes skyrocketed; the only thing that kept the working class viable was the availability of cheap and easy credit. We can thank Greenspan (and Bernanke), and his continually lowering interest rates even in the face of an unsustainable housing bubble for contributing to the credit crisis and keeping the working class saddled with debt. The Bush administration helped it along with massive tax cuts for the wealthy, even while waging 2 wars (an unprecedented action), as it borrowed heavily from China and other nations. We’ve gone from being a productive nation to a consuming one. Among the few things we still export are debt and weapons. Despite the fact the US military budget exceeds that of the rest of the world combined, we are still virtually no less vulnerable to attack here at home than we were on Sept 11th. Meanwhile, our nation’s healthcare, infrastructure and education system and needs of our vets have been allowed to go down the toilet.
Now Obama inherits this mess and you’re all whining about why he hasn’t come up with a magic bullet to fix everything in the less than 2 months he’s been in office. AND actually blaming him for the further decline of a sinking stock market. What a joke! Your party was invited to the table by Obama and couldn’t come up with any plan other than further tax cuts for corporate America. In other words, more of the same. Because it’s worked so well over the last 8 years, I guess. The stimulus package contains the largest tax cut to middle income earners that ever been seen in this nation. 95% of us will see either a reduction or no change in our taxes. Those in the top 5% income bracket will see an increase, but still won’t pay as high a % as under previous (even some republican) administrations. But somehow this slight shift towards diminishing the gap between the classes is viewed as a giant leap towards turning us into Communist Russia. And the creation of jobs is seen as "wasteful" spending, even though many of those jobs would enhance our infrastructure, create new technology, decrease our foreign fuel dependence and help maintain needed services like police and firefighters.
Republicans are left with complaining and obstructing as their only tactics. They go back to their districts taking credit for the funding they will receive from the stimulus, the same package they voted against! Or worse they decline to accept needed funding for their state. (Let me know how that one works out for ya!) Well here’s a news flash for you: Americans are in desperate need of assistance. Private industry and banks are in no position to help anyone. Although it would mean the end of the whole "government is the problem" meme for conservatives, government intervention is our last hope under these current circumstances. And truly, Americans don’t give a rat’s ass what you want to label this action. They’re too busy looking for work, or constructing tent communities after they lose their homes.
So you can continue to try to obstruct government from being able to do its job. You can continue to worship at the altar of Wall Street and allow the free market of "too big to fail" to hold the nation hostage. You can continue to allow the likes of Rush Limbaugh to speak for your party, because lets face it......it would be so much better to see new policies fail than to have to admit that government CAN actually work when those who control it, want it to. You can continue your suicide mission, or you can actually get onboard and become part of the process that heals the nation.
The best medicine is sometimes very bitter.