The first sign that this piece is going to be hilarious is Harold Ford's mug shot:
Harold? You've got a little mustard there on your chin. No, a little to the right. Your other right. There you go! I think you got it all.
So what does serial loser Harold have to say in Wall Street's favorite mag (Fortune) after recently making a fool out of himself with an exploratory Senate bid in New York and overseeing the final demise of the DLC? (Seriously, the DLC's website is offline. It looks like they're officially kaput.)
The most important thing our leader can do is to push the reset button with business and not raise taxes on companies in a time of economic hardship. The U.S. economy and workers benefit from a strong, healthy relationship between government and business. America's most powerful job-creation engine, the private sector, remains under intense pressure from the uncertainty surrounding tax rates and new regulations, among other things.
Ah yes. That regulatory and tax uncertainty that has led to this:
Investors around the world say President Barack Obama is bad for the bottom line, even though U.S. corporations are on track for the biggest earnings growth in 22 years and the stock market is headed for its best back-to- back annual gains since 2004.
Corporations need to be saved from their non-job-creating record profits!
As a part of the reset, the President and Democrats should make permanent the current middle-class, capital gains, and dividend tax rates; extend the current rate on top earners for two years; cut the corporate tax rate by half; and suspend the payroll tax -- for both employers and employees -- for six months starting Jan. 1 for all businesses with 500 or fewer employees.
In other words, Obama should just sub-lease the White House to John Boehner. That would make Harold's Wall Street buddies really happy. And of course, the GOP would love a two-year extension of the top tax rate, so they can scream about tax-raising Democrats during the 2012 election cycle. But wait, there's a compromise! What would Democrats get?
And as a compromise on raising rates on the top earners after 2012, the affected income level should be raised to $1 million from $250,000 -- and Republicans should accept a nine-month extension of unemployment benefits for those hardest hit by this downturn.
Um. Wait. As a "compromise", the top tax rate gets increased by a factor of FOUR and extended forever, while the unemployed get nine extra months of unemployment? How the hell is that a "compromise"?
Second, the President should order his department heads and agency chiefs to declare a moratorium on new regulations until further notice.
So after Harold's grand compromise, we're back to giving Republicans everything they want -- the kind of regulatory non-oversight that created this economic disaster in the first place. But as a compromise, Harold Ford's Wall Street buddies can take the extra money they make and apply it to more hookers and blow.
The broadband ecosystem is an excellent example of why a moratorium is needed. The network providers have plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to build out the next generation of broadband. The ability to employ more design engineers, factory workers, programmers, and salespeople lies largely in having confidence that the FCC will not drastically alter the regulatory landscape.
So now he's pushing for an end to net neutrality. As a compromise, he'll personally come over to your house to deliver Comcast's officially approved list of bookmarks.
At the same time, the business community should support the President's cost-cutting health reform measures against Republican efforts to repeal reform altogether.
As a compromise, business shouldn't support a doomed Republican effort to repeal the health care reform legislation since both the Senate and White House remain in Democratic hands. Harold sure drives a hard bargain!
Third, the President shouldn't be afraid to add assertive new and fresh voices to his core team. New strategies are needed for dealing with Congress and the business community.
Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner weren't enough Wall Street for Wall Street's liking. They want even more of their noxious influence. As a compromise, they promise to suck more government funds to prop up their corrupt house of cards, while filing erroneous foreclosures and refusing to lend to small businesses.
And finally, we get Harold, election analyst:
Americans can ill afford to be divided in our effort to reinvent and reinvigorate our economy and country in the face of growing competition. Now isn't the time for Washington or business to lower expectations for our nation's future. It's time to make the halftime adjustments that will turn "us vs. them" into "us and them."
In fact, that may be the real message from the midterms.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! The real message from the teabagger-fueled midterm is that people want togetherness? Phew!
Here's the bottom line. "Democrats" like Harold Ford are the REASON Democrats took it you know where this November. I'll keep showing this exit poll question as long as I need to keep showing it:
If Democrats follow Harold's laughably bad advice, the American people will continue to see them as no different than Republicans (and justifiably so). And if there's no difference between the parties on issues of interest to economic populists, then they'll fall back on bullshit populism (deficits! earmarks! bailouts!) and genuinely divisive social issues like gay marriage, immigration, abortion, and the insertion of religion in our government.