Well the stimulus bill passed with all the drama, betrayals, and back stabbing of a good Shakespearian play. The only difference between this and Shakespeare is that the deceivers like the Macbeth’s have shown no remorse, guilt or recognition of the wrongs they have wrought. Instead you have prideful boasting over the sabotage also known as the goose egg as Michael Steele called it laid on the President's desk. Only problem with this is, that it comes at the expense of the American public, which is losing their jobs, homes, health care and all the things we were told hard work and honesty would gain us. Why? Could it be we truly do not matter to those Republicans in Congress who think this is all one big game and joke?
More aftrer the fold
It is interesting to listen to their rants and raves about the economic stimulus package being one big pork barrel of Democratic wants that will hurt the tax payer, yet in the same breath they forget the last eight years where during a majority the Republicans held sway and as a result, we are here today. They somehow turn a blind eye like the family alcoholic to the damage brought about by the loss of two trillion dollars in revenue given mostly to the upper five percent of the income bracket. Or more recently how about their elimination of government regulators who oversaw our financial markets and product safety like say the production of peanut butter. I'll give the Republicans a break here as they were not alone in this, but while we are at it, how much did the Iraq war cost us? Oh right that's still ongoing.
President Obama's has been taking hits from both the left and right on the stimulus bill that get's signed into law today. On the right he was totally rejected by the Republicans in the House after he met with them, heard their concerns, and instructed certain changes be made to incorporate some of their failed ideas involving tax cuts to appease a few of them. The Republican response was to treat the President's out stretched hand of bipartisanship and friendship like it was toilet paper and a joke. A rather vulgar and crude joke at that poking fun at the economic hardships faced by many of us today. All the while whining that "we were excluded from the process", despite the fact they excluded themselves deliberately and announcing before their meeting with the President they were voting en mass against it. Here I will digress, John Boehner Republican House Minority Leader needs to learn his name as do other media folks There is no way, no how to pronounce his last name something other then what it is. It is pronounced Boe-h-ner not Bay-ner, look at the spelling folks. By the way he is a real boner too.
Liberals on the other hand criticizeObama for not spending more and caving in to Republican demands in the interest of "bipartisanship". Get a clue folks we didn't get that last Senate seat, Mitch McConnell still keeps it warm so yes deals must be made. Bipartisanship though, was a campaign pledge and so far Obama seems to be trying to keep his word in the face lies and disappointments, however Washington and its mini power brokers are doing their best to kill it. Remember it's easier to win your war if you first divide to conquer.
After crowing about how they were looking out for the taxpayer, and all the calls to dump the stimulus plan (at least it was a plan something the Republicans did not have), their defacto leader Rush Limbaugh laid it all on the line and let us in on the dark secret we've always known but never heard fessed up to. Republicans want Obama and the Democrats to fail.
Why? Because they lost this last election so badly they see that as their only hope to survive as a Party. They ignored the voter warning in 2006 and when 2008 rolled in, they got flushed with all the other waste. Wait though let's not just stop there, let's lie even more and try to rewrite history and blame FDR for the Great Depression. Something we may yet be headed for again.
Some very interesting similarities occur here along with another frightening potential similarity the keeps the Repugs awake at nights. First, in both cases Republicans were in power for a while when both of these economic disasters occurred. During the Great Depression FDR started these things called economic stimulus programs designed to get folks back to work (damn that sounds very familiar). The Depression occurred with the Stock Market crash all because people were allowed to buy stocks and take out loans without collateral, on credit. Our situation occurred when people were allowed to buy homes and things on credit without collateral and those loans were bundled and repackaged so many times their true content and value was hidden, and they were basically worthless. Hmmm didn't we just say that happened not too long ago and history somehow in less than a century repeats itself?
George the "Decider " Bush decided the rules and regulations put into place to prevent such a reoccurrence, along with his Republican cronies needed to be lifted. Where he couldn't muster the support in Congress, he appointed agency Directors and had them not enforce the laws, rewrite the regulations, or just failed to give those agencies the funding or staff to do their jobs. So here we are again less than a century later.
Another possible occurrence, the one that causes Rethugs nightmares is the part of history where FDR accomplished his task, though not without blunders and because of this the Democrats held power for a very long time. Should the Democrats succeed again, well.............
So what does this flag waving, paper tiger lapel pin group of trouble makers do? They try to block a program designed to help working Americans, and get this country back on its feet. No it wasn't a perfect plan, but in all honesty everything is an attempt and no one really "knows" what will work. However, to wish failure on anyone during these times at the expense of so many millions to me is inconceivable, not to mention traitorous. All for the sake of political gain. Only Despots do this. This is not who we are as a nation. If the American voter is willing to tolerate this, then democracy as we know it is already dead, and we deserve what we get.