That's what I think. More importantly, it's what our Nobel Prize winning economist, Krugman, thinks.
The U.S. government saved the country from a "full replay" of the Great Depression, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in an opinion column in the New York Times on Monday.
That should be something. Yes, the stimulus should have been bigger. We wanted it to be bigger. The President wanted it to be bigger. But he got it done, anyway.
He did avert a disaster.
I think we should pause a bit and give him some credit. Look around your place, check the fridge, and hug your kids or furkids.
All of it was on the cusp of being gone, folks.
I expand on the Flip:
I've been reading a lot of comments along the lines of "I don't want to hear that President Obama is better than McCain!"
I think that attitude is a luxury.
Hear it. Be happy. When I say it, I'm not whining that he's better than McCain. I'm thrilled that he's better than McCain. When I think of what McCain/Palin would have done, my blood runs cold.
We'd be in a serious Depression. People wandering the streets in search of a dumpster that hasn't been picked over yet, leaving their kids in bus stations because they can't feed them, while the dying pile up in emergency rooms.
McCain would have let it happen. His face would be on television, saying it's just "the economy shaking out," while police shoot rioters in grocery stores. He'd be saying we should "still respect Law and Order" while frantic parents steal antibiotics so their toddler won't die from an ear infection.
Blackwater would be called in to "restore order," wouldn't they? And we know how they would like to do it.
Maybe you can move in with the folks; if their Social Security hasn't been cut to the point where they are looking for homes, too.
Because a McCain Presidency wouldn't spend. They would slash. They would get all holy about the deficit and cut spending programs, saying that as soon as they get spending back in line the economy will bounce back. It's just a "mental depression, you whiners."
This one would have been worse than the last one. Because in the thirties, there were still a lot of farms where people could at least grow food. We don't have that any more.
Oh, McCain would be a one term President, you betcha. (And I'm still counting down his days. If he gets sick within the next four years, we'd have had President Palin. Yes, we would.)
He would get swept out like Hoover was. But the damage would have been done.
We didn't just dodge a bullet. If Krugman is right, we dodged a mortar attack.
It's not that I don't want a good health care bill passed. It's not that I don't want torturers prosecuted. I do! Of course I do!
But today, I'm grateful I still have my job and my apartment. My chronically ill husband hasn't died. I haven't sold the cats for scientific experiments. (Monty Python reference... I wouldn't do that!)
Take a moment with me... and be grateful. I know it sounds trite to say, "things could be worse."
But they could have been really, really, just-shoot-me-now bad. The fact that they are not is solely due to everyone's efforts to elect President Obama, and that President Obama, against serious odds, was able to do what needed to be done.
So I'm a bit impatient with the cries of "Obama is no different from McCain!" In at least one, very important way, he was.
He is.