A Party of Hoovers

The GOP has rendered itself completely irrelevant in the last few weeks with its intransigent opposition to the stimulus package put forth by the House Democrats and President Obama.  With the economy hurtling into the abyss and jobs hemorrhaging, the GOP congressional cowards applauded themselves because they managed to get their right-wing media friends to crow incessantly about the bill's non-existent "pork".  Just a quick aside, McCain went down hard basing his campaign around anti-pork rhetoric; it may not be the best strategy for victory.  Fortunately, Obama and his team can see beyond the Washington echo chamber and understand the intense pain Americans are going through.  The bill is not perfect because it got somewhat diluted by the so-called moderate Senators, but it's a good start.  Putting money towards education, food stamps, clean energy, health care, infrastructure and mass transit represents a real investment in the future of this country as well as a way out of the mess that Bush and the GOP lemmings got us into with their irrational devotion to deregulation and a host of ignorant Reaganomic theories.  

 

            I also applaud Obama's plan to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.  We've bailed out the banks to the tune of billions of dollars (these are the same bankers stuffing their office with thousands of dollars in upgrades and jamming their wallets with undeserved and outsized bonuses), and it's time we bailed out the people struggling to make their rent payments.  The moral hazard argument is ridiculous.  Nobody should have the right to judge the struggles others are facing.  All the "responsible" homeowners complaining about others getting bailed out need to take a breath and realize that the majority of people didn't get themselves into tough situations because they were greedy or ignorant.  Many people were tricked into taking on loans they couldn't afford, many lost jobs through no fault of their own, many are facing health care problems that we can't address given the nation's broken health care system and most importantly, the housing market simply collapsed sending prices spiraling downwards.  In any event, a rash of foreclosures is good for nobody.  The infamous Wall Street securities and CDOs that got us into this mess will fare even worse if foreclosures continue.  Responsible homeowners will see their neighborhoods decline as houses are abandoned and basic services cut because of declining tax revenue.  All in all, the Obama team is doing a great job getting us back on track.