President Obama was elected in 2008 with the mandate to get us out the economic disaster wrought by the GOP party.
Under the stewardship of a GOP congress and Bush/Cheney, the American economy (and world economy) was in the midst of the greatest financial peril since the Great Depression of the 1930's.
The American people were suffering and President Obama, with the aid of the Stimulus Package, assiduously worked to alleviate the GOP mess. From the get go, the leadership of the GOP emphatically stated -- via obstructive posture and words -- to the Democrats and Obama: You have no partnership with us, you are on your own.
As would be GOP king maker Rush Limbaugh exhorted: I hope you fail.
I initially thought this was a political miscalculation. The American electorate would surely make them pay for failing to come together to alleviate our economic hardship. The audacity of the GOP: first by almost running the economy off the cliff and second by not moving a finger to clean up the mess they made.
I was wrong. Middle America decided to go Tea Party on us. They double down on obstructionism.
Well, despite GOP inaction, our economy stabilized and even began to grow again. Think the Republicans would be applauding the economic reinvigoration. No, quite the contrary, the GOP -- in election year mode -- is working overtime to stall the recovery:
Are Republican lawmakers deliberately stalling the economic recovery to hurt President Barack Obama's re-election chances? Some top Democrats say yes, pointing to GOP stances on the debt limit and other issues that they claim are causing unnecessary economic anxiety and retarding growth.
The latest Democratic complaint came after House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday that when Congress raises the nation's borrowing cap in early 2013, he will again insist on big spending cuts to offset the increase. Boehner, R-Ohio, continues to reject higher tax rates, which Democrats demand from the wealthy.
That led Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to say Boehner is virtually assuring another debt-ceiling crisis as bad or worse than the one that hit the markets nine months ago.
"The last thing the country needs is a rerun of last summer's debacle that nearly brought down our economy," Schumer said. read more
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
No comments:
Post a Comment