Resisting Change
I am amazed at how failed ideas seem to have a life of their own. What is it about being wrong that is so hard to admit and to finding new possibilities? The lessons here came in three doses this weekend, all from our out-of-touch conservatives who think they can somehow recreate yesterday. My only hope is that I am overreacting and that the mainstream media is being ignored by our younger generation that will inherit these catastrophes if they are allowed to gain any traction.
First up are the Republicans on the stimulus package. Try to focus here: The Republicans have cut taxes for the last eight years, created the largest deficit in our history primarily due to these tax cuts, and the federal interest rate is now zero and their answer is to, oh you guessed it, cut taxes. It has worked so well so far.
We have the minority leader of the House, John Boehner (R-Ohio), my definition of a mental moron because he spends his life misstating facts and failing to learn from his mistakes, telling us: “Right now, given the concerns that we have over the size of this package and all of the spending in this package, we don’t think it’s going to work.”
Of course his plan for fixing the economy is best stated by another brain dead Republican, John McCain: “We need to make tax cuts permanent, and we need to make a commitment that there’ll be no new taxes. We need to cut payroll taxes. We need to cut business taxes” (New York Times).
Isn’t that what we have been doing under their leadership for the last eight years and what we got for it is a failed economy and the largest deficit in history? But let’s do it some more until it works. Brain dead is being far too kind.
What is really driving the train here is that if government spending instead of tax cuts does help the economy, these guys are up the creek in a canoe without a paddle, so to speak. If their economic theories, which are really the basis of the total conservative belief system, don’t work, then they really are superfluous and they know it. So they will continue the fight to defeat the stimulus package, or to at least make it as ineffective as possible so they can claim victory.
The thing you might want to ask them is why not give the stimulus package and government spending stimulus a try? We have tried it their way (with the Democrats going along for the ride) for twelve years so how about we try something new? But as noted earlier, they can’t let that happen. Paul Krugman’s column, Bad Faith Economics, chronicled how they are using misdirection and lies to muddy the waters.
In the vein of misdirection, I was watching CNN’s Your Money and one of the pundits was explaining how some economic indicators indicate that the economy is already starting its rebound and the economic package isn’t necessary. This is denial at its height and zenith. I opened the paper today to news of more and more layoffs and the banks shrinking further from the markets. I wonder what planet of wishful thinking he is on? It is so hard to admit reality when the reality makes everything you know obsolete. It does no good if the market is strong and no one has a job. Maybe the market is not the sole indicator of our economic health.
So what else could these bad boys be doing to hold us back? Well in Texas the social conservatives (and you can bet they are not Democrats) are at it again trying to question evolution and getting their textbooks and curriculum to question good science (New York Times). It appears that their book buy could effect other states so this denial of what the curriculum experts and scientists have recommended by the social conservatives on the board of education could impact the teaching in many other states.
Here we are in a world that is competitive and continually changing, and we still have this group of people who think under educating or dumbing down our young to meet their religious goals is a good idea. And you wonder why I want to jettison all the Red States. This nation could be so much further along if we had ignored the know-nothings a long time ago.
Finally back here in California, with the news of President Obama lifting the restriction on California and other states regulating greenhouse gases, a Republican legislator is proposing that in these tough economic times we repeal the state law that would limit global warming emissions and gas mileage restrictions. He says we can’t afford it. I say we can’t afford not to afford it. Talk about short term thinking.
Here is his thinking and in a nutshell is the failed thinking of conservatives: Times are tough so let’s go back to doing things the way we use to that have created the problems we are facing. These people are a study in lacking moral character and forethought. It is a new day, the world has changed, and we have to start thinking in different ways. What part of this don’t they get?
Ah, but vested interest and fear of the future where what you know may be obsolete makes the “little people” cling to false hopes and old ways of dealing with our world. It is time to jettison these “little people” and move into the world that really exists. If we don’t, welcome to the third world.