Someone once said that we get the government we deserve. My problem is that I cannot fathom what grievous harm we’ve done to the world to get the congress we have today. We have both Republicans and Democrats screaming that we have a spending program instead of a recovery program on the table. My guess is that all of them failed their Introductory Economics course or they decided that nothing in the field developed after 1899 has any relevance. Our illustrious elected leaders seem to forget that spending is economic stimulus. When Republicans complain that the New Deal took too long and we needed WWII to get out of the depression, they are ignoring the fact that it was the stimulus spending for WWII that finally ended the depression. Even FDR had a tough time spending enough to end the disaster. Now Republicans and some conservative democrats are complaining that President Obama is spending too much. These naysayers are going to end up extending the problem through under spending.
I can understand why the Republicans might want to do this. They believe that they can win the mid-term congressional elections if they make sure that a recovery doesn’t take place. They are willing to see the country go down the tubes in order to gain an electoral victory in 2011. They bring out the old saw of giving money to business to get the economy moving. They believe in something called “Say’s Law” which states that supply creates its own demand. The problem is that nobody in his/her right mind is going to produce goods in the absence of demand. Without an increase in demand, reducing the cost of labor merely increases business profits without increasing employment.
It is time to get tough and call the obstructionists to the carpet. I would use their old saw and state that they are threatening the security of the United States. I would not hesitate to call them traitors who are more interested in lining the pockets of the internationalist multi-national corporations than they are in the security of America. Progressives have, for too long, been too timid in their pursuit of their goals. They have tried to appeal to the mind. It is now time to use the tactics of the conservatives and start appealing to the gut. In 1932 the USA could have gone the way of Germany and Italy or the way of Russia. We found a third way through FDR and the new deal. If the conservative have their way, I’m afraid that our fate will be to resemble Mussolini’s Italy.
