Stopping the Recession

Here in America, the land of the free and the home of opulence, many thousands of citizens are wondering if they will have a home next month. Many thousands of others are struggling to put dinner on the table. And millions of people cannot pay their mortgages or their heating, electric, gas, and credit card bills. What does it mean to these people that the Federal Reserve is cutting the prime rate by three-quarters of a percent? Not much.

It does not matter whether they call this calamity a recession, a downturn, a correction, or Swiss cheese. What matters is the suffering experienced every day by ordinary Americans.

In my opinion Ronald Reagan was a lousy president. On his watch the neo-conservatives implemented the theory of “Supply-Side” or “Trickle-Down” economics. Under that theory, the government cut taxes and initiated programs to benefit the prosperous elite, thereby supposedly improving the economy and benefiting everybody. Needless to say, the rich got richer. The poor, however, stayed poor. Bush W and his crew are devout worshippers at the church of Supply Side.

Republican politicians, who have thrived on fat lies about “tax-and-spend Democrats,” gave a huge tax cut to the wealthiest Americans at the start of the George W. Bush Administration. Middle-class people got pennies, and the poor got nothing. The unregulated banking industry began preying on lower-income people, luring them into deadly adjustable-rate mortgages. Wall Street moguls bought-up billions of dollars worth of these so-called “sub-prime” investments. On the strength of this, the construction industry began a building boom on the backs of illegal aliens. Now that the whole thing has exploded, Bush and his gang want to bail-out the banks, brokers, and builders. But the people who need help are the people who are losing their homes, their jobs, and their lives.

Joseph E. Stiglitz is a professor of Economics at Columbia University. He won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 2001. In a recent essay he said that tax cuts are not a solution to the problem. He pointed out that “middle- and lower-income Americans have been suffering for the last seven years — median family income is lower today than it was in 2000.” He suggested that direct payments from the government to the people in the form of tax rebates would stimulate the economy while helping people.

Stiglitz also recommended strengthening the unemployment system. In other words, the government should increase unemployment benefits and extend the period that people could collect benefits. Stiglitz noted that money received by the unemployed would be spent immediately, thereby stimulating the economy. He also recommended other actions which would improve the economy, including money for rebuilding infrastructure, support for education, and legislation allowing people facing foreclosure to stay in their homes.

Two other steps strike me as necessary. The first is to stop the war. Just stop it. Bring our troops home. They are heroes who have fought valiantly in a dirty, hot, arid, ugly land. Bring them home and stop this senseless sacrifice of our youth and our treasure. Second, repeal the cynical tax cuts for the wealthy which have upset our economy and which, along with the war, have created the largest deficits in American history. Everybody knows that gigantic deficits distort the economy and reduce the money supply. Because of our deficits we are debtors going hat-in-hand to Arab sheiks and Asian countries. It is pathetic.

I do not comprehend how anybody but the very rich could vote for Bush and the Republicans. In a tentative deal, Bush has succeeded in getting Democrats to drop their demands for food stamps and for improving unemployment insurance. For some time now there has been a callous indifference in the Bush Administration to the needs of the poor and lower-income Americans. This has included vetoes of bills expanding health insurance for less fortunate children. It has included refusal even to consider governmental health insurance for the 47 million uninsured. However, Bush does weep for the billionaire bankers, hedge-fund managers, and big investors. God forbid that they should have to cut down on their daily rations of caviar, filet mignon, and Dom Perignon.

Independents and The Undecided

I have never quite understood undecided voters. Perhaps I am wrong, but I have always assumed that such people are simply inattentive or uninformed. I care too much about political subjects to be undecided. We live in a world where there are sharp differences on political and social issues. To me, such issues require some kind of decision. I do not know how one can be blasé about the Iraqi war, abortion, stem-cell research, global warming, health insurance, gun control, same-sex marriage, oil prices, and other such matters. The two major political parties take opposite sides on most of these issues. Candidates usually express themselves on these issues well before the election, yet many people say they cannot decide who to vote for until they go into the voting booth.

Now along comes Michael Bloomberg, the zillionaire Mayor, meeting with others to discuss whether to form an independent party; independent of what? Will an independent party take no position on the issues mentioned above? What will an Independent Party stand for; politeness, apathy, nothing? Bloomberg and his group claim that the two main parties are far too polarized. I suppose that if the Democrats and Republicans were neutral on the above issues, they would not be so polarized. I do not understand, however, how people can fail to take sides on such vital issues. It is easier for me to understand people taking conservative positions on these issues than it is to understand the neutrality of independents.

I may not know who to vote for in local elections or primaries, but I have never had any doubts about candidates for president. I am a news junkie. I read three newspapers a day, including The New York Times. I read two news magazines a week and watch the major news programs on television every night. I read several online news sources. Perhaps I am addicted to news and need to go into news rehab.

One group of citizens I don’t understand or at least do not esteem very highly is those who say: “I don’t like any of the candidates. I’m not going to vote at all.” These ostrich-headed civilians fail to understand that life is not always ideal and that sometimes it is necessary to choose the best, or perhaps the least offensive, from a slate of less-than-perfect aspirants to office. One of the reasons we have political parties is that candidates for office represent not only themselves; they also represent political principles. Parties define themselves according to where they stand on the liberal-conservative spectrum. If you don’t like a candidate, vote for his or her party.

I am baffled by the consistently low ratings given in the polls to the Congress. The ratings were low before the Democrats took over majority control in 2006 and continued to be low thereafter. Who is it that people dislike? There are two major parties in Congress. Do people dislike both parties? I don’t think that people know why they dislike Congress. They are just frustrated that Congress is not doing what they want. My question is: what do they want? Different people want different things. The problem is that neither party has been able to get a veto-proof and filibuster-proof majority. Thus, either party can stymie the legislation proposed by the other. If voters are frustrated by the inability of Democrats to pass legislation halting the Iraqi War, they should realize that President Bush has vetoed every bill setting a time limit on American participation in the war, and Republicans have upheld every veto. The only solution to this problem is to elect more Democratic congressmen and senators.

There is a type of citizen that I particularly despise. He can usually be found at the corner stool in a bar. He says: “They all stink. They should throw-out all the bums and put in a whole new government.” You can be assured that this savant is not endowed with a PhD in government. He is not offering the legitimate complaint that special interests have too much influence. He is not disturbed by the campaign-finance abuses. He is not speaking about the lofty promises broken by elected officials. His problem is that the world is not perfect and the cost of beer is too high. He doesn’t really know much about government and who the players are, so he just sits and drinks and kvetches.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama

I have never fully understood the animus held by many conservative Republicans toward Hillary Clinton. It seems to be much stronger than their dislike of other Democrats. From what I have read about her, she is a much nicer person than most people realize. One conservative writer wrote a book about her and concluded that she is a good person who is loved by her staff. Her main problem is that in public she projects a persona that seems cold and snobbish. Somehow, she has trouble flashing a genuine smile. I do not, however, understand why our presidents have to be warm and fuzzy. We need leaders, and right now we need a leader desperately. Hillary could be a fine leader.

I suspect that part of the problem people have with Senator Clinton is the uniquely American hang-up about powerful women. Many other countries in the world have had female leaders, but Hillary is the first American woman to mount a serious campaign for the presidency. When Bill Clinton said that if he was elected America would get “two for the price of one,” many people were outraged. They were used to first ladies being shadowy background figures who gave tours of the White House and spoke-out on innocuous issues like literacy and children’s nutrition. They were not used to having first ladies who were actually involved in governmental policy.

Hillary is on good grounds when she attacks Barack Obama for lack of experience. Some may ask, “what experience did Hillary get being the wife of the president?” The answer is-- plenty. Several books about the Clinton presidency make clear that Hillary was intimately involved in presidential decision-making. Unlike most first ladies who had their offices in the East Wing of the White House, Hillary had an office in the West Wing near that of the president. She frequently took part in major meetings. She guided many of the important decisions made by her husband. She tried to maintain a low profile, and her significant role in the Administration was never acknowledged. But she has had more experience than any candidate, Democrat or Republican, now running for office.

Barack Obama has many virtues. He is the darling of young people who usually do not like traditional candidates. Young people have no faith in the establishment. They want dramatic change. Obama has great charisma, charm, brains, and eloquence. However, compared with Hillary Clinton and the other Democratic candidates, he has not done much. He has spent two years in the Senate, yet I know of no great pieces of legislation attached to his name. Somebody has pointed-out, however, that the same thing could be said of Abraham Lincoln.

The biggest question about Obama is whether he would be the strongest candidate the Democrats could field. Many people would vote against him because of his inexperience, and, sad to say, others would vote against him because of his race. Conservative writers seem to like him because they hate Hillary. Some Republicans have crossed-over in the primaries to vote for Obama in order to stop Hillary. They probably wouldn’t vote for Obama if he was nominated. They voted for him because they think he is unelectable. I believe that he could win if he is nominated and I would like to see him become President of the United States. I would, however, like to see him get some seasoning and come back to run at a later date. We need his powerful appeal to all that is good in America.

This is an important election. Republicans have made such a mess of our country that Democrats now have a golden opportunity to seize the White House and elect a strong Democratic Congress. We need someone who will bring the bloody carnage of young Americans in Iraq to an end. We need someone who will bring health insurance to all Americans, who will repeal the odious Medicare Part D drug law and bring free medication to all senior Americans, who will sign-on to treaties and accords necessary to halt global warming, who will authorize funds for stem-cell research, and who will stop the appointment of ultra-conservative, anti-abortion Supreme Court Justices. We need a president who will cancel the huge tax cuts for wealthy Americans and stand-up to the powerful oil, tobacco, pharmaceutical, automobile, and insurance industries. We should not let this opportunity slip by.