Togetherness

Ed Stein's commentary:

Now that the stimulus spending is winding down (note to critics of stimulus spending, who said it didn’t do anything: if it didn’t do any good, why is the loss of it endangering the recovery?), the job market is looking grim again. For reasons I can’t quite fathom in this oddest of election years, neither party seems to have much to say about the number one issue in the polls: jobs. The Dems know that they can’t pass anything right now, but instead of trying to get a big jobs bill through, and forcing the GOP to defend the indefensible, they seem to have given up. The Republicans are all about one issue only–extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, because it’s not a good idea to raise taxes in a recession, although it’s hard to know who will be hurt by taking a bit more from really rich people, and on the discredited theory that keeping the tax cuts will create jobs, (note to GOP: where are all the jobs that the tax cut was supposed to produce in the first place?).

In the meantime, the millions without work can spend their days waiting for the economy to tank again and looking for jobs that don’t exist, or worrying about a mosque in New York or immigrants taking the jobs that don’t exist in Arizona.

On that Islamic Center issue, I just returned from a few days in New York, where nobody I met was talking about the Ground Zero mosque (note to readers: it’s a community center, not a mosque, and it’s not at Ground Zero) even though Rupert Murdoch’s Post was doing its lurid best to keep up with his Fox News and make an election issue of it. I’m convinced the only politician in America with any courage at all is Mayor Bloomberg (a Republican), who is still standing firm on the principle of freedom of religion.

As usual, Ed Stein makes some good points. If the stimulus package didn't do any good, why is the loss of it now threatening to put us back into recession? And why did it stop the downturn in its tracks, and cause the stock market to immediately change course, when it was first implemented?

And if tax cuts for the rich creates jobs, why didn't it during the Bush administration? Why was our economy so much better under Bill Clinton, who actually raised taxes - a bit - and began to pay off the debt we'd accumulated from previous Republican administrations? Yes, he raised taxes and the economy boomed!

Yes, Republicans claimed that trickle-down economics wasn't voodoo, that it would actually pay off for our nation. But the evidence - poor job growth, record-breaking deficits, and bubbles that gave us the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression - clearly shows otherwise. By any measure at all, we were far better off under Clinton than under Bush.

Yes, the stimulus was absolutely the right move, but it was too small, and too much of it went to tax cuts (which Obama and the Democrats got no credit for, anyway). We needed to be bolder about such things. The economy has to be humming again before we start cutting back on government stimulus. Heck, we learned that in 1937. None of this is rocket science. We've been through all this before.

Unfortunately, the Democrats don't do "bold." If there's a timider bunch of politicians in the world, I'd be surprised. Not all of them, of course, but most. Now they're mostly trying to hide under the bed, hoping that voters will just overlook them in November.

Where's the sense in that? They should be screaming to high heavens about Republican obstructionism. They should be proposing bold new jobs packages. If the Republicans want to filibuster, they should let them filibuster a jobs bill. They should let them filibuster a military appropriations bill that ends "don't ask, don't tell." They should be standing up for what they believe.

And yes, they should be standing up for freedom of religion, without wishy-washy qualifiers that attempt to keep everyone happy. Sometimes compromise is valid. But there are other situations, like this one, where right is right and wrong is wrong. Freedom of religion doesn't need qualifiers. You either stand up for the Constitution of the United States or you don't. (Admittedly, some Democrats seem to recognize this.)

I fault Barack Obama for this. Congress can't provide leadership. That's the President's job. He's got the bully pulpit, and he needs to be using it. He needs to - publicly -  push Congress into doing the right thing. If Democrats in Congress are too timid, he needs to kick some ass. He needs to lead.

Given Republican filibusters, the Democrats probably can't pass anything worthwhile. But they should still try. They should fight the good fight, even if it's a losing proposition. They should make the Republicans "defend the indefensible." And if some of their own members drag their feet (Ben Nelson, I'm referring to you), the majority should stick to their guns. There's no sense in compromising with the very worst elements in your own party when the Republicans are going to filibuster everything anyway.

Like most Democratic politicians, Barack Obama wants to get along with everyone. He needs to forget that. He's been as moderate, as compromising, as... nonthreatening as he can possibly be, and the Republicans still call him a Marxist, a fascist, a terrorist, a socialist, a Muslim, a Communist, and a Nazi. According to them, he's still the embodiment of the scary black man who plans to steal their wallets and their daughters.

Meanwhile, he's getting kicked around by lunatics on Fox "News" and burned in effigy at Tea Party rallies. He's got supporters, plenty of them. But after showing real leadership during the campaign, he's abandoned all that as president. He wants to be president of all the people. He wants to rise above petty partisan bickering. He wants to bring the nation together.

Well, nice thought, but it's not going to happen. What we need now is leadership. Otherwise, we're going to be back under the control of Republicans who've become complete lunatics. You think the Bush administration was bad? Just wait. I don't think the nation could survive another George W. Bush, and the next one is likely to be even worse.