Political Footballs

Just as this article by Krugman suggests... STOP FUCKING WORRYING ABOUT THE FUCKING DEFICIT! PEOPLE NEED JOBS BEFORE THE GOVERNMENT CAN PAY DOWN THE DEBT!

Sorry for shouting. But the fact is, it's despicable to the nth degree that rather than extend employee benefits during the longest stretch of long-term joblessness since the 30s Congress would prefer to whine and moan about overspending. These are the facts kids, no one is going to default on the United States. Despite concerns about China owning large portions of our debt, so do American banks and other countries. And none of them, NONE OF THEM, can continue to exist as they do today without the income of the United States. If the United States were to actually be pressured by China to pay back the debt it's owed, and if somehow that resulted in the dollar losing value, China's economy would tank faster than the latest plan by BP to stop the oil spill.

The truth is, in order for our economy to retain a growth level required to defeat a 10% jobless rate the government must spend money. The government has to push bills to create jobs and it ain't like there aren't many opportunities to do so. Why not subsidize companies that have or are working on alternative energy technologies so that some time from now Oil isn't such a requirement? Why not subsidize cleanup efforts so that our coasts can at least attempt to prevent a large portion of the ongoing disaster of the BP oil spill? Why not begin to look into agricultural practice and begin a change from corn fed cows to traditional grazing and local production? And that's just randomly throwing a dart at an entire board of problems we're bound to face in the next ten years. Government money towards the research and employment of individuals to learn these new skills and technologies could go a long way towards solidifying our growth and providing jobs to people that have been out of work now for several years.

But instead of looking to those policies as options, we'd rather bitch about a deficit. I've said it before and so have others, the United States has lived over 80% of its existence as a nation undergoing deficit spending. We had reigned in spending back in the 90s, cleaned up our budget and even began paying down our debt in an era of substantial growth and prosperity and what happened? The boy clown decided that we're capable of fighting 2-3 wars at a time and decided out of the fuckin' blue to invade daddy's enemy without concern over the cost or the expenditure of resources which resulted in what we have now. Don't want to blame it on the Iraq war? Fine, blame it on the massive deregulation that led to a tanking of the housing market and the nations banking systems. Don't want to fault a former President for the market's troubles? Ok, then maybe you could see where pharmaceuticals have been toying with R&D money to just overspend on national television commercials that promoted an increase in healthcare costs that led to the disparities in the insurance market that was then subject to enforce ridiculous standards for the insurable and consider things like being a woman enough of a precondition to deny care.

I could go on and on and to be fair to Mr. Bush, I'm not really blaming him despite this rhetoric. What I'm getting at is that for the past 20 years the United States has decided its ideas were still the best because we say they are. Supply side economics and short sided political games have placed us in an era wherein every actual good idea is subject to whose idea it is before the idea is even looked at.

I have many friends that feel we've gone too far, that the only way we'll ever get out of this loop is to start over. Well I don't think that's the case. What needs to change isn't about disposing of our government or even altering our basic concepts of freedom or politics or anything like that. If we would just stop bouncing garbage around through media outlets and Congressional ranting and actually look at the future ahead of us, then some really hard decisions could be made in a progressive way that would help all of us. It isn't that there isn't money out there to solve these crisis. And it isn't that America doesn't have the ability to adapt to the designs of a new era. It's that civic duty and independence has been pushed aside for rabble rousing and letting our leaders just bullshit through to the next election.

What we need isn't a Tea Party of rich white people that don't want to pay taxes, but a class of people with an attitude that the future is ours to make.

We're not going to have a good outcome in the Gulf after this BP disaster, that pooch has been screwed and the best we can do is deal with it. But instead of just laying to the side and hoping the anal fisting doesn't hurt too bad, we'd be much better off turning around and punching back. Not by bitching. Not by whining. But by actually pushing our leaders to make change for our interests. And by our, I don't mean some small group of like minded individuals, I mean the entire nation. If you don't want to help make the situation better, that's just fine. Just STFU and let those of us that care make the change that's necessary.

If I could have the ear of the President for five minutes, I'd have one thing to say... stop listening to assholes and stand up for what you ran on, progressive change for the future.

END RANT