Think about this.
President Barack Obama has been in office almost exactly one year.
He did make some small progressive changes to our country. He reaffirmed--verbally, anyway--that we aren't supposed to torture. He called for honoring the Geneva Convention--again, verbally, because apparently, we might still be torturing, we can't be sure, and we haven't reinstituted Habeus Corpus...
Anyway, he got some things going back on a better track.
But the American people have a very short memory and now too many of us believe he created the huge spending we're experiencing right now.
Forget that the George W. Bush Administration started all that nonsense.
It was that previous group that thought up the 700 billion dollar bailout plan.
Forget that our economy crashed on W's watch, largely due to the Conservative's and Republican's desire for and love of deregulation and free markets.
At least they do until they screw up our banking system and the big banks all nearly collapse. Then they're all for government.
Anyway, so now, here we are, on the cusp of getting a bit of health care reform and what happens? One pivotal Senator dies and gets replaced--surprisingly--by a Tea-bagger (that would be Scott Brown, at least a sympathizer) and there goes our 60 strong, filibuster-proof vote for the reform we need so badly.
Then, early today we get a ruling from the Supreme Court, doing away with campaign contribution limits for corporations.
And the only conclusion I can come to is that this President's productive days may well be over.
I hope I'm wrong but I doubt it strongly.
We're about to go into election season and it's likely we'll lose at least some seats in Congress this Fall.
Too many Democrats are Republican-lite and/or can be bought off by corporations in their districts and voila'--the President is shackled.
Then, after this Fall's elections, it's time for the President to again start running for office and still more time when nothing of substance gets done.
The Republicans have done it. They have said "no" and stalled and blocked and stymied progress for America all they could and they've won.
Nothing of substance will get passed in the next 3 years.
Prepare, now, for repeated comparisons of this President to Jimmy Carter and his inability to get things done. I've heard it already and there will be a lot more of it.
It's going to get ugly.
Heck, it's already depressing.
The African-American President was/is hated enough just for being himself.
Then he was hated because they said he was too liberal. Then a Socialist.
His Presidency may, for all intents and purposes, be over.
This may be a one-term Presidency.
God, I hope I'm wrong about all this.
But I sure don't think so.
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10 comments:
I don't see him even running again. This country is so frustrating. I'm sure the Republicans will take over times ten in the next election. I'm moving to Canada. Vancouver anyone?
Obama was dealt the crappiest opening hand ever..the next year should be all about creating jobs. If they fail at that it's over for him and the Democrats.
Bush started the bailout nonsense (and nonsense it is) but Obama drastically expanded it.
We don't have deregulation and free markets, probably never will. Much of the problems were due to well-meaning regulation. First we had government-encouraged redlining, then we had government requiring banks to lend to some people without regard to their ability to repay. (Then when the banks tried to get their money back, they were accused of predatory lending...)
I still don't know what is "reform" about the health care bill--Require everyone to get care, or pay a penalty?
I do agree with you on corporate contributions--Until we can put an entire misbehaving corporation in jail, (or at least it's board and upper management) they are not people.
From my point of view, gridlock is a good thing, preventing further cancerous growth of the government.
...and my word verification for this comment is nonsolve...
I couldn't agree more, Shawk
Sevesteen,
there was never any point at which government required "banks to lend to some people without regard t their ability to repay."
Ask any banker. Anywhere. Do the research. There was never such a requirement. That's an urban myth, propigated, at least, and likely begun, here on the internet.
ironic on the "nonsolve", ain't it?
lol
In theory you are correct--the Community Reinvestment Act had a consistent with safe and sound operation clause--but there was no defined criteria for safe, it was up to the regulator to both define and enforce. It is very likely that unless a lender was losing substantially on foreclosed houses, it was just considered a cost of doing business. As long as real estate kept going up, everything was fine.
It may be that the percentage of marginal CRA loans wasn't a major factor in the mortgage crisis--That's plausible, and I don't actually know. The CRA is also only a small portion of the regulation the banking industry is under.
I'm not saying I want complete deregulation, but regulation should primarily be about disclosure rather than activities.
Centrally planned economies don't work.
To be clear, I'm absolutely not for "central planning" in government over business. I also don't think anyone is advocating that.
What we're trying to avoid is the scummy kinds of lending and mortgages the bankers and mortgage loan lenders created when they created bad loans to people who couldn't truly afford them and then sold those as "A-grade" loans. It's that kind of blatant, irresponsible business that needs to be monitored and it used to be monitored. We need to get back to that, among other things we originally learned with the Great Depression of the 30's.
It is regulation that got us here in the first place. Federal regulation established redlining, with one of the goals "racially harmonious neighborhoods", The damage caused by that was too much for the Fair Hosing or Equal Credit acts, we wound up with the CRA--Again unable to fix the original problem, but adding a bunch of extra problems. We also wound up encouraging Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae buying loans, with less and less concern for credit standards, and its own set of problems.
Regulations need to make sure that banks are honest, transparent and nondiscriminatory, the rest should be up to the bank and the people borrowing from them--good and bad.
that is patent nonsense, Sevesteen. Regulation didn't get us here. The lack of regulation--and greed--got us here, dude.
Geez.
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