'via Blog this'
Could it hurt any more than withholding Sandy relief?
The only thing that will hurt the northeast more is if the same mercenary, radical conservative ideologues are returned to Congress in 2014. This disgraced bunch of malevolent idiots have proven themselves to be unable to govern, and concerned only with advancing their own corporate and racist agenda.
ReplyDeleteFor the past 30+ years, this country has been shedding jobs. Middle class jobs. Jobs with health insurance, jobs with pension benefits. The middle class has been squeezed unrelentingly. If you happened to be fortunate enough to find a job with the income and benefits you need to provide for you and your family one month after becoming unemployed, you are fortunate. That doesn't make you better, more moral, or even more American. There are millions of people across this country that after losing their jobs because of economic dislocation that haven't had the good luck you have had. To simply cast them off to make their own way, to sink or swim, is a cruel, selfish and un-American policy.
And while this conversation has veered away from the topic of the House of Representatives denying your neighbors and this entire region promised and deserved Sandy relief, we may have come full circle. The same notion of not providing relief, that somehow this region is undeserving of help, because the prevailing mindset of the ruling radical conservatives is that 47% of this country are unworthy victims or moochers, is found in the complaint about providing unemployment insurance to long term unemployed.
The workers that cannot find work because of economic shifts they did not cause, need and deserve help. It's good for them, and good for the country. Those benefits are cycled straight back into the economy and provide a stimulative effect. The bozos on Fox News don't seem to grasp that, and that's the message they send out.
And beyond this, when and why did debt suddenly become the biggest boogeyman in the world? You and I grew up buying and hoarding U.S.Savings Bonds. The bond market that provides so much of the economic activity of this country would not exist without it. At the end of the Clinton administration, the 30 year Treasury notes were phased out because of the balancing of the budget, and the financial sector could barely contain its sadness. Debt is what allows economic activity in this country to exist. It allows the American Dream of home ownership to exist.
The neocons that pulled the strings in the Bush years just couldn't leave well enough alone. When the government behaved like the robber barons of old, greedily handing plush tax benefits to their rich corporate patrons while not financing foreign wars, it fulfilled the most fervent wishes of their radical conservative wing. By not raising necessary revenues, their goal of "starving the beast", their description of the social safety net, could be accomplished as well.
The worst financial upheaval since the Great Depression resulted from that orgy of poor governance. It's going to take years and a whole lot of money to repair the damage done by those greedy filthy thieves. They were never for the people, and they still aren't. I think the people are starting to finally see this.