and admittedly, they may be a little overpriced.
Anyway, there has been a grassroots, Tea-Baggeresque groundswell in BlogHawgs Nation for commentary on Election Day…..ANY commentary. And, by that, I mean a regular reader and poster remarked about the glaring, relatively small amount of political posting on this Blog during this election cycle. So, here ya go (Feel free to chime in, Hagers):
BK says:
The Senate will remain in Democratic hands. The House looks to be heading into GOP favor, which unfortunately means The Tan One (Rep. John Boehner for those out of the loop) will be the new Speaker. To your last point, Maukavelli, I think this is what America prefers. Frankly, I think it’s generally best for the country.
One of the greatest contributing factors to the current economic malaise was the unchecked power of the GOP from 2003-2007. While the Democrats maintained a very slim majority in the Senate from 2003-2005, it was so small that it barely mattered with a large GOP majority in the House and President Bush in the White House. And many of the Democratic Senators represented Red States, essentially making them DINO’s.
I believe that President Clinton was far more effective with a GOP House. The Dems controlled the Senate, which is where the majority of work gets done. The House and Newt Gingrich gave Clinton a perfect foil. It allowed the administration to easily identify the “evildoers” that prevented their agenda from advancing. Once they learned how to work together, we got a balanced budget and, ultimately, a budget surplus. Oh how far we’ve dropped…
Republicans have historically been the party of “fiscal discipline” and violently opposed to government spending. Once they controlled the Congress and White House, though, they decided spending money is not that bad of a thing. Clearly the Dems felt the same way the past 2 years.
In the macro-sense, I think the out-of-the-White-House Party controlling the House is a good thing. Looking at this specific scenario, though, I am a bit concerned. The angry Tea Party activists that will infiltrate the House are dangerous. They disagree AND are disagreeable. What’s worse is that they are PROUD of being that way.
Hopefully this is a one-cycle phenomenon. My guess is that the economy will stabilize and begin to grow at a moderate pace in the coming year. Folks will realize the new Health Care bill has more positives than negatives, and the folks campaigning this year on repealing that bill will realize how futile that fight really is. There is LITERALLY no way it will happen. My hope is the parts that don’t work will be addressed, but ideally the argument over the central issue of health care reform will die down to a dull roar.
This has the feeling of a panic election. Folks are pissed. The President has underperformed when measured against expectations. He has overperformed when measured against his predecessor (at least in my view). As most of you know, I was a Hillary guy. I worked for her for a year, and I still believe she would have been a more effective President. That said, I’m not mad at the President. I’m just a little disappointed.
Unfortunately a large segment of voters are more angry than disappointed, which means rational thought takes a backseat. A lot of the Tea Party folks will celebrate tonight’s results. Even more of the garden variety angry voters will smugly think that those dirtbags in DC (of which there are MANY) got what they deserved. But in a week or two, I suspect there will be a significant amount of buyers remorse. Which will lead to even more resentment of the government. Ultimately it will take the President, the new Speaker, and (what I hope will be) the new Senate Majority Leader to figure out how to get the government back on track.
I’m not holding my breath.
AB says:
I have been almost completely silent on the election cycle because I find it so tiresome.
Just about any time something political is posted, there is a visceral, knee-jerk reaction that devolves into the typical, tried and (un)true partisan rancor.
I just find it to be lazy, and/or disingenuous. We had an (admittedly left-leaning) guest contributor on and he was immediately called a know-nothing hack because he is a Democrat.
We have posts that have nothing to do with President Obama that are hijacked and turned into a made-for TV Crossfire whizzing match.
Don’t get me wrong–I enjoy some good, solid, back-and-forth aruing (I mean, I am a lawyer)but you don’t really have that, anymore–you know–an honest, opinionated, but educated discussion of issues and things that really affect people’s lives.
Instead, our political discourse has become nothing more than an endless stream of talking points and buzz words.
I don’t have the time and energy for it. There are more important things going on–like football season.
You’re unemployed? Tough Sh#!
Posted by Brett Kincaid on November 30, 2010
Congress once again failed. That is hardly news these days, but it’s of great consequence to the two million Americans who just lost their unemployment benefits. Congress failed to extend the emergency unemployment insurance program (UI) as it expires today. There is no sign that any 11th hour save is on the way.
An estimated fourteen million people are either unemployed or underemployed in the United States. The elimination of these funds means the long-term unemployed will no longer have the money they need to buy things. What does that mean? That means less money circulating in the economy. What does that mean? The family that needs transmission work done on their lone vehicle may not have the money now to get that done, meaning the local mechanic loses business. (Obviously just one possibility. They are endless, though.)
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities breaks it down a little further:
For every job opening their are 5 people looking for a job. These folks on UI are not there because they are lazy. It’s not their fault a bunch of millionaires and billionaires brought down the global economy by making ridiculous bets on ridiculous mortgage-backed securities. Those guys on Wall Street got saved, but conservatives are hell-bent on cutting off any meager funding to the blue-collar workers that pay the price.
Since World War II, our country has never eliminated this emergency program while the national unemployment rate is higher than 7.2 percent. Never. The current unemployment rate nationally is 9.6 percent, and even the most optimistic of economists believe that rate will stay at 9.0% or more over the coming year.
The total cost of a one-year etension of these benefits? Roughly $50B
The total cost of ta breaks for the wealthiest 5% of earners in the country — the bulk of that going to those that created the economic crisis? Almost $1T over 10 years, accounting for the interest that debt will accrue during that time. Yup, the tax breaks for those top earners will be paid for by borrowing money from other countries.
Posted in Commentary, Politics | Tagged: Congress, politics, Unemployment | 12 Comments »