Letter 2 America for February 3, 2015

| No Comments | No TrackBacks
Dear America,

You may not recall, but the rate of economic growth in this country for the third quarter of 2014 exceeded 5%.  It was the best rate for any such period since the beginning of the economic crisis from which we are finally emerging.  So, when the Republicans swept the mid-term elections of last year, Mitch McConnell claimed that that bump in growth was anticipation of a Republican legislature being manifested in voter preferences.  But as it was reported in the New York Times a few days ago, the rate of growth for the fourth quarter was only 2.6%, which would be nothing to brag about, but for the fact that it was still in excess of that in Europe and the rest of the world.  McConnell hasn't been confronted with the fact that in the quarter in which the election occurred and the Republican majority in both houses actually was "achieved," the rate of growth dropped sharply, even though it was the season for Christmas shopping and the ebullience that usually accompanies Thanksgiving. I guess McConnell was a little premature in his attempt to take credit for growth that, as it turned out, didn't happen, but that's Republican politicking for you, and it goes on ad nauseum.  For example, President Obama has released his annually proposed budget, which has been an exercise in futility since he became president in this country in which "loyal opposition" is anathema to the party that doesn't occupy the White House...the Republican Party in particular, and the demagoguery has filled the airwaves.

Paul Ryan, the erstwhile and unsuccessful Republican candidate for vice-president and still chairman of the House Budget Committee, has kept the ball rolling with his comments on the budget.  He is claiming, like the rest of his party, that President Obama's economic policies have been a failure, and that his new budget reflects "envy economics," which Ryan asserts have been the policy for the past six years.  But since the Republicans have controlled the legislature with the majority in The House and de facto control of The Senate via the filibuster for the past four years, that would seem a claim that could be no better than disingenuous, but more likely nothing less than politically inspired fantasy rhetoric.  Virtually nothing that the Democrats have wanted has gotten through the federal legislature since the Affordable Care Act and the Obama stimulus package with the exception of a two percent hike in taxes for those making over $450,000 per year.  As to the ACA, the law has been successful in reducing the number of the uninsured in this country by millions, and it has cost the rich nothing.  The stimulus is almost universally attributed with averting a depression instead of a deep recession with unemployment being cut almost in half since Barrack Obama took office--another success.  Meanwhile, the modest increase in the rate of income taxation imposed on the upper-middle to the upper-upper classes hasn't kept them from gaining from the recession that afflicted the rest of us and accruing an even greater proportion of the nation's wealth than they had before the economic crisis began.  In that respect, Mr. Obama has failed in that the disparity in income and wealth from the top to the bottom of our economically stratified country has only increased, but Ryan and the Republicans would ordinarily consider that to be a success, though Ryan has chosen not to give President Obama credit for that one, and rightfully so.  Then, of course, there is their opposition to increasing the minimum wage so that it can also become a living wage.

Ryan's contorted criticism and McConnell's preposterous boasts have only served to illuminate the shallow motivations behind almost everything that the Republicans say as a party, but the question in the end is, why are so many buying their self-service.  There continues to be resistance to the ACA, both in the form of public opinion and Republican tactics--Boehner's Republican controlled House is preparing to pass another bill to repeal "Obamacare" to go along with the previous forty-seven, and McConnell's Republican Senate has passed its own version of the House bill approving the XL section of the Keystone pipeline--but no one seems to be repudiating their thinly veiled partisanship or the fact that neither serves the American people well.  While the XL serves only to bring oil from Canada to a pipeline bottleneck in Steele City, Nebraska and the ACA isn't going anywhere unless the Supreme Court coalesces with conservative forces to effectively eviscerate The Act in any of several law suits brought by conservatives including Republican attorneys general, these gestures don't seem to register with the voters as being what they are.  The XL serves no purpose but to move Canadian oil closer to the refineries that will export the petroleum distillates that it will become, and the vast majority of the American uninsured will have access to affordable healthcare, in many cases for the first time in their lives thanks to the ACA, but the Republicans have achieved legislative hegemony by trumpeting their opposing positions on those issues and others.  Immigration reform is openly scorned by Republicans almost dogmatically though the Hispanic working class favors it as do the "dreamers," who have done nothing but work to assimilate since their parents brought them here, and they seek to reduce tax rates for business so as to put more money in the hands of corporate executives even though American business as an institution is already sitting on close to $3 trillion in profits accrued since the recession began that it declines to reinvest in American business and industry.  How can votes for more wealth for affluent businessmen overcome the the votes of a large segment of the workforce that makes their quality of life possible?  Then there is Governor Scott Walker of Michigan--who disemboweled the public labor unions shortly after his first election--not only celebrating his reelection to the governorship of his state, but apparently running for the Republican nomination for the presidential election in 2016...to rave reviews, I might add.

I can't help thinking we are headed for a fall as a nation.  Nothing makes any sense anymore.

Your friend,

Mike

No TrackBacks

TrackBack URL: http://letters2america.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/attymwol/managed-mt/mt-tb.cgi/636

Leave a comment

Categories

Pages

OpenID accepted here Learn more about OpenID
Powered by Movable Type 4.34-en

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Michael Wolf published on February 3, 2015 11:06 AM.

Letter 2 America for January 30, 2015 was the previous entry in this blog.

Letter 2 America for February 6, 2015 is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Political Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory google-site-verification: google9129f4e489ab6f5d.html

Categories

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Michael Wolf published on February 3, 2015 11:06 AM.

Letter 2 America for January 30, 2015 was the previous entry in this blog.

Letter 2 America for February 6, 2015 is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

google-site-verification: google9129f4e489ab6f5d.html