When Will Republicans Ever Learn?

In addition to acting like bad capitalist, even while they pay themselves tens of millions of dollars in salary and bonuses, while their firms register multi-billion dollar losses, the top banks CEOs won’t lend to entrepreneurs, the engine of American economic vigor, because their banks are weighed with toxic assets. The Republicans have fought tooth and nail and stripped billions of dollars in money that was meant for education and healthcare in the stimulus plan proposed by President Obama. Let’s see if they oppose billions more for their friends, the rich bankers.

[Black Star News Editorial]

During the September 26, 2008, Presidential Debate between Senator John McCain and then Senator Barack Obama, the Arizona senator said something that Republicans need to take heed of, even as they continue to act as a grey wall of obstructionism in Washington.

This is what McCain said –applicable then and even more so today: “We Republicans came to power to change government and government changed us.”

McCain was decrying the record deficits that the Republican Administration of George Bush and Republican lawmakers created. The same Republicans ruined the U.S. economy by destroying the credit markets when they cut the leash off Wall Street, with their deregulation frenzy, leading to the financial meltdown.

The nation is now suffering from multiple Tsunamis that the Republicans are still preventing President Barack Obama from trying to tackle with their selfish obstructionism. Here are some of the Tsunamis:-

(1) The nation has hemorrhaged 4.8 million jobs; 3.6 million since December 2007 alone. The rate of job losses is now 600,000 per month. This means that possibly in the next 10 months alone, six millions jobs could disappear, leading to calamity and social collapse.

(2) Despite record dole out of billions of dollars to the banks by George Bush and his Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who mostly threw gifts at his friends and Wall Street cronies, the top banks like CitiGroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America are not lending money. They are acting like very bad capitalist; they are letting American entrepreneurs know that they have no confidence in their talents and skills. That’s why they are not lending money.

(3) With this loss of confidence by the banks and private investors, employers are taking the same signals and laying off more workers since they cannot get credit from the banks to fuel their own businesses and meet payroll.

(4) As paychecks disappear, homeowners aren’t able to pay their mortgages and foreclosures continue to escalate; that’s why it’s urgent for the president’s stimulus to be approved so he can focus on a proper bailout of the banks not the multi-billion dollar freebies that Hank Paulson presided over.

(5) In addition to acting like bad capitalist, even while they pay themselves tens of millions of dollars in salary and bonuses, while their firms register multi-billion dollar losses, the top banks won’t lend to entrepreneurs, the engine of American economic vigor, because they are weighed with toxic assets. How were these toxic assets created? The banks were buying products whose value or composition they did not even know; this is because their salary and bonuses are not based on whether they made money for their firms or not. The Republicans have fought tooth and nail and stripped billions of dollars in money that was meant for education and healthcare in the stimulus plan proposed by President Obama. Let’s see if they oppose billions more for rich bankers.

(6) The nation, under the Republican Administration and Congress in the last eight years sunk $2 trillion of American taxpayers’ money into the black hole of the Iraq war. This money can never come back; unless oil rich Iraq is made to pay back the money over a 20 year period.

(7) The Republicans are still under the sway and captivity of Radical Right Wingers like Rush Limbaugh; Limbaugh is a multi-millionaire who does not have to worry about missing a meal. The Republicans, even after the rejection of John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Bush Administration are still trying to march backwards.

(8) The Republicans opposed President Obama’s plan to begin funding alternative energy so that we can shift from our dependency on Middle East and foreign oil imports and create green jobs; makes one wonder whether some Republicans are protecting their oil interests in places like Saudi Arabia.

(9) The Republicans are still insisting that only tax cuts are needed to create new jobs and reverse the economic collapse created by the same policy over the last eight years; tax cuts for the wealthy. This is the same policy that has ruined the U.S. and global economy by shifting more wealth to the rich, at the expense of American workers and entrepreneurs.

(10) To paraphrase McCain’s September comments: “If the reality of the Republican created calamity does not change them; then the Republican party is doomed to extinction.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *