The definition of insanity is continuing to repeat the same action and always expecting a different result. It may also be the definition of stupidity.
Two columns in today’s NY Times, one by Ross Duthat and the other by Paul Krugman, although taking different tacks, come to the same conclusion about TARP and the Stimulus. They both agree that they were the right thing to do, and that together they probably saved us from a repeat of the Great Depression. They also agreed that both were underfunded because congress didn’t have the guts and the president didn’t have the will to demand more money.
Despite this agreement that the bailouts were the right thing to do, both also agree in different ways that it is okay for the voters not to understand this. This is ridiculous. Voting may be a right and a privilege but it is also a responsibility. You want to vote? Do the work. Find out what is actually going on. Act on the facts not on the sound of the loudest voice.
All one has to do is look back two years and one will find a party in power that almost destroyed the country; a party that started two unjust wars, ignored a great American city as it was destroyed, looked the other way as principles of human behavior and the constitution were violated and finally a party that has led us to the brink of economic disaster.
Now they want people to vote for them but they have no platform or at least the same platform that led us to the brink of catastrophe last time. They will cut taxes because they know it will make people feel better and thereby help them garner votes but they will also ignore the fact that doing so without cutting programs has already led us from a fiscal surplus to a trillion dollar deficit. Despite this, it is still their policy. They forge ahead on this disastrous policy because they assume that their voter base is dumb enough to buy it again just like they did in 2004. Are they? Or will they see the fire through the smoke?
Here are the facts about TARP and the Stimulus package. If you quote them to the likes of Boehner, McCollough, Cornyn or Sessions they will double talk you blue in the face but this is real.
The TARP number was $475B. What did we get for it? It saved the US automobile industry and about a million jobs. It kept the banking system from collapsing and forcing us into a 1929 style Depression. Despite this it will end up costing the taxpayer at the very most about $10B and could in the end make a profit. It was initiated by Bush and Barney Franks and administrated by Barak Obama. It was a pretty good deal.
The Stimulus package number was $787B. Almost 40% of that went to cover the Bush tax cuts and keep them from inflating the deficit. That’s what the whiners are saying they want. That’s what Obama did. About 30% went to food stamps and unemployment extensions for those who had lost their jobs. Does anyone think this was a bad thing? What would have happened to those people if they hadn’t been helped? The final approximately 30% has gone to help states pay for essential services like police, firemen and teachers but a substantial part of that 30% had been earmarked for infrastructure projects that have not, as yet, gotten off the board.
So what’s the problem? You can nit pick all you want but if you want to compare those two bailouts, the passing of a healthcare bill, and a financial regulation bill in less than two years versus what the Republicans did in the eight before it, you have to be insane to vote Republican in this election.
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Only a few years ago when Dan Quayle was VP stupidity was considered a negative. That’s how Dan became the butt of all those jokes. Why has that changed? I have never seen such a plethora of dumb candidates and especially ridiculous platforms. Let’s see, a Nazi sympathizer, a woman who wants to force raped women to have the baby, the mistress of the World Wrestling Association, who sent her monsters into battle crammed to the eyeballs on steroids, a guy who lies about fighting in Vietnam, a Kentucky candidate who speaks out against civil rights, a guy in Texas who wants Obama to stop getting money from BP and a woman in Delaware who claims not to be a witch and doesn’t know what the First Amendment to the Constitution says. It goes on and on and most of them are Tea Party candidates. Why don’t these people understand that getting rid of bad legislators and replacing them with dumbbells, isn’t progress. I understand their desire to get rid of a lot of the clowns that currently infect congress but replacing them with liars and morons just ain’t the way to go.
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I watched Christiane Amanour and saw Bush advisor, Ed Gillespie. He is a phenomenon, a man who has no respect for or recognition of, the truth. He sat in front of a TV audience of millions and told lies about things that everyone with even minimal knowledge of our current situation, knows are untrue but no one on the panel had the stones to stand up and call this degenerate a liar.
Just before Gillespie started describing his fantasy world, George Will, as staunch a conservative as exists, made a surprising admission. He stated that more than raging against Obama, the Tea Party is an insurgency against the Republican leadership that disappointed them in the Bush years. I guess with such honesty at the table Gillespie felt the need to balance the panel.
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In another surprising piece of honesty, Richard Holbrook our ambassador to Afghanistan stated flat out that we cannot win that war, mainly because we aren’t fighting a war against anyone. He explained how it is impossible to form a peace because the Taliban isn’t a single opponent with whom we can negotiate. Rather it is small groups of warriors, bandits and assorted religious fanatics, maybe as many as fifty different groups, all of whom have their own needs and desires, often at odds with those of the others and that getting a consensus of what they want would be impossible. So why are we still there? The current attitude is that we can’t betray those who have sided with us and abandon them. We don’t have to. All we have to do is arm them to the teeth and feed them development money and they’ll take care of their own problems, just like they have been doing for a thousand years.