Why I Hate Politics

I promise I will avoid discussing politics whenever possible, but the recent comments by Republican spokesmen have managed to raise my blood pressure to a point where I have to blow off steam, so here goes.

Ever since President Obama took office, the Republican Party appears to have suffered a mass case of amnesia. Apparently they have totally forgotten the unprecedented economic quicksand in which Americans are now mired is the direct result of the economic policies of the Bush administration. While they were all being good little cheerleaders, their numb-nuts leaders were: a) destroying the sound fiscal policies and squandering the budget surplus that was the legacy of the Clinton administration, and b) throwing good money after bad, not to mention the lives of countless American servicemen and women in pursuit of an ego-driven, inherently evil foreign policy. By the time the stock market began tipping south the damage had already been done. America was already billions of dollars in debt. The housing crisis begat the credit crisis that eventually infected the entire world economy. It was just the icing on the cake. Had our economic policies been sound America might have weathered the crisis, even prevented it by stopping the crisis before it got out of control.

And now the Republicans, what few of them managed to survive the '08 election, have the unmitigated gall to complain that the $787 billion stimulus program (which, by the way, was fine when it was proposed by Republican-appointed Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson) isn't creating jobs fast enough for them and must therefore be scuttled. For what? Tax cuts for the rich?

Back in January the Republicans proposed their own $478 stimulus package. What would that have produced? The Obama plan has already helped some companies avoid layoffs and helped some states avoid laying off municipal employees, including teachers, and it's only been in effect for six months.

Yes, Congressman Cantor, it is Obama's economy now. So what are you doing to help? Its high time someone in the Republican party realized that we're not kidding when we say this is the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression and it's not over yet! If our ship of state sinks, we're all going down with it. Politics-as-usual has no place in a national - nay, a global emergency and these policitians will serve their constituents best by chipping in and making sure the stimulus package works.