Thursday, August 12, 2010

The "Summer of Recovery" fizzles, both parties get the blame

My Libertarian and third party desires are well known here, but I love it when my instincts prove somewhat correct. The Wall Street Journal and NBC News did a poll that show that people are mad at Democrats - and Republicans - for the miserable efforts to fix the economy.

Let's be honest, the government rarely fixes anything. It does some things well, we have the finest military in the world even though politicians have frequently misused it. But when a bunch of politicians who have never worked a real job a day in their lives try to fix the economy the results are predictable.

Two-party partisan bickering and posturing is ruining this country and those of us longing for a real change, a departure from the two-party system, continue to hope others will come along. And as long as the Tea Party is somehow aligned with Republicans, I don't want them either.

The country needs a true independent party, one that reflects the attitudes of the vast middle voters and not the fringe left and right who dominate all the conversation.

Otherwise we'll continue to have congressional representives who write tax laws and then ignore them in his own life and others who talk about fixing the deficit while approving bridges to nowhere in bills that have nothing to do with bridges.

The President can keep saying it's the "Summer of Recovery" and that "things are getting better, really" and all we can point to is that the jobs he is saving are government jobs. Wishing the economy well will not make it so.

So while the private sector shrinks, the government gets bigger.

The original idea was that government would work for us. What we have in turn is that those in the private sector are now working for government to keep it going. Just live in New York for a few days and see what the excessive taxes are doing there.

Our children will someday get this deficit bill and I don't think they will thank us for it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The sad truth is that too many of us are living day to day or paycheck to paycheck to worry about the deficit for future generations. I should probably be worried about how they will pay for extending unemployment benefits, but i'm not. I'm more worried about getting them extended so that me, and dozens more like me, who have been out of work for more than 12 months, can pay our bills. I didn't take out a mortgage I couldn't afford, I was making enough to make the mortgage and the other bills. I now make $362 a week in unemployment, exactly...almost to the dime, 1/4 of what I made more than a year ago. I know I should care...but right now I care about hanging on to my house, which is worth a lot less than it was and won't see if I wanted to. I'll take the health care, whatever it is and whatever it costs, because I no longer have any. I can't worry about the next generation. I'm not being sarcastic when I say I'm sorry...but it's true. I gotta get through this month.

Jim of L-Town said...

It would be preferable for the government to actually get out of the way of business so new jobs could be created so people like you could have a job and not gov't benefits.

That said we have sons who are in exactly the same predicament right now.

What the country needs is jobs, not more unemployment benefits.

A nearly trillion dollar stimulus program (only a small part of that was for unemployment benefits) did little to create new jobs. It is that money I'm talking about.

Unemployment benefits are only a small part of the problem and at least folks, mostly businesses, have been paying into those accounts for years.

I hope you find a job. Pending that I hope you get more unemployment.