Uh-Oh
May 19th, 2010 | Editorial Cartoons | 17 Comments
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The first round of primaries confirms that an anti-incumbent fervor, in part a result of the poor economy and inflamed by Tea Party rhetoric, is gripping the electorate. A word of caution here: turnout at primaries tends to be low, and the results don’t always reflect the broader mood of the voters. Rainy weather may have doomed Arlen Specter as much as a disgruntled electorate. Still, incumbents look to have a rough road come November, even as the economy strengthens. How much Congress changes, and what effect that will have on Obama’s agenda, remains to be seen. Even with the economic downturn, I still can’t quite fathom how the public mood has shifted so dramatically in a little over a year. Have we forgotten which party was in charge when the economy tanked? Is a policy of total obstruction the way forward? Are we really ready to put these guys back in power–or worse–replace them with Tea Party lunatics? I guess we’ll find out in a few months.
Topics: 2010 election, cartoon, Congress, House, incumbents, opinion, Senate, tea party
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Ed, I have to agree with you. The very thought of Republicans regaining power sends a shiver up my spine. By virtue of a very slow and methodical eight year process, the GOP almost brought this country to its knees in total collapse. Now, these morons have been complaining for the last year plus that we haven’t been cleaning up their mess in proper fashion. Ask the fickle fence sitter voters if they read The Nation, The Hill, Politico, Media Matters, the Washington Post or whatever. The answer will be, “No, I just go by what I see on TV.” It’s kinda like the religious people who have a ten year accumulation of dust on their Bibles. How easily are sheep led to the slaughter. Just point them in your chosen direction so they don’t have to think. Republicans have been relying on this ideology since day one.
I just don’t think that Voters are as against the Obama administration and the Democrats as much as the media (FOX more that others) portrays. I think the opposition has been Greatly exaggerated in an attempt to get many Democratic voters to not show up thinking it will be useless to vote because they have already lost. It is a tactic that has been used many times by the press to suppress a certain group of voters and has worked quite well in the past. I hope that this tactic does not work for them this time but history shows that it is a Very effective tool. Lies from the media about what affect the Democratic policies will have on the people also doesn’t help matters. The intelligent people that will actually look up the Facts for themselves instead of taking the word of the media will be voting but too many people rely on just the TV for All of their information on politics and that could hurt the Democrats this November.
I welcome an anti-incumbent sentiment. There are many on both sides of the aisles who need to go. Our problems don’t find their causality in a single party. Hopefully, however, people will still be as informed as they can possibly be when they go into the voting booth this November. Maybe if you stripped away the party affiliations on the ballot it would force people to be a little more educated.
And Foos, I agree about the dangers of media influence. Look a the tragedy it helped create in November 2008.
No party affiliation is a GREAT idea. I say lets do away with parties and just have individuals run on their Own merit. I know, I’m just dreaming.
Ed, your comment or question “Have we forgotten which party was in power when the economy tanked ?” I heard this best described by a speaker at one of our local civic organizations. His take was: “George Bush had the ecconomy headed for the ditch, Obama took the wheel and steered ir over a cliff.”
Also, if I remember correctly, the economy was doing good until the democrats got control of congress in 06.
In case you missed it, Don, the economy was already already over the cliff and in free fall when Obama took office. In fact, the sub-prime mortgage crisis was pretty much in full swing before the elections in 2006. I realize that was a long time ago and it’s easy to get the time frames confused.
Jerry, what was the unemployment rate and the amount of the deficit in November of 06 and what is it today?
And the point would be?
When you drive off a cliff, there is a period of time when you keep going forward before starting to fall. Do you really believe the Dems doubled the unemployment rate or just throwing out random facts to somehow come to an illogical conclusion? Next thing you’ll be telling me Roosevelt caused the stock market crash of 1929 and the Dems caused the Great Depression.
This reminds me of Lewis Black’s parody of Glenn Beck: “Mother Teresa had a mustache. Hitler had a mustache. Mother Teresa is Hitler.”
A straight answer with facts and figures would be refreshing.
No, I don’t think Roosevelt caused the Great Depression, however, I do know that after ten years of trying, we were not much better off than we were in 1932. World War Two ended the Great Depression.
We finally found something we could both agree on:
A straight answer with facts and figures would be refreshing!!!
No, you misremember entirely–not that it matters. The seeds of the current collapse were sowed decades ago, when the deregulatory apparatus began to be dismantled, and wouldn’t have mattered which party controlled Congress when it happened. Saying the economy was doing fine until the Dems took over Congress is like saying the weather was doing fine until Bush took over and Katrina happened. As far as Obama driving it over the cliff, that’s another absolute absurdity. The collapse happened because of a buildup of unhealthy practices which took years to unfold and will take years to correct. I happen to believe that the Republican prescription of no deficit spending would have prolonged the disaster, and that Obama’s intervention has not been enough, but if you’re going to blame him for the continued economic troubles, then you have to give him credit for the improving economy–both of which would be vast exaggerations.
I have a grave concern that I can’t keep from dwelling on. My circle of life is nearly completed, so my concern is not for myself, but for my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and for all future generations. I would like for them to be able to live in the same wonderful country that I have enjoyed with unlimited freedom and opportunity. I would like for their limitations be confined only to their ability and willingness to put forth the necessary effort to succeed. I don’t want them to live under a government that controls their lives and makes them unwilling or incapable of controlling their own destiny.
Government has consistently grown and exerted more control over our private lives the past several decades. In the past eighteen months, this trend has been greatly accelerated by the Obama Administration. This is the cause of my concern and if you have knowledge, information or insight that will relieve me of my fears, I would welcome hearing it.
Right, you mean ‘control over our private lives’ in the sense that now, under democrats, we aren’t free to have abortions, marry who we want, etc., right?
Just kidding. I’m sure (but do correct me if I’m wrong) that you mean it in the sense that, as Republicans want you to believe, taxation and government spending on social services is a form of ‘control over private life’ because you can’t ‘control your money’ and aren’t free to ‘spend what you want.’
But I’m going to give you a history lesson here that will blow your mind.
First of all, your assertion that government spending is on the rise is correct, even adjusted for inflation (http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/89a1c8b71009510801100c9bb4360058/comments/89ade5ae1055f49801105d051baa0639). By far the largest increase in spending over this time period has been in social services (from that same graph), because the adult population of the US has also increased exponentially in the last 4 decades (http://www.npg.org/facts/us_historical_pops.htm), although it is declining.
At the same time that government spending has increased, however, tax rates have more or less stayed constant – except for the highest-earning 1%, whose taxes have dramatically decreased since the 60s, and the bottom brackets, who have seen a modest decrease (http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2007/11/03/nytimes-historical-tax-rates-by-income-group/).
So the question becomes, how do you define ‘government control over your life?’ If you define it by tax increases, well, no taxes have actually been raised significantly in the last 40 years. If you define it by government spending, you’ll notice that spending has only been rising because the adult population has risen exponentially, adding to increased spending on guaranteed social services like social security and medicare (which together constitute about half of today’s government spending on social services). In fact, payroll taxes have not risen since 1987! (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=45).
So why do middle-class Americans feel like their dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to, and that the government is therefore ‘controlling their lives?’
Well, it’s actually because taxes have been lowered, believe it or not. Recall this graph (http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2007/11/03/nytimes-historical-tax-rates-by-income-group/), showing historical tax rates. See where the top tax bracket’s rate fell by about 25% in the late 70s and early 80s? Now check out Table 1 here: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html. Ever since the 80s, the top 20% of the US has controlled more and more of the US’s wealth — while paying fewer and fewer taxes. This is not a coincidence. Guess who was responsible for lowering tax rates in the 70s and 80s? Hint: it wasn’t Jimmy Carter.
So why is this a bad thing? In short, because the middle class no longer exists. As of 2007, the bottom 80% of the United States’ earners controlled under 15% of the wealth of the country — and their tax rates have stayed marginally the same! So when you talk about the government controlling your life, do you mean that the government controls it because there’s less money for you due to non-existant tax increases and increased spending in line with population growth, or that the richest Americans — who have sold themselves to the Republicans in exchange for lower taxes — control you through their control of ALL of the wealth?
The truth is that conservatives have sold you a big, fat lie, which is that taxes and spending are equivalent to government control and ‘big government,’ and that the government is even in control. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The real power in this country is at the top of the tax bracket, and they control the government, and have been the ones paying politicians (mostly, but not exclusively on the right) off for decades in exchange for dramatically lower taxes in the top brackets and almost no change in the lower ones. Hmm, I wonder whose best interests they have in mind?
So who’s the real bad guy here? Non-existant ‘big government,’ or the very real, growing in power and wealth upper class that doesn’t pay its success forward but employees every single one of us? I don’t know about you, but I’m worrying about my children and grandchildren living in a country where the government is free to do its job and make sure that the country doesn’t turn into an aristocracy of the ruling, wealthy elite.
Actually, with very few exceptions, the overwhelming people in this country really want more government intervention in our lives. The problem is that one person’s intervention is another person’s protection.
Some want the government controlling a woman’s right to choose, who a person can marry, or restricting stem-cell research. Some want the Patriot Act” so “Big Brother” can eavesdrops on your private conversations. The list goes on.
How many times have you sat around a table and had 15 minutes of complaining about government control only to be followed by another 15 minutes of “there ought to be a law”? The very same people who are today complaining about the government takeover GM are complaining about the government not taking over the oil spill containment in the gulf from BP.
I would be interested in your examples of how the Obama administration has accelerated this trend. Health insurance reform? Financial reform? Heck, we all know those insurance and bank executives are looking out for us all first, right?
No, you misremember entirely–not that it matters. The seeds of the current collapse were sowed decades ago, when the deregulatory apparatus began to be dismantled, and wouldn’t have mattered which party controlled Congress when it happened. Saying the economy was doing fine until the Dems took over Congress is like saying the weather was doing fine until Bush took over and Katrina happened. As far as Obama driving it over the cliff, that’s another absolute absurdity. The collapse happened because of a buildup of unhealthy practices which took years to unfold and will take years to correct. I happen to believe that the Republican prescription of no deficit spending would have prolonged the disaster, and that Obama’s intervention has not been enough, but if you’re going to blame him for the continued economic troubles, then you have to give him credit for the improving economy–both of which would be vast exaggerations.
Our present infrastructure was built around the turn of the century into the first decades of the century. The ’50s saw the interstate system. As a side note, the oil and auto industries destroyed electric vehicles and mass transits in favour of gas and cars and the great love affair with the road, wind in the hair, and surfboards on the woodies. By the ’80s, it was time to service those roads, bridges, tunnels, tubes, pipes, etc. Ronnie thought it better to put that into select pockets; the roads and all were fine. Thus began the ignoring of service, and we have seen failures, bridges dropping into the river, crumble, etc. And now, why do we not build the green infrastructure? It is manual labour. We need to educate, too, for the manufacture and use of it all. We need to make it here, not buy it from China. And we need to bring back all those jobs and keep them here. The company can make money and pay taxes and not be the piggy bank for the fat slugs upstairs, no longer the robber barons. Too big to fail is a robber baron. ie-the auto industry can make some gas cars and can make green cars. where is the knowledge and will to do it?
Thanks for sharing such a valuable information