A New Depression Due to Massive Stupidity?

One of my biggest fears for the safety of the emerging economic recovery is Washington stupidity.  And it looks like my fears may be realized.

Several things have happened in Washington over the last week that have greatly disturbed me.

The first issue that’s disturbing me is the call by the Republican Leadership to raise the Social Security Retirement age to 70 and to cut Social Security benefits to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  How about we end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and use the money to cut the deficit and grow the economy by repairing our collapsing infrastructure– and create new jobs to support Green Energy instead?

And people need to realize that John Boehner, who is making these statements, would be in the driver’s seat to push this legislation if people were stupid enough to turn over power in the House of Representatives to the Republicans.  The idea of Speaker Boehner is very scary to me.  I’ve met the man.  He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer…

The second issue that disturbs me is that, because the loud-mouthed Tea Party crowd has been screaming about cutting deficits, the soulless Republican Party- with the help of some ignorant and/or self-serving Democrats- is focusing on cutting the deficit before the fragile recovery has completely secured itself.  Herbert Hoover would be proud of them.

Thus far the Recovery has been dependent on Consumer Confidence and Consumer Spending.  Numbers on both are not exactly stellar.

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize Winning Economist, put it best recently in his New York Times Column:

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

Let’s be honest, the Republican Party does not want the economy to be in a robust recovery in November of this year.  They would rather wreck the recovery and the economy in order to use it as a political issue to gain seats in Congress.

Politics is always more important than the needs of the American People to today’s Republican’s.  They can thank the late Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and the rest of the George W Bush gang for installing that mindset in the GOP.  That’s why all the Republican’s and Ben Nelson- who is a Democrat in name only- voted this week not to extend Unemployment Insurance to millions or people who’s benefits are running out.  It’s why they also failed to provide funds to the States to prevent teachers, fire fighters and others from being laid off.

Let me say that again:  In the midst of one of the worst economic times in history, with millions of people unemployed, the Republican party blocked the extension of Unemployment benefits to people who desperately need them until more jobs are created.  They also blocked state funding that will put more people out of work.  This is today’s GOP.

Funny, how the Republicans are counting on people forgetting that they are the ones who created these deficits and the economic crisis causing these job losses.

Republican’s enabled the financial meltdown by deregulating Wall Street and the Banks.  Obama and the Democrats are trying to fix Republican mistakes and bad policy.  Remember, Bush inherited a substantial budget surplus when he took over from Bill Clinton.

Republicans are more than willing to sabotage the economic recovery to win seats in November.  If any behavior should be labeled “UnAmerican”, this behavior should be so labeled.  This is insane.

To be blunt, if no one else has the money to spend to create jobs, the government has to do so.  That is what got us this far on the recovery.  To stop now, puts us at risk of a double dip recession and a depression.  It’s clear, the “Best and the Brightest” are no longer running things in the Republican Party.  I also question the Democratic leadership–and  particularly the so-called conservative Blue Dog Democrats– for not realizing this and fighting back harder.

Once people go back to work, have money to spend and tax revenue rise due to a robust economy, then the deficit will start to come down from the economy growing, people making and spending money–and then we can look at cost cutting.  Particularly for wars that should be stopped sooner.

The economic recovery is far too fragile to pull back now.

My hope is that the American People are not as stupid as the Republican  leadership and won’t put these fools back in power.  If they do, we all will lose.  I hope the American people realize the game these people are playing and call them on it in November.

That’s a long way away… I hope they don’t do too much more damage in the meantime.

Here is the Link to the entire Paul Krugman Column:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/opinion/28krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss