Dem economic recovery plans in limbo
Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife
Atrios and Paul Krugman ponder the reticence of Democrats to push forward with their plans for economic recovery, concluding they just don’t have the courage of their convictions to follow through.
In the medium- and long-term, institutional timidity can be overcome given the appropriate incentives. Which is why I think there’s more going on here than simply a lack of conviction.
As the old saying goes, “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” And whatever is true about Republicans, Democrats also have a vested interest in placating their Rolodex of campaign contributors on Wall Street and the corporate world, which basically want to pull the plug on the unemployed and start making public policy that exclusively caters to the top 1 percent of income earners — something Republicans are more than happy to do.
Hence all efforts to help struggling Americans, even when unemployment is between 9 and 10 percent, pose as much or more of a liability than an asset for Democrats. Hence Democrats can’t quite muster that extra-added motivation to keep on pushing.
And let’s not pretend any of this is about the deficit — folks like Ben Nelson and Jon Kyl say a dozen or so billion in unemployment benefits would bust the budget, but these concerns immediately disappear when it comes to giving rich people hundreds of billions in tax cuts.
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since when did the democrats ever have the chance to make plans they come in after the republicans and have to clean up the mess and then soon as things are starting to look ok again they get voted out
“they just don’t have the courage of their convictions to follow through”.
Well Duh.
Too worried about the deficit because the GOP said so.
To worried about helping the unemployed because, well the GOP doesn’t like it.
Can’t help those losing their homes thru foreclosure or bankruptcy because the dinosaurs in the senate don’t like it. “What about the banks”!!! Has become the catch phrase of both parties.
Of course turning the whole Helping American program crap was turned over to the same man, who as senator from a state with few if any usury laws and while his son reportedly made millions as a bank lobbyist, is now expected to over turn the banking laws he helped create.
This isn’t even a dog and pony show, it’s an embarrassment. All the political capitol and good will the country had 2 years ago is gone. Wasted by a man with flowery words and no experience to back them up.
HOPE and CHANGE my ass.