Welfare or Recession

What would most Americans choose when they are faced with a shortage of finances? The new U.S. president, Obama, has introduced an economic stimulus plan marked for $825 billion that will:

• provide relief for families, by cutting taxes, increasing benefits for the unemployed and the poor.
• modernize federal infrastructure
• double alternative energy production in 3 years
• expand health care by providing subsidies for the uninsured unemployed, helping states with Medicaid, and modernizing health care information systems
• improve education
• invest in science research and technology

It is well worth noting, at this point, that Republicans in Congress are wholeheartedly in opposition to this plan, and the only plan they bring to the table is through businesses, by lowering taxes on payrolls and overall business taxes.

Setting these plans aside, looking at the concepts included in this policy, for one, the Republicans are simply griping about a more government-driven economic plan that Obama's administration has instituted and that will be more long-term, filling in the huge hole that has been produced by big businesses, that have no regulation, and are in Republican minds, receiving some more benefits via tax breaks. The Republican argument states that business tax cuts will place more money back into the economy, but for whom, if it is a tax cut? It will go right back into businesses, who are currently laying off people who can't afford to pay taxes, or their mortgages. So we get more recession, because these businesses are not getting effective loans, due to financing freezes, and so in turn these businesses will simply keep the tax money saved. The money train stops there.

The Obama administration has given the American people a lot to chew on. If there is not just long term intentions here, but also a plan that was analyzed to instill long term growth, then it would seem a lot of the items proposed could promote a stabilized economy, and soon. It would be great to see this plan approach government infrastructure in the same way it plans to renovate the health care information systems. If government can go back to limited regulation, and use information technology to enhance transparency of the corporate sector, then there would be more effective oversight of potential corporate financial abuses, which were most likely the root cause of the current failing economy. This would also enhance national security by creating more open sharing of information between agencies. Lastly, there is so much job creation potential deriving from the implementation of this policy.

Taxes are such a limited approach by government. Both Democrats and Republicans are too focused on this issue. In short, taxes only get the American people through the next election cycle, and for Republicans this issue will cater to their lobbying cronies on Capitol Hill. As for Democrats, they are just seeking more votes by the American public, which most likely had a hand in giving them a majority hold. What the Republicans fail to see, is that American businesses have become a political minority in a slow economy, and by reaching out to them, their party could potentially create an even larger rift between party members and loyal voters. The American people will fight this, because it does not foster, what in their minds is individual economic stabilization. Big businesses, are normalizing the economy, and as a result small businesses are being devoured by this. There needs to be a line drawn between the two, and both parties need to provide an opportunity for individuals and small businesses to climb out of a system of handouts and tax breaks.

Instead of resisting each other, both political parties should take the approach of providing the opportunity for Americans to produce and provide growth for themselves, instead of offering us politicized welfare or stimulus handouts. None of this bickering occurred when Congress moved to pass stimulus actions for General Motors or the investment banks. Congress is simply abusing its power when it comes to the interests of the people, but when they need to keep their lobbyists happy, they don't hesitate to pass legislation. Why keep creating this constant system of monetary flow control, instilling a bottomless recession, and only offering the public a limited solution to a much larger problem? Government, stop wasting our time and our dime. Get to work, and work for the people!

The Vultures Will Swarm

Having gone through enough political battling with the presidential elections having past, the American people have heard and seen enough of it, and now is a better time than ever for America's leaders to move well past the horrendous struggle between political parties for power of leadership. Enough is enough already! The American people deserve a working government, instead of a government that fights against itself. With a current financial crisis slowly devouring the stability of the U.S., the effective management of the Iraq war, and Afghanistan deployment, and pretty much the gather up of the pieces of dilapidated government and nation, that needs a stable and focused leadership.

If the American people consider their disposition, the only political party that is to blame for it constant instability can be owed to the Republican party, mostly composed of neoconservative policy makers, and strongly supported by the GOP. These political entities have not only aggressively pushed faulty war policies, but have participated in underhanded moves to destroy any political opposition through federal grand jury investigations. Mainly, the responsibility of a failing Republican party or the GOP, or the blame should be heavily placed on the Bush's, especially George W. Bush, having been remarked as one of the worst U.S. presidents in history, which is the least of his blemishes upon his political record. When we look to trying to understand why he failed as president, it's simply because we went from a tremendously thriving economy, to that which was withered away in the first term of his presidency, fought two wars which are still unfinished, will be left in the hands of a new president, and one of which was smeared with corruption, lies, and consistently tainted secrecy and mystery. Most historians will look back at this presidency, and say WTF!

Now America has elected a leader who has offered the nation a promise of "change", but will this really happen? Obama's intentions are great, but it is not that he won;t live up to them, it is that Washington's dirty old consensus has rotted America out from the inside, and Obama is staring at huge brick wall, when it comes to Senators who bicker over who gets to pass what law, and sneak a bill in every which way than done, and in the end nothing is resolved. Instead Americans, if not the world, are left with even more turmoil, and political stink.

I really enjoyed Senator Feinstein's tantrum over not being informed of Obama's nod for head of the CIA. Why does Feinstein have any leverage in the matter other than her having to run the intelligence committee for the approval of Panetta. Now today she approves of Obama's selection. This is my point exactly! If we didn't have these old bastards getting in the way, we'd actually have leaders capable of doing there jobs without all the game playing bullshit flying around distracting them from doing their job. Mrs. Feinstein, it is your job to approve of whoever the President-elect selects, and he is not obligated by law or in any other fashion to explain to you beforehand why he made that decision. What a twit.

Now this picture shows up on CNN this morning, of the living presidents getting their photo ops with the newly elected Barack Obama. Now, I'm really into interpretation of figurehead photos, because you can often tell a lot by their body language, and positioning. First, the ties, the Bushes and Obama, are all wearing blue ties. Blue in most political marketing minds is a symbol of softness, trust, and offers a more down-to-earth tone. On the surface you may get all of that with the Bushes, but in all reality, they are sheisters, and they would need to heavily depend on imagery to associate themselves with trust and tenderness. Both Bushes were war declaring presidents, so that tosses tenderness out the window. Bush Jr., well his entire presidency was intertwined with constant surfacing of corporate and political corruption, including corruption on the war front. So I don't see how anyone would consider the Bushes in any way associated with trust.

Also, consider the positioning of the presidents. Both presidents whose parties were swept out of incumbency by a landslide (McCain's loss to Obama, and Clinton's sweep over Bush Sr.), are standing literally on top of Obama, so much so it goes beyond shoulder to shoulder but overlapping shoulders. Give the guy some breathing room! This looks like a shallow attempt to associate themselves with the winner, when in a time the Republicans haven't a leg to stand on to sway the voters. Any connection they can make to Obama, even if it is physical body contact is just another desperate attempt to grapple at power posits. On the other side of the photo, both Clinton and Carter have given themselves ample room between themselves and the guys on the left.

I know, photos aren't everything, and I should not make assumptions about political character based on them, but you should ask yourself, why these leaders position themselves in a such a way in the first place. If you look into the details of things, when observing the political behaviors of our leaders you may discover that there is more than meets the eye in how they will carry out the policies of economy, relationships with foreign countries, and meeting the needs of the American people.

Even though this article may seem a bit bitter towards these leaders who have failed us in one way or another, there is a lighter side of it that came into being, when I thought about the respectable deed of Obama calling this luncheon, and having the openness of discussing ideas of all leaders on both sides of the political spectrum, whether wrong or right. This is something that should be taken level upward, in that presidents, instead of being part of a club, should consult one antoher as does a jury, or a committee. A presidential council of sorts.

The Solutions To Our Economic Problems

When it comes to the solutions of the world's economic problems it stems mostly from a deteriorating economy within the U.S., which was not too long ago the world's strongest economic leader. Today it seems that the organizational structure of not just the government, but also the entire infrastructure of the U.S. is fouled up, by less progressive thinkers, and simply leaders who just "do their jobs", so as to promote themselves, and move on to the next task to add to their egotistical resume. All the while, nothing, absolutely nothing is being resolved. It's as if those not leading are being paid a lot of lip service, in order to sustain a system that our leaders have no idea how to manage.

Obama, working on a weekend, today, announced to Congress that he wants some kind of a plan implemented immediately, in order to get the economy back from its coma-like state. He wants to create more jobs, and ease up financial pressures on already financially burdened families, yet the Congress still feels it can solve our problems by using the age old stimulis solution, of which it is not. What the Democratic congress does not seem to understand, is that in a time when a Democratic president-elect is trying to push better solutions, the Democratic Congress is still sitting on Bush's Republican fence of stimulus initiatives, which have been proven not to work at all, and are beginning to drive a bigger hole into our collective wallets.

The most important thing the U.S. government needs to do is to focus on pouring money into infrastructure. Don't just hand money over to the people directly, which isn't even that much money in the first place, when divided among millions of taxpayers. Drive the money into education, utilities, progressive energies. Promote more tangible investments into the private sectors that can develop toward these industries. What Americans, and their leaders need to do is withdraw from old industrial economy, and begin to think in terms of investing in not the concept of the future, saving our environment, or giving better pay to teachers, because the ramifications of not supporting a newly reformed economy go way beyond those premises. There is no need to support a financial system that reworks itself repeatedly, in order to just turn money into a larger amount of money, which in the long run does not create a consistent and solid foundation for any economy.

If you place our economy up against globalization, it fails to move forward, if at all. American workers are compelled to get in their cars each morning drive an average hour to work and back each day, in a technically wired world, where individuals have become successful starting up Fortune 500 companies in their garages. Yet, millions of people still contribute to the workforce in the age old industrial complex's demand for proximity workers, being in the office. Not only does this drive up our already heavy demand for more oil, but it is wasteful and inefficient to on the job time. As the author Thomas Friedman states, "The more the workforce feels mobile – in terms of health care, pension benefits, and life-long learning possibilities – the more it will be willing to jump into the new industries and new job niches…and to move from dying companies to thriving companies." With kids in school being diagnosed with ADD, Autism, or a plethora of other learning disabilities, employees in the technology sector jumping from job to job (due to fast paced changes in tech progress), and the growth of information flow, it would only make complete sense to rearrange the system around the workforce. Employment benefits nowadays are not only too static for the economy, fits the old industrial mold, and it is not flexible enough, and often is not transparent, not allowing employees, as well as employers to grow, learn or innovate.

So let the financial firms collapse under their own faults. There is also no need to support an auto industry that has failed to change its business model of many decades, simply on the premise that change would be too costly, and would not benefit other inter-related industries like oil, which depended so much on the auto industry. Shut off the supply of funds to these industries. They are old, they are outdated, they damage our environment, they resist progress, they are failing to profit, simply because they are no longer a benefit to any economy.

The economic signs are all pointing in the direction of wealth redistribution. Not for the sake of benefitting a new group of special interests, but simply for the fact that our current industry's structure is simply dysfunctional. It may have been prosperous and thriving 50 years ago, but in this day and age it is just plain old, and not competent to live up to all the new factors that were introduced in that past twenty years. A redistribution of investments, and interests in the aforementioned industries would be much more capable of promoting growth, not just financially, but also professionally for those who are responsible for building it. It would be a revival for the American economy, and by indirectly funneling finances into these new industries, a wealth of new jobs would be created, Wall Street would gain from an increase in tangible investments, and the economy would not just rebound, but would stand itself up, independently.

What You Want to Hear Comapred to What You Should Know

Last night's presidential debate, though in most of media's opinion was pretty bad as far as structure, but the content is a great reflection of how much the balance of truth in the U.S. is so lopsided, that it doesn't seem that American's know what to ask themselves what they expect of a leader. Instead, Americans have always lumped all the failures of the government on the shoulders of presidential candidates, in hopes that they can solve all their problems.

That's a huge responsibility to expect of two people, and is not even close to being reasonable. On the Republican stance for smaller government, if we look at the government's disposition under a Republican leadership, the government is huge. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the government's employee count comes in at 1.8 million employees, and that doesn't include the postal service (Federal Government, Excluding the Postal Service). With 488 congressmen, and 15 cabinet member within the Bush administration, there is apparently a large amount of government presence. The point here is presidents are not the sole solution to the country's problems. They only manage, and if they manage instead of controlling the government, then they can indeed solve all the nation's problems.

Something that really stood out last night, was McCain pointing out that Obama was wrong about the surge in Iraq. Well, he wasn't wrong. Yesterday afternoon, General Petraeus talked about the future of U.S. Central Command, addressing the Association of the U.S. Army, and he mentioned the surge, and stated that the surge was in fact not the reason for success in Iraq. So would you believe a presidential candidate or the general who is running the war? Obama wasn't wrong. To add to this, Obama wants to deal with fighting al Qaeda in Pakistan, because that's where they are. They are not in Iraq, and Afghanistan is not the frontier of this war. Currently the U.S. military is carrying out military attacks within Pakistan's border, and this is all while George W. Bush is in office calling the shots. Which leads into the next point.

McCain also accused Obama of not understanding national security issues, and that if Obama was president, there would be no time for "on-the-job training". First off, neither candidate has any experience with contending with foreign threats, outside of making ineffective votes in the Senate. Both candidates supported a war in Iraq that was a pseudo-declaration based not on intelligence and fact, but based on suspicions. Because, when the Bush administration went to the United Nations for the case to go to war in Iraq, Bush expressed a need to go to war based on the suspicion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, not a fact. No one in the intelligence sector felt that was an adequate truth, and it “was [now] a guiding principle of the U.S. government that suspicion was an adequate threshold for preventative action." (Suskind, Ron (2006). The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11. (pp. 170-171) New York. Simon & Schuster.) No one needs training to be a fear mongering, and suspicious character, or a leader that cannot responsibly deal with foreign policies.

As far as the economy is concerned, which is a very heavy issue right now with Americans, both candidates were a bit weak, and there was no real backbone behind their statements in dealing with economic issues. But Obama constantly gets slammed for wanting to raise taxes. but, there was a statement made by a CNN correspondent, who said that McCain has an axe chop when it comes to dealing with the economy, where as Obama uses a surgical knife to cut away taxes, and dealing with budgets. Currently we don't need a president who uses volatile policies on a volatile economy. Obama wants to increase taxes for those who bring in more than $250,000 a year. There are billions of people in America who don't even bring home over $100,000 a year. It seems that Obama is more aware of the economic make up of the U.S., and McCain is so far out of touch.

Consider these points! Also remember these are issues that the candidates support, but will not directly have control over. It must be realized that they will only steer the policies into the direction that the people see fit. The president only has as much power as the people sacrifice to him.

Get out and vote, and don't leave the control of your future in the hands of leaders who won't listen.