NEWS FLASH! American President Says Nation Needs to Focus

DATELINE: Washington, DC–If he had been speaking earlier today at a previously disclosed location known as “the White House,” the nation’s newest president might have issued a statement similar to this:


What America Needs Right Now Is Jobs, and the security that a regular paycheck provides. Give Americans jobs, with some sense of job security, and we can all get back to work. We can put this recession thing behind us. As we focus on this together, we move forward together—now.

But Today, I Want to Address Three Issues related to partisan concerns, as the branches of American government work together to stimulate the economy, to create jobs, and to get the American economy back to work.

In This Process of Economic Stimulation:

□ First, We Want to Avoid Creating Inflation via excessive spending.

□ Second, We Want to Give the American People Tax Cuts whenever it is prudent to do so, while avoiding tax cuts that continue to redistribute wealth—whether from the poor to the wealthy or the other way around.

□ Third, We Want to Give States and Local Communities the Revenue Benefits that their Senators and Representatives know best for them, while avoiding the reckless growth of the earmarks and pork-barrel spending that make government look like a reckless waster of our hard-earned pay.

Here Is the Way My Administration Sees these various issues:

The Time of Inflation Is Not Now

Inflation Cannot Be Our Dominant Concern Right Now. Historically, shortages of goods in relation to an overabundant money supply leads directly to inflation. Fortunately, our problems right now are not supply and production, but demand and the flow of capital. Thus we can afford to spend money to create more jobs. More jobs in turn will put more money into the economy, creating a trickle-down effect to keep other businesses going.

What Concerns Us the Most Is the Lack of Job Security, the threat to American paychecks, and the ability to keep our homes. The time to fear inflation is not now.

The Time for Tax Cuts Is Not Now

At a Time When the Price of Everything from Houses and Automobiles to groceries and gasoline is going lower, Americans do not especially need more tax cuts. When millions of Americans are not getting a paycheck, tax cuts won’t help them, anyway.

At a Time When the Nation’s Leading Corporations are laying off employees by the thousands and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, the nation’s businesses have no need for tax cuts, either. Right now, tax cuts are not the most-relevant cure for the economy. It’s the people without jobs who need help the most. Not those with jobs who continue to struggle along as they have over the recent past.

Tax Cuts for Near-Bankrupt Corporations and the Unemployed are not what we need right now. For the time being, we should forget about it.

The Time for Earmarks Is Not Now

At the Same Time, Now Is Not the Time for Earmarks, even though they represent only about 1% of the current spending, and the spending both by Democrats and Republicans is pretty much even. It is Congress’s job to know what their folks back home need. And for the current stimulus bill and budget, it seems safe to say that what Congress has done has been its job, on both sides of the aisle.* But the American people are clear in their concern over the concept of earmarks. And regardless, now is generally not a good time for such projects.

Now Is the Time to Squeeze Out the Earmarks, no matter how much individual Republicans and Democrats need to carry something to their folks back home. Later, Congress may get back to business as usual. But for the time being, we should forget about it.

America Needs to Focus

Over the Past 49 Days, My Administration has been getting to know the other branches of the government. We walked into the middle of the economic crisis and we also walked into the end of the Federal budget process. The stimulus plan and the Federal budget needed to move forward, with the assistance of our leaders in Congress, whose job it is to approve these measures. And this is what your government has been doing.

But Now Is the Time to focus our very best efforts.

Going Forward Over the Near-Term, we need to be as single-minded as we possibly can be—to stem the loss of jobs, to turn the job situation around—so that Americans get back to taking advantage of the abundance of supplies in America—including those new homes and those new automobiles.

Now Is the Time for America to Focus:

Now America Gets Get Down to Work

_______
*Of course, all Americans are welcome to contact their individual Senators and Representatives with comments on earmarks in general, as well as on any particular item that they find objectionable.

Republican Pot Calls Democratic Kettle "Black"

Speaking on his MSNBC Talk Show, Morning Joe, former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough today used the Bush White House as an example of how Republicans use government mechanisms—such as “pork barrel spending” and “you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours”—to over-extend the national pocketbook. These are the same mechanisms that Democrats historically use to get the work of government done, and judging from Mr. Scarborough's explanation, there is not much difference.

Telling How it Happened that the Bush White House and a Republican Congress lost sight of fiscal Conservative ideals, Mr. Scarborough explained that President George W. Bush needed a hands-off policy for his War in Iraq, and effected a reciprocal hands-off policy in relation to whatever else the Republican Congress chose to do on behalf of the American people.

President Bush Got Away with the War in Iraq. And Congress got away with economic murder.

This De Facto Treaty Between the Executive and the Legislative Branches of the Federal government meant that President Bush did not veto Congress’s legislation. In return, Congress gave the President free rein with the Iraq War.

In Other Words, per Mr. Scarborough, the government mechanisms of “pork-barrel spending” and “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” played the same role for “post-9/11” Republicans that these mechanisms played in the Democratic era of the “Great Society,” under Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The Ideologies of “Tax and Spend” and “Defer and Spend” may sound different to the ear, but the effect on the national economy is virtually the same.

History Now Judges LBJ's “Great Society”

The Grand Result of the “Great Society” culminated in this week’s election of Barack Obama as president-elect of the United States.

The Cost of LBJ’s Many Programs, simultaneous with the costs of the war in Vietnam, was high. It included a political switch toward the Republican Party, with the South abandoning the Democratic party completely until this year, and it gave ascendancy to the Conservative theories of Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush.

The Future Will Judge the “War on Terror”

The Result of “This Republican Era” will be judged by history, too. As LBJ’s Great Society has now finally been judged. Let us hope that the final verdict of the Bush extravagances will be as high.

How Both Sides Want It Both Ways

But the Important Thing to See, as far as American politics are concerned, is that we really are one nation, with comparable policies and ways of doing things:

We All Hate it When the Other Guy uses the Federal government to supplant States’ Rights, and we all hate it when States’ Rights trump progress best-available to the Federal government.

We Love Term Limits When the Other Party Is in Power, but when our party is in power, we see how essential are the advantages gained from continuity.

We Hate It When One Party Governs by “tax-and-spend,” and we hate it just as much when the other party governs by “defer-and-spend.”

“Pork-Barrel Spending” is only “pork” when it benefits genetic studies of fruit-flies to help cure autism, but not when it benefits the families of children with special needs. It’s “pork” when it goes to what you want, but it’s essential government spending when it’s for me and mine.

In Sum, the Democrats under Lyndon B. Johnson and the Republicans under George W. Bush are pretty much even, as far as overextending the Federal government for benefit of a perceived greater good is concerned, during the time of an unpopular war.

How Government Gets Done

“You Scratch My Back, and I’ll Scratch Yours.” According even to conscientious Conservative Joe Scarborough, it’s the way that government works.

And Not Even a Staunch Conservative
Like Joe Scarborough
Describes for Us a Better Way.