Roasting the Chickens

It Has Been One Thing to Poke Some Fun at the Bad Guys during their long years of success, while they remained insulated from the realities that affect the rest of us.

It Is Another Thing When These Chickens Come Home to Roost, and it is our henhouse that they land on—the one that they’ve dismantled for us.


Since the 1980 Election of Republican President Ronald Reagan, the regulations and the treasury of the United States have been under assault by a determined policy of “free markets” and “trickle down” and “supply side.” It will always be folly to run a government into the ground by both lowering its income and increasing its costs.

But This Has Been the Thrust of the Republican “Free Market” Idea. If nothing else results from the current debacle, let us at least hope that the practical lesson, which was somehow not logically clear-enough to the “Show-Me” nation of Americans before, now has been shown. We are actually living out the logical disaster of living beyond our means.

When Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Came Out to Congress and said, “Listen, you have to fix this thing quickly, and you have to give me $700 billion dollars, with no strings attached, to do it,” much of America doubted the move. Our “Hey, How Hard Can It Be?” President lost almost all of his credibility a long time ago. And now here he comes to terrorize us one more time.

President Bush and the Republicans have deliberately stuck America between a rock and a hard place.

Those Who Were Recently Referred to as the “Revolting Republicans,” get labeled thus because they waited until this last-minute, brink-of-disaster opportunity to speak up and say, “Hey! It’s a bad bill. We’re not gonna do it.”

Where Have These "Revolting Republicans" Been Up Until Now? And what political motive kept them silent before voting time earlier this week?

What Has Been Done Is Despicable. It has been despicable for the entire seven-and-a-half years. And the fact that there’s not much America can do about it right now is as infuriating to all the rest of America, who have the not-unreasonable attitude of, “Why should I bail out Wall Street?”

One Can Hardly Help But Wonder Whether This "Rescue" Request is just a feeble bumbler’s last-chance effort to completely empty out the coffers of the country, on his way out.

But the Current Evidence from the Markets tells us that indeed the President is right this time. At least he is right to the extent that Congress must act quickly. On the other hand, the arguments against this bill—with its made-up cost of $700 billion dollars—remain persuasively disturbing.

Six Years of Unbridled Control of Government, out of the past total of 28 years. That’s how long it took the Republicans to work their damage of de-regulation uncontrol. And this is the result.

Now, Please Listen to the Lesson Learned:

It Is Not Possible To Run Any Endeavor By Constantly Raising Expenses Above Income. Things must be paid for. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Now That the Republicans Have Seen It, and the rest of us have to help pay for it—

Can We Please Pass the Stupid Bill, and then move on to a reasonable relationship with fiscal reality?

Thank You.

Can America Really Have It Both Ways?

Anyone Listening to Senator McCain over the past few weeks has heard him promise to rid Wall Street of greed, while deregulating the economy so that America can get back to work.

But Greed Is One of the Key Reasons that regulation is needed. And regulation is what the Republican Party has spent the last eight years getting rid of.

Senator McCain, Like Most People, wants to provide necessary government services, while lowering the taxes necessary to pay for them.

The Way Conservatives Explain It, when tax rates are lowered, tax revenues go up. If that’s the case, doesn't it make better sense to get rid of tax rates entirely, and let tax revenues rise through the roof?

Another Way of Saying This Is “You Get What You Pay For.” Republicans don't want to pay for anything. These years of the twenty-first century in America so far are the result.

“Voodoo Economics,” is what George H.W. Bush called it. And current circumstances make it look like he had something.

The Past Seven Years Provided an Unprecedented Opportunity for Conservative Americans and the Republican Party to put their free-market ideas to the test. Controlling all three branches of the Federal Government for six of those years is about as good as it gets. And yet almost 90% of Americans say that the economy now is about as bad as it gets.

The Free-Market Ideology Does Not Work. Not back in the 1920s. Not in the twenty-first century. It makes no sense. It is illogical. It is “voodoo economics.”

Yeah, But What Really Went Wrong? Maybe the following quote from David Brooks’s column, “Revolt of the Nihilists,” in The New York Times, 09/30/2008 (italics by Channeling Barack Obama) may shed some more light on a key Conservative ideological flaw:


“What We Need in this Situation Is Authority. Not heavy-handed government regulation, but the steady and powerful hand of some public institutions that can guard against the corrupting influences of sloppy money and then prevent destructive contagions when the credit dries up.”


What Public Instititutions Is David Brooks Talking About? The Carnegie Library? The American Red Cross? The Daughter of the American Revolution?

The Key to the Republican Disaster is this cluelessness about government. Republicans don’t know what government is. They don’t know how it works. They finally seem tired of running it.

Here’s Hoping that on November 4, 2008, They Finally Give America Some Government Back.


My Name Is Not Barack Obama, and Barack Obama does not even know that this exists.