Nailing the Doors Shut While Burning Down the Barn

Following Six Solid Years of Republican Government of the United States, the barn is on fire and the horses have fled. How will America respond to the crisis?

Last November, the American People Chose a Course of Action. We voted to go after the horses, round up all that we can, and bring them back to the barn. After that, we will work on rebuilding the barn. And then this time we'll make sure to close those barn doors!

This Plan Isn’t Good Enough for Most of the Republicans in Congress. With the exception of three Senators, every Republican in the U.S. Congress voted against funding the chase. The hypocrisy of American Republicans—those who gave us this financially irresponsible mess—seems almost without bounds.

But Wait: There’s More!

Now That the Stimulus Package* Has Been Signed into Law, funds are set to flow to the American people. Our “chase” is on to recapture the escaping vestiges of the American dream: a job, a home, and some financial security.

America Will Now Round Up the “Horses” Let Loose by years of Republican negligence in failure at guarding the economic “barn doors.”

But the Republicans
Don't Want to Help:

United Congressional Republicans Boasted of their Obstruction to the chase—in a stunning display of “Better late than never.” And now some Republican Governors are getting into the act.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has stepped up to the podium, boldly asserting that the Lone Star State will reject a portion of the deficit-spending largesse of the stimulus package.

Persons Such as Texas Governor Perry and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal—and Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford—and some Republican-dominated state legislatures—seem indifferent to the many Americans without jobs.

After All, These Republican Politicians
All Still Have Jobs....

Any Money Lost to the Respective States is not just money to help families of the unemployed. These monies also will be spent within each state’s borders, increasing commercial trade during this challenging time.

Republicans Believe That Government Money somehow disappears into a black hole or into politicians’ pockets, never to be seen again. The reality is that money spent in wages is spent again, for products and services. And spent again and again, keeping the economy going.

But at This Urgent Time, While the Rest of America is out trying to get back all those “horses” escaped from the “barn” of Republican fiscal irresponsibility—now, finally, those Republican leaders decide to rally back to the cause....

....Trying to Block Those Barn Doors.

The Republicans Are Just Standing Back There at the Barn, hands on their hips, shouting out their abandoned ideology, as if to say,

“Hey, You Stupid People! The barn doors are open! The horses have escaped! Quick come back here now and help us hammer these doors shut!”

(Can You Imagine Republican Politicians
Thinking That We Americans Are Stupid?)

The Old Saying, “Closing the Barn Door After the Horses Are Gone,” clearly applies.

All Reasonable Americans Hate This Deficit Spending, which mushroomed during the Bush years. But the horses of wasteful deficit spending have been out of the barn for years. The Republicans and CEOs have benefited.

And Now, Real Americans Are Hurting. And they’re willing to go further into debt if necessary, to go recapture those “horses” and keep their families fed.

Maybe Republicans Ought to Find a Few Lessons Here—

—But They Seem to Be Too Busy—

—Blocking the Barn Doors After the Horses Are Gone....

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*American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

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

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*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.

The Best Time to Buy What You Can't Afford...

....Is When There's Something That You Need
No Matter the Price.

So Long as You Need Jobs, to rebuild confidence in the national economy, and to resume the upward growth of the American way of life, you might as well invest in something that you need, but that there will never be a better time to afford.

The Catch-22 of Mass Transit, outside of such urban centers as New York and Chicago, is that you can't get enough passengers to justify the rail until there's enough rail in place that people can do without cars, but you can't afford enough rail until you have passengers in place to use it.

What This Means Is That once light rail and commuter trains are in place, people build along the tracks. High rises and office buildings, along with retail, and soon you have enough people living and working in place, that the passenger count is no longer an issue.

(After All, This Is What Happens with Roads.)

The Longer We Wait to Build Rail—everywhere throughout the country—the worse and worse the roads get. And no matter how many trains we build, the worse roads will never get better than they will be when the trains begin to run.

We Will Never Be Able to Afford Rail on a balanced budget.

But at a Time When We Need Jobs, and the jobs we need must contribute to tangible investment in America's future, now is the best possible time to start building those tracks.

The Various Components of Energy Independence provide the perfect objectives for our current "stimulus" situation. Jobs put into green energy do treble duty by giving us jobs, reducing our energy dependence, and improving the environment.

It's the Perfect "Win-Win-Win" Situation.

Let's Put This Challenging Opportunity to Good Use. Let's start laying the tracks to American energy independence right now.

Not All Jobs Are Created Equal

At a Time When Americans Call for Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, it's tempting for the Democrats to give us what we want. The form of those jobs seems hardly to matter, and considerations of the expense—when it all comes out of money that we no longer have—seem irrelevant.

That's the Sticking Point for Republicans, who believe that the only legitimate means to create jobs is to cut taxes. Lower and lower and lower. Regardless of whether any corporations are earning enough money to pay taxes in the first place. Regardless of whether jobless American citizens have payroll taxes to pay, either.

It's Time for American Capital Investment.

"Capital Investment" Means Building for the Future, using whatever resources you have available today. We have a tremendous jobs shortfall right now, with an abundance of labor, and we need to get that labor employed—so that people can earn income—and pay taxes—and businesses can sell them things. Let the cars fly off the lots! Let the homes get mortgaged! Let the flat-panel TVs get sold!

But First: There's an economically sound way to do this.

Let's Build the Roads.

Let's Build the Bridges.

So That Once America Is Back to Work, we will have invested our money—and our debt—in something tangible that we can ride on.

Why a Spending Bill Just Won't Cut It

As a Nation, Most of Us Seem Not to Understand the difference between consumption and capital investment: Those roads and bridges add substance, where tax credits and tax cuts are the true short-term wastes.

What Matters Most Right Now is not how much tax we are paying, but whether we are earning a paycheck at all.

We're Losing Our Jobs. We're afraid of losing our homes, or at least our home value.

And So We Don't Spend.


Tax Cuts for Broke Corporations or for the unemployed? Neither pays much in taxes, so the point is moot.

Bonuses for the Wealthy, that get parked in Treasury bills and Certificates of Deposit? Parked money is not getting lent by banks, nor invested by anyone else, so the stimulus effect is nil.

"Rescuing" Banks Whose Reserves, marked to market, are currently without value—and are getting worse? These banks have no choice, under "mark to market" rules, to do anything but shore up their reserves. Thus, no credit is released by these "bailouts."


Stimulating a Stagnant Economy Is One Thing.

Restoring Consumer Confidence is another. It's what will turn our economy around. Whether now or later.

Maybe in the Mean Time, We Can Learn about the difference between consuming and speculating, and between speculation and capital investment. So that we won't have to go through this again.

Right Now, Let's Invest in Our Future, with roads and bridges and other infrastructure. It's not the same thing as spending. It's capital improvement.

It's Time Americans—Including Democrats and Republicans in Congress—Learned the Difference.