The first big test for the federal government, now controlled by the Democratic Party, is the economy. Already on the skids prior to the President’s election, the world economy decelerated rapidly after his election. Apparently, world markets were not convinced that the all Democratic financial management team was what the U.S. needed.The majority of those of us who vote with our ballots disagreed with that assessment and so here we are. The Democrats are attempting to craft a stimulus package that will turn around the economic free fall. The House of Representatives believed that the best way to accomplish this included funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and contraceptives. The Senate has had the bill and merrily tacked on over one hundred billion dollars more in pet projects.
Politicians appear to be of the persuasion that, since the neighborhood is on fire, in addition to loading up the fire truck tankers we should be be providing their special interests with the water to water their lawns and gardens. (Okay, that’s a lame analogy, but you catch my drift, right?) After years of being restrained by Republicans, Democrats have the opportunity to do what they love most: spend.
Republicans lean toward shrinking the government (with the exception of supporting our troops in times of war). Faced with a spending deficit (as in the public isn’t spending) and no power in D.C., they seem to a bit out of touch with reality as they chant the “lower taxes” mantra.
The President has stated that the controversy is over less than 1% of the proposed spending. One congressman claimed that Republicans only had a problem with one page out of a phone-book-size bill. Yet, Democrats continue to claim that they want to be bi-partisan. “We won’t give 1% or 1 page in thousands, but we’re really trying to be bipartisan,” is what I’m hearing. I think I finally figured out what the President means by a new bipartisan spirit: “We beat your butts, and now we want you to like it!”
