Right now, conservative U.S. Senators, both Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats, are threshing around trying to cut pieces out of President Obama’s economic recovery plan. They say it costs too much. Ironically, these are the same Senators who increased the legislation by more than $100 billion just a few days ago. The U.S. economy lost more than 500 jobs in Jan, marking the deepest cut in 34 years. The umber of jobs lost last month reached 598,000.
The total number of job losses since the recession began in Dec. 2007 has now reached 3.6 million, with half of the decline occurring during the last three months.
The federal government overpaid by about $78 billion in stock and other troubled assets when it bailed out big banks last year, and it lacks sufficient internal controls to police and protect taxpayers’ investments in the institutions.
This reality, the national and global, economic crises was palpable in the political debate until as recently as a few weeks ago. But Republicans are using a strategy of conscious denial to push it off the stage. Because a successful stimulus bill would be devastating politically for their party . And they know it.
All the most responsible longitudinal polling demonstrates increasingly strong majorities favoring a progressive governing agenda; so conservatives rely on a strategy of legislative obstructionism and deception to thwart the will of the people.
Source: Our Future Today, Feb.6th 2009
