Written by Kailei Higginson
(khiggi11@mscd.edu)
Is the stimulus package a good thing? There are those that say yes, but I believe that it is to open interpretation. But much like the Supreme Court Justice who tried to define obscenity, I know bad policy when I see it and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is definitely it. It doesn’t really address any of the economic need that Americans are calling for; it’s about politics and how people can keep power in Washington.
It isn’t that I think government spending is bad, it’s that the majority party wrote with little or no input from the minority party. It’s the idea that we need to spend our way out of a recession but not curb our excess spending. It’s the idea that we the people don’t know how to spend our money and paying off debts and credits cards won’t help unless the government does it for us. More importantly, it’s the fact that if it doesn’t work, we’ll do it all again next year or so. All of these aspects bother me.
Reality is it is easier for the government to spend our money and take care of people than it is for us. Why? I have no idea, but it is. We decided at some point that we don’t want to be directly responsible for our fellow Americans. We want to show up and show pity on those less fortunate and serve them food once or twice a year but we don’t want to give money to the non-profits that do it year around.
The federal government is spending $2,447,922,036 in the great state of Colorado. That works out to be about $570 per person in Colorado that is being spent on streets and other construction jobs here in the state. It’s money well spent, right? Additionally, there are other initiatives in the bill the President signed here in Denver. Items such as tax breaks for college and housing are included. Be sure to thank your local Republican representative for those clauses. Otherwise, it would have been spent on condoms and grass.
Regardless of what you read in print or hear on MSNBC, Republicans offered up a solution that wasn’t seriously looked at by the Democrats. This plan called for more tax cuts, which would have put money in people’s hands immediately. But partisan language used by those in power implies that we’re in this crisis because of bad economic policies driven by the Republicans. Quite frankly, that isn’t accurate. Both sides contributed to the crisis which includes active lobbying by Freddie Mac and Frannie May and lack of enforcement by the Bush Administration. The best way to solve the situation is to put aside personal and professional issues between both parties and come to the table ready to debate and discuss what’s the best for the country. However since that didn’t happen, it falls to the Democrats to push through what they think is best.
But that is neither here nor there. What really has me freaked out is that we’re about to spend nearly $1 trillion in tax dollars and we’re not entirely sure that is the right thing to do. One economist said this and a different economist said a different thing about the whether or not this will work. But that is what Washington does: Overreact to a crisis by not deliberating or conducting anything that resembles rational thought or debate. It’s how we got a less than perfect national security bill call the Patriot Act. That is all politics when it comes down to it.
Candidate Obama once promised a new way of doing things, but when it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be, he called out the Republicans for disagreeing. President Obama forgot about “change” and “hope” when it came to a very real possibility that he might not be re-elected. Somehow, it was more important that Republicans support the Democrats in their overworked spending bill than truly achieve anything lasting. Again politics comes into play.
I’ll even attempt to be nice and say that there might have been valid arguments about the past administration and the lack of debate about bills. But isn’t it the very model of hypocrisy to run on a “new type of politics,” to run on “changing the way Washington works” and then not change anything? Bipartisan doesn’t mean trying to grab a couple of the opposing party members and get them to agree with you. It means truly having a debate with opposing ideals and then meeting at the table to work out a compromise that doesn’t make anyone happy now. But it could have positive impact in the future.
So while I don’t believe that the bill will do anything, it was an interesting aspect of politics and will have some very real ramifications that we’ll see next summer and fall. I know that this is true in that most of the spending won’t take place till 2010. Is that a big year for anyone? It is an election year and if it works, we’ll see the ramification in time for a new round of Democrats to get elected, which all spending bills are designed to do because we’ll forget this whole month and the drama that went along with it.
Well, that shouldn’t surprise us. Campaign promises are just that and the reality of governing is settling in. The crisis is here and how each party handles it is what will make a difference come 2010. What I can hope for is that my party learns from this and begins to take their message and their views to the people. That is the best way for us to make an argument about why we are better to govern now. However, once we accomplish that aspect, we need to be ready to govern and invite dissenting voices to the table.
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