Midterms

politics drives me crazy these days, so i'll limit any entries about it to once a week. but it's old news that the democrats are going to lose at least the House in november, much to my frustration. do people not remember where we were two years ago? this mess that we're in now is not the fault of the present administration, OR the democrats. the economy is still bad and unemployment still high, but the only thing republicans have done since the election is try to ensure it STAYS that way so that voters blame the dems for it and they regain the majority. despite the fact that they, you know, caused it in the first place. and people really want to go back to that? after just 20 months? when obama took office we were losing jobs at a rate of 700,000 a month, due the Bush administration. the stimulus package he signed stopped the job losses, while not being big enough to push us into a self-sustaining recovery. a lot of economists thought the depth of the hole requires over a trillion dollar stimulus, and not 775 billion, which is what we got. the admin thought it wouldn't pass congress, and they were probably right (only 3 republicans voted for it at all, unbelievably). what the economy needs is more government intervention, more stimulus. it stopped the losses, and the recession "officially" ended in 09, but it wasn't big enough to provoke high enough hiring rates to bring down the unemployment level. so it feels like we're stuck in neutral, after before being in a freefall. and despite the positive growth we've had all year, it's just not enough to keep up with people entering the market, on top of everyone who lost their jobs. that's the recipe for more spending, if jobs are what's most important, but the political will isn't there to do it. the GOP has painted the spending process as having "failed" even though it unequivocally DID stop the freefall and prevented another Depression.

Despite the economy, the democrats have passed two major bills in this congress, health care reform and wall street reform. these are two HUGE progressive achievements, even if it didn't have everything a lot of liberals wanted. even without a public option and the breaking up of the big banks, the stuff that both bills do is on the level with anything the democrats have passed since the era of FDR and LBJ. social security wasn't perfect at first, it didn't include african-americans or farm workers in the original legislation, believe it or not. but big social legislation like health care tends to be improved over time, once it's established that everyone has a RIGHT to healthcare (which is a major thing the bill did), that will not be taken away. when entitlements are written, they never are. so i think the base really should come out and vote this year, and not be apathetic because of the economy. we're moving in the right direction and 20 months just isn't enough time to completely turn things around. if the financial crisis had happened a year before the election and not basically during bush's lame-duck session, i think obama could be blamed more for the status of the economy, but this mess that we're currently sitting in is NOT their fault, and that have taken steps to get us out. they just need more time. the republicans had 8 years to fuck up the country, i think the dems deserve more than 20 months to get us out of their shit. and why would you ever want back what put us here in the first place? not to mention these guys now are actually WORSE than what put us here, when you look at how radical the right has become. they're just insane now, with these teabagger people? i mean come on! you can't put into office as a protest vote, people who dabbled in witchcraft and oppose masturbation! or more seriously, have zero policy solutions and spout just complete and total nonsense, like saying they're for cutting the deficit but wanting to add 3 trillion dollars to it by giving tax cuts to rich people. that makes NO sense. these people are hypocrites and frauds.

you may not be happy with where we're at right now, but do the country a favor and vote democratic anyway. staying home allows the teabagger idiots to take over and stifle ANY chance at improvement. we have to give them more time, at least as much as the other side got to run things into the ground.