Ablogination

I have often criticized Democrats in Congress and the President himself for showing weakness, turning their backs on their base and not being forceful enough in defending their actions.

I’ll continue to do so when it’s true and appropriate.

But one thing cannot be denied, together, against the tide of Republican obstructionism, they have pulled this economy out of the abyss George W. Bush and the former Republican majority put us in.

Economic Recovery:

The recovery cycle runs in ups and downs. As we go along, the ups get higher and the downs level out. Anyone who has been paying attention has seen with their own eyes that we have Stocks down one day, then up the next. Unemployment up one week and down the next. As we go along, the ups get higher and the downs level out.

The 2001 Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthiest 3% left this nation with a 1.3 Trillion dollar deficit. Under Democrats, that deficit has been reduced by 8%.
According to the Washington Post, if the trend continued for the rest of the year it would mean the annual deficit would be $1.3 trillion – about $300 billion less than the administration’s projection two months ago for 2010.

Retail sales are up across the board (not just Mao-Mart and Target) and going into gift-giving type holidays, that’s a damn good sign.
Actual Gov’t Census Docs are HERE

We’re not recovering as fast as we would like. There will still be ups and downs so more needs to be done. But we are genuinely recovering and there is no denying that fact.
Compare that to the condition we would be in if John McSame and Sara shit-for-brains had been elected and we should be partying in the streets and giving thanks for the fact that unemployment isn’t 25%. Because that’s likely where we would be were it not for the efforts made by Obama and the Democratic majority.
The Keystone Research Center in Harrisburg, PA has determined that unemployment would be somewhere around 16% were it not for the stimulus package passed by Congress last year. Given the fact that research think-tanks tend to be cautious in their estimations, I say it would be more like 20% to 25% by now.

Here in Bristol, TN…Touchtone Wireless is hiring like crazy and machine shops all over the area are adding second and third shifts due to heavy workloads.

We’re on the right track and that’s all there is to it.

Maintaining Economic Recovery:

As we speak, Congressional Republicans are threatening to filibuster against Obama’s proposed revisions of the Bush Tax Cuts of 2001. Essentially, Republicans are willing to allow tax cuts for families who make under 250′000 to expire in an effort to save tax cuts for the richest 3%, aka, their masters.
The GOP has vowed to keep tax cuts for the rich, which as we read previously, resulted in the 1.3 Trillion Dollar deficit Obama and the Dems inherited from the Bush administration.

Ezra Klein of the Washington Post explains the numbers in a comprehensive fashion…

More needs to be done to put the numbers involved in extending the Bush tax cuts in context, so consider this: There is no policy that President Obama has passed or proposed that added as much to the deficit as the Republican Party’s $3.9 trillion extension of the Bush tax cuts. In fact, if you put aside Obama’s plan to extend most, but not all, of the Bush tax cuts, there is no policy he has passed or proposed that would do half as much damage to the deficit. There is not even a policy that would do a quarter as much damage to the deficit.

The stimulus bill, at $787 billion, would do about a fifth as much damage. But that’s actually misleading: The stimulus bill was a temporary expense (not to mention a response to an unexpected emergency). Once it’s done, it’s done. An indefinite extension of the Bush tax cuts is, well, indefinite. It will cost $3.9 trillion in the first 10 years. And then it will cost more than that in the second 10 years. Call that number Y. And then it will cost more than Y in the third 10 years. And so on and on into eternity. Comparatively, the stimulus bill is a tiny fraction of that. The bank bailouts, which were passed by George W. Bush and the Democrats in 2006, will end up costing the government only $66 billion. The health-care bill improves the deficit outlook.

Republicans and tea party candidates are both running campaigns based around concern for the deficit. But both, to my knowledge, support the single-largest increase in the deficit that anyone of either party has proposed in memory.

You will hear the argument that “extending tax cuts for the wealthiest 3% creates jobs". That is a lie.
The rich DO NOT create job growth. The Middle Class however does.
When a middle class Americans goes shopping, they create demand which creates jobs. Busy businesses need more employees, new shifts, more materials or products to work with and sell.
Most who read this know what it’s like to work. More employees, drink more coffee, the coffee vendor’s sales go up, they hire more people. Etc. etc.

When a middle class American needs the plumber or the electrician, they commission another middle class American to fulfill that need.
It’s middle class Americans who buy cars and houses and refrigerators and the like for retail prices. Not the wealthy. The wealthy 3% aren’t that many people.

70% of the economy depends on middle class American consumers.

If you believe that we need to give the rich $700 billion of our money so that they will give us jobs in return then you have been brainwashed into believing that the wealthiest 3% are far more economically important than they really are. Unless, of course, you’re a Conservative politician.

Class warfare is the wealthy holding a gun to the head of the middle class and telling us “give us $700 billion or we will kill all your jobs” I say fuck them. The middle class spends it’s money in the U.S. while the wealthy spend more of their money in foreign countries.

It’s getting better. Don’t allow some Teabagger type traitor to make a fool of you. Democrats have always been better for the US economy than Republicans. The same holds true today.

Just had to mention this…

Not long ago, before the Republican primaries, I was forced to write about a giant billboard ad that Little Ronnie Ramsey put up on Volunteer Pkwy…

Pic taken prior to Republican primary.

….Question is, why is the ad still there on September 15th?

Pic taken on Sept. 15 2010

Yep. As I look out the window of my business I still am being forced to suffer the view-killing, buzz-killing, creepy countenance of the LOSER of the Goobernatorial Republican primary.

This has gone beyond irritating and arrived at disgusting. No, not just his mug, but the fact that he seemingly cannot accept that he was thoroughly trounced and moved to the basement along with the rest of the Teabaggers.
According to Bristol City manager, Jeff Broughton (a great guy btw), no ordinance is being violated.

….Only my eyes.