Time to Rant

NOTE:  I'll be posting shortly about our lately-departed Finance Director (who was - as everyone knows - one of my greatest admirers)...stayed tuned for that.  But in the meantime, I gotta let this one out.

Way back in December of 2007,  I made it known to my political associates that I favored the junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.  Well, I got my innards ripped out that night by the Hillary supporters.  As it turned out, I had the last laugh....or so I thought.

I am extremely liberal on social issues...but at the same time I am conservative on fiscal matters.  I believed (or dare I say that I had the Audacity to HOPE) that Obama was the ideal I had always wanted.

But, the deal recently struck to extend the 2001 George W. Bush tax cuts fails on both of my personal standards:

• By extending these tax cuts for the wealthiest 2%, Mr Obama agreed to unnecessarily add to our childrens' debt, without any material public benefit.  We should only put a mortgage on our house if there is good reason to do so; and for too long - 40 years, in fact - we have been mortgaging ourselves without a second's thought to the possible consequences.  It is far overdue for us to put our finances in order...and this agreement does more to de-stabilize our financial situation (albeit with a "promise" of future benefit - which has been vehemently refuted almost unanimously by reputable financial experts and economists).

• This agreement does nothing to provide for those who in my judgment are those in greatest need of government assistance: the long-term unemployed.  The so-called "extension" of benefits serves only those who are currently receiving unemployment benefits.  There are millions who - because of this prolonged and severe recession - have lost their unemployment benefits, even as economic conditions have kept most from getting new jobs.  And yet, the tax money given to the richest 2% among us could pay for 2 years' worth of benefits to these long-term unemployed.

This agreement, then, is a "lose-lose" proposition no matter how you come at it or how you look at it going forth.  It adds to our country's debt, without solving any of our major national needs.  Advocates of this plan can only ask for our faith that this deal will eventually help in some undefined way in the hope that it will benefit us in some equally-undefined future time.

The time for hope and faith has passed.  It is now the time for decisive leadership.  Mr. Obama has proven himself incapable of providing that direction.

It is a milksop argument to say that the opposition to his presidency has prevented him from providing that leadership.  He has become the caricature of Gandhi's famous put-down of the British government's point of view.  He said that the leaders' philosophy was: "There goes my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader."

Sixty years ago, Gandhi was spot-on with his analysis; and we know how glorious the British Empire is today, right?

Are we now going to make the same mistakes in the name of political expediency?  Are we REALLY willing to take that risk?

More to the point:

Should we mortgage every American child's future so that our richest need not have to pay back to the Country which allowed them to become so rich in the first place? 

We the people, it was we who voted Obama into office as a  reflection of our sincere desire to change the path of our Country.  

The "Tea Party" movement has a similar desire, though (because it was born by partisan political operatives) with seemingly divergent aims.  But the (apparently opposite) goals of both movements are the the same:  to take back our Government back to "We the people" from "We the Special Interests". 

We haven't gotten anything like that (as yet) from Mr. Obama's administration, or from him personally.

Maybe, just maybe, this "Tea Party" movement is ahead of the wave: a wave we could add to, a wave that could overwhelm and cleanse our federal government.

We'll have the shared luxury of arguing about the next step once our mutual goals are attained.