As the election comes closer and closer I hear a lot of whispering on the wind about why it's likely the GOP will retake congress this election. Honestly I think it's bunk. I'm not saying the Dems are going to win, but the GOP isn't as in a good position as they want people to think.
Is not losing the same as winning
Most of the political commentators I respect say that the primary reason for the republican advantage is America's general dissatisfaction at the government. That dissatisfaction is not just aimed at the democrats but the republicans as well. Even if they win there is almost no way the electorate in the current political climate will stick with them. Within months the same people who elected them will be just as angry at those who deposed the incumbents. Put simply the dissatisfaction is bipartisan. Even if they won it wouldn't be as if they had a carte blanch mandate and to be clear it would be that way regardless of who won.
No matter who wins America is disgusted by the politics of Washington.
Politics is the art of exchanging favor for benefit it has nothing to do with government. Time and time again senators and representatives block legislation or put forth legislation not because it lines up with their beliefs, not because they think its what is right for the country , but because when election day comes they either want to be able to say, "see they wanted to do [X] and I stopped it. They want the animosity to continue because that is the platform of both parties. That's how both parties win elections, drumming up hatred of the rival party. And they both do that by trying to keep themselves politically opposed to each other so that they can later point out their differences
Last year both John McCain and Obama supported the bailout bill. I was taking an economics class at the time. The newspapers, and my professor were saying that if congress didn't do something demon days would soon be here. In retrospect it might have all been hyperbolic but there was a serious risk of a run on the banks. Banks are this country's economic backbone. For the last year we've been learning the hard way that what affects the banks affects everything else. Another professor told me that he lost, I might be remembering this wrong, about 40 percent of his 401 K. Everyone was calling for congressional action to boost up the banks. Despite all of this the republicans want to shift all the anger regarding the bailout bill towards the Dems rather than doing the honest thing and saying, "Look we here in Washington may have acted rashly, but something needed to be done. It was an emergency that could have collapsed the entire economy. We don't mean a few lost jobs we mean the entire economic system of the United States gone. The free market would have been lost to antiquity to be only studied by children in grade school classes "
On a side note: Bank runs are arguably what triggered the Great Depression. A bank run is when people lose confidence in a bank and try to get all their money out. See banks don't keep your money. They loan it out with the understanding that normally they don't have to have all the money in some giant vault because generally people are fine with letting their money sit in the bank. Think about you aren't going to stuff your retirement fund under the mattresses. That's how they make their money. They in essence borrow your money and pay you interest on a savings account so they can loan it out and get their interest on say mortgages. The bank only generally keeps about 10 to 20 percent of all of the money people give it. Normally that's okay because again nobody cares. Banks have enough to pay out what people typically want to take out, but when a run happens the banks don't have enough to pay everyone and when they're out the money is just gone.
Now a days there are some protections against bank runs like FDIC insurance which pays people back up to a certain amount but the system wasn't prepared to handle something of the scale of the '08 crash. Okay back to the election
We're talking about swinging control by only a hair
Not every district in every state is having congressional elections. What nobody is say is that really this election is about political games. Again no mater who has the majority it's not going to be enough to be considered a people's mandate. The country will still be just as divided as ever especially considering the Tea Party republican platform of, "I'm pissed as hell at the government and I ain't standing for it anymore." A new congress is not going to change that sentiment.
The Tea Party
While I where my left wing hippiness of my sleeve, I can agree with a lot of the mainstream republican platform. While I think it's necessary right now I do believe that eventually we are going to need to scale back government spending. Okay, well that's mostly it, but I don't view most republicans as crazy. Now tea parties especially on the news those guys are crazy. A lot of at least what I've seen on television is based on false premises and on occasion racism.
Even if I ignore the chicanery of the guys at the rallys which it is really hard to do. The tea party doesn't seem to have a practical platform. Aspects of it seem contradictory and impractical . The governments in debt. The tea party decries the government debt but abhors the idea of raising taxes. They want the government to write which part of the constitution allows it to act, but sometimes it's not what the constitution allows but what it doesn't forbid. Heck otherwise one third of the country wouldn't even be the country.
Most judges for good reason don't believe strict construction. We live in complicated times. For example I think the FCC should get of it's tukus and do something about this net neutrality hubub. Strictly speaking the constitution gives not only the FCC but congress no such power, not because it's a bad idea but because the founding fathers didn't even had mechanical adding machines let alone networked computing! Also trust me make the entire federal government have to operate on a balanced budget is a bad idea. Every few years we here in Michigan have a constitutional crisis because the government is forbidden to do much of anything until the budget is balanced.
I wanted to include this but I couldn't make it fit so screw it.
No comments:
Post a Comment