My solace is in the fact that Americans are finally paying attention and making their feelings heard on the ongoing debt-ceiling debacle playing out in Washington DC. Every available poll indicates that 80% of Americans favor the termination of the Bush tax cut for the rich. President Barrack Obama alluded to this fact in his Friday’s press conference. When political observers accuse Democrats of being horrible with messaging, you may not appreciate the gravity of this comment until you realize that of the 14.3 trillion dollar deficit, Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan, Bush Senior down to George Bush junior incurred 10 trillion. Then you begin to wonder why is the DNC not jumping on this with two legs? Can you imagine just what the Republican Party will do with this revelation if the contrary is the case?
In his last press conference earlier mentioned, Obama introduced Americans to the origin of the country’s indebtedness, which included the 2 wars, Medicare part 2, Bush tax cut for the rich, and oil subsidies. None of these colossal money devourers was paid for. In his characteristics “let’s be friend” attitude, President Obama failed or refused to blame the Republican Party for the larger bulk of the debt thereby opening the door for Americans to pass a joint guilty verdict on both parties. A GOP President will never allow a blurry line as to the debt created by a Democratic Party President. But just remember that while George Bush was busy fertilizing growing our debts, former VP Dick Cheney made his infamous comment, that deficit do not matter. We now know that deficit only matters when the Dems are in the White House because it rallies the GOP base while painting the Democratic Party as fiscal rascals.
Let me join Texas Congresswoman Sheila Lee Jackson who, on the floor of the House, lamented what many Americans have long known that the Republican intransigence and hatred for President Obama and his policies were race inspired. No President in the history of this great country has been subjected to such scrutiny, such resentment, such derision like Barrack Obama, independent of the fact that he just might be the most intellectually versatile of all those who have occupied the Oval Office. For seven times under George Bush, the debt ceiling was increased to accommodate further borrowing, without the madness of today. Not many Americans are aware that debt became an issue with the presidency of Ronald Reagan whose government supervised the first debt ceiling talk. Prior, the United State was fiscally solvent, with enough money to throw around. President Obama has been in office for less than three years, but one would think he created the financial dilemma that has engulfed this country, if you listen to the Republicans. “What is different about this president that should put him in a position that he should not receive the same kind of respectful treatment of when it is necessary to raise the debt limit in order to pay our bills, something required by both statutes and the 14th amendment,” Jackson said. “He is no different than any other president that has served, and I beg this House and I beg this Congress to treat him with the dignity that that office deserves,” she concluded. “Get on with our work. Get on with solving the problems of the American people – a diversely, multicultural nation.”
The GOP and its Fox megaphone, as well as a litany of other conservative rabble-rousers have done a great job muddling the airwave much that many recipients of government largesse could swear to God they have received any benefits at all. Little wonder then that FOX viewers are the ignoramus of our time. For the first time, some Americans are dumb and relishing it. Renowned political scientist Suzanne Mettler recently in a survey found that over 44 percent of Social Security recipients say they "have not used a government social program." More than half of families receiving government-backed student loans said the same thing, as did 60 percent of those who get the mortgage interest deduction, 43 percent of unemployment insurance beneficiaries, and almost 30 percent of recipients of Social Security Disability.
