President Obama lets the Republicans know the game is over.
President Obama made it very clear in his first-ever press conference that republican politics of old had no place in this new era of government.
“As we learned very clearly and conclusively over the last eight years, tax cuts alone can’t solve all our economic problems, especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few Americans. We have tried that strategy time and time again, and it has only helped lead us to the crisis we face right now.”
Meanwhile, mental midgets like Richard Shelby yesterday called for the entire bill to be scrapped. Just as he had on the earlier TARP bill, he has decided to take Bob Dole’s old role of obstruction at all costs. The President made it crystal clear that the old conservative theories of stimulating the economy or doing nothing were unacceptable, the arguments of neanderthals still debating the necessity of the same type of programs during Roosevelt.Â
I think Obama did himself a great service tonight by explaining to the many how and why this bill will work, the steps being taken to ensure it’s success, and the logic behind the approach. He also addressed that tired republican response suggesting all democrats are fiscally irresponsible, slather every program in pork, particularly this one. He called them on their lies and also didn’t pull punches when it came to pointing out the responsibility of our representatives as a whole.
“I can’t afford to see Congress play the usual political games.”
Good for him. I believe at the other end of this national crisis we should hopefully find ourselves with universal healthcare, an economy headed north and a political system that finds the old way of politics disgraceful. What a pleasure it is to have someone in office who actually gives a damn about the honesty of our system. Clinton worked within it, accepting it. Bush took us down it’s dark path, taking advantage of every vulnerability in the system, destroying what little confidence we had in government post-Nixon and creating a cynicism not seen since that time.
I raise my glass in hopes that the republicans of old find themselves in the wilderness long enough for them to starve an ideological death there and, hopefully, be reborn into the kind of party that doesn’t see government as a means to their own enrichment.
