WALKING INTO A BUZZ SAW

On Friday, January 29, 2010 in Maryland a little less than 200 Republican Congressman walked into a buzz saw. It was a horrific accident! And, a good lesson to all white conservatives that have any notion that they are smarter than all African-Americans, just because their white. I’ve lived with the notion in the South most of my life. The old way of thinking in the South was that African-Americans are inferior. That’s was the civil rights struggle in the sixties was all about. Whites thought they were superior to blacks. This attitude was in full display in Maryland on this particular Friday.

Well…Friday (1-29-10) the House Republicans thought they would take the opportunity to show how intellectually inferior the new African-American President was to their superior thinking. For those who watched…it wasn’t even close. The President swatted them away like the fly he famously killed during a one on one TV interview. The President came armed with facts and information. The House Republicans came armed with a script they thought would play well in commercials for the general elections in November of 2010. As Chris Farley would have said…THAT…WAS… AAAAAAAWSOME!

And Obama passed up the chances for some easy political theatre himself. Two striking examples come to mind. First the Congressman from Utah, Jason Chaffetz. Chaffetz, pushed legislation through the House earlier this year that would prohibit U.S. airport screeners from using imaging machines which can peer through clothes to detect weapons or explosives. You know…the kind that would have caught the Christmas Day airline attempted bombing in Detroit. If the President had wanted to score come commercial political points he could have reminded the Congressman of his past judgment.

Then Congressman Marsha Blackburn…who presented, with her thick southern drawl, all the good ideas the Republicans had about healthcare that the President and Speaker Pelosi were “ignoring.” Of course, what was missing in her disingenuous suggestion was that she has served in the Congress for the past eight years. Her list of Republican’s good ideas for healthcare, apparently, were never good enough for submission to the U.S. House of Representatives during the years that the Republicans controlled the White House, and both houses of Congress. Because during those years the only healthcare legislation that was introduced was the Medicare Legislation that for the most part was a give away to the pharmaceutical companies and health insurance companies and multiple billions of dollars of “unpaid for” largesse disguised as Medicare.

The Republicans sensitivity to their party possessing NO IDEAS lives on. They wanted health insurance to be sold across state lines…it’s in the bill. They opposed the public option…it’s out o the Senate bill. Still…no Republicans have agreed to vote for the legislation. Why? The only consistent excuse that I can find is from the mouth of Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who stated “if defeated it would be the President’s waterloo.” So if the President is for it…they’re against it.

In the only political race I ever entered personally I was confronted with an opponent who described his position on pari-mutuel gambling, an issue that was on the ballot as a state question at the time, as follows; “some of my friends are for it and some of my friends are against it…and I’m for my friends.” That’s exactly where the Republicans are right now…with their friends, the health insurance companies, the Wall Street Bankers, the polluters, and the defense contractors.

EVERYBODY DOES BETTER WHEN EVERYBODY IS DOING BETTER!

It’s a really an easy concept. When the folks at the bottom of the income scale are doing better they buy more products from the people at the top of the income scale. Everybody wins! Contrary to popular opinion capitalism is not “trickle down”…it comes from the bottom up. It’s a ground swell. We empower workers making the least and they spend it buying the products of businesses making the most. And, a little socialism mixed in with capitalism is a good balance…it’s not the beginning of communism. We have got to get past the notion that capitalism is all good, and socialism is all bad. Each has its good points and we’d be silly not to take advantage of the best parts of both. What would the road and highway system be without a socialistic approach? The rules of the road make us all equal when we take to the highway. The rules apply to the largest trucks and the smallest cars and pedestrians. And, the system runs smoothly because of the socialistic rules that make all of us equal to each other. Capitalism wouldn’t work constructing traffic rules.

The results of the Massachusetts Senate race will be dissected for the next several months. It appears now that the voters weren’t as concerned about health care because they have universal healthcare already in Massachusetts. This, in one way of thinking, is pretty sad. We’ve got healthcare…so, we don’t care about everybody else. But, solving the healthcare dilemma is one ingredient in the formula to improving the economy. Because as new businesses are created they and their new employees will have more buying power if they don’t have to struggle with health insurance cost. The best way to insure the maximum effect for the minimum of cost would be for new businesses to be able to buy into a “not for profit” governmental healthcare insurance program.

The next way to bring about the ground swell I speak of is to increase the minimum wage. Again, employees making more money spend more money on products the lucrative businesses create. Additional, help should come in the way of major banking reform that returns commercial banks back to lending and forces them away from the trading of stocks rather than making loans. Banks have become lazy…just like they did in the 1930’s, and in the 1980’s. They’d rather take the easy road and make one big loan rather than a lot of small ones. However, the small loans are part of the ground swell that will make everybody better because everybody will be doing better. Small borrowers who borrow for small businesses and buy small products create wealth for lower wage earners and higher wage earners alike. We all need customers. That’s what a ground swell does…creates customers.

Tax policies should be directed at helping new business owners and low wage earners. And those of us who earn more need to realize we owe more, and we help ourselves when we help those at the bottom. We all are aided when roads, highways, municipal and state services are built. Big government has never been the problem. Inefficient government has been the problem and we should guard and protect our population from the excesses of inefficient government and business alike.

We’ll improve when we start working together and turn our back on greed and self interest. Truly, everybody does better when everybody is doing better!