In Germany, Britain, and the US the voters are ticked
It’s not about ideology. In Britain, the liberal Labor party got hammered; in Germany the conservative Christian Democrats got pounded.
Here in the US, voters seem sour on just about every incumbent, regardless of party label.
Obviously, it’s about the economy. People are still hurting two years after the deepest recession since the Great Depression.
And last week’s stock market roller coaster ride — combined with the cliffhanger in Greece — should give everyone fair warning that the worst may not be behind us.
Here in New York state, there are certainly some bumpy months ahead, as placeholder Governor David Paterson tries to manage a cash shortfall that could send state workers home one day a week through the summer.
One thing’s clear: Democrats have just a few more months to make people feel that things are getting better, or they’re likely to take the same drubbing that Labor and the Christian Democrats just experienced.
What irony. We were years getting into the mess we’re in under the Reagan through “W” administrations, the ‘prosperity’ we had was built on fairy dust and now people are angry at the Obama administration because he can’t turn the economy around in a year or two and create the same level of prosperity based on solid economics. It seems to me that a lot of people need a reality check.
Brian writes: “Democrats have just a few more months to make people feel that things are getting better . . . .”
He’s right, but is that right? Is the role of government always to make us feel better?
Yes, government action can mitigate the financial distress caused by recessions. More to the point, intelligent government regulation may have prevented the recent financial meltdown. Yet government is limited in its ability to foster a robust economy at a time of low wage competition from China and elsewhere.
To address some pressing issues, such as climate change and balancing government revenue and expenditures, we will need to take actions that in the short term won’t make us feel better.
Will we as a people support politicians who tell us uncomfortable truths? Unless we do we will feel alot worse when in time the consequences of our irresponsibility fall upon us.
The sad part is there’s no stopping this rollercoaster. You all can say it’s Reagans, or Bushs (or Clinton or Obamas) fault, but it’s bigger than that. There is a whole Congress full of enablers doing what’s best for them, not us. Yet, Chucky Schumer and The Sainted Kristen Gillibrand are immovable. We send the same career politicians to Washington and Albany and let them do their worst and send them, or their clone, right back a after the next election. I won’t even go into the myth that Gov’t can some how control a recession, much less an economy. That’s just not true, just like the fairy dust of Clintons surplus.
No, we want, apply for and respond to the buying of our votes with pork, promises and hope for change. No matter how much we complain nothing changes really. Do you expect politicians to change when we don’t make them? Seems like it’s our fault to me.
It does not make sense to blame someone who was president 30 years ago for today’s economic problems.
The fact is President Obama made many promises; President Obama is President not Bush not Reagan, this is his recession and his government response to this recession we will see what happens.
Personally I also find it unfair the President does not control the economy be it Bush or Reagan or Obama, they simply do not have that much power.
It’s easy to blame the guy in the White House. I did it for a long time. Regardless of what promises they make or where they stand their power to affect the economy is limited. Now it’s still a huge amount of power, but no one since FDR has had the ability to simply make or break the economy. If you want to talk the Gov’t as a whole…that’s different. Those guys in Congress can do a lot of good or a lot of damage. The career bureaucrats can too.
I don’t see anything changing until we get together and demand accountability and an end to various forms of pork and welfare, be it corporate welfare, subsidies, grants and loans…it all costs us money and perpetuates a bloated gov’t. The costs associated with doing away with Federal spending may or may not fall on the States. That can be good or bad, but I feel far more confident in local control than in the current system. We need to address the debt too, no one is concerned about that it seems.
George has a point though. Is it even possible to get elected by speaking the uncomfortable truth? If that is the case than the blame rests largely on us.
Take Social Security. Everyone knows that payments must be cut or the tax must be expanded, yet every time this is even mentioned people go nuts, so politicians leave it totally alone. In the end I think you will need a non-political mechanism something like the base closing working group to actually cut social security or Medicare.
I can really see how Greece ended up the way they did it is like mass hypnosis no one wants to give up a dime yet everyone realizes that if they don’t they are going to get nothing, it is bizarre.
I realize I’m an exception, but I’d lots rather have someone get up, speak the truth and give an honest answer on what he wants to TRY to do. Any candidate that says he WILL do something is just blowing smoke. For every move anyone wants to make there’s a special interest group that will fight it.
Social Security is a prime example of everyone having a share in the guilt. Both sides of the aisle have been dipping their fingers in the pot for decades. Now at least one of NYs Gubernatorial hopefuls has made moves towards raiding some pension funds here in NY. That amounts to the same thing as taking from SS. I’m 50 and I have zero expectation I’ll get any SS, maybe a small percentage of what I have been “promised”- 20, 25% perhaps.
I agree that sooner or later someone will come to the realization that this is a unsustainable system and will have the backbone to say so. The other possibility they’ll use the realization to make a move for some sort of power grab. At this point who knows?