Stimulate This!

If good looks was a minute/ You know that you could've been an hour- Smokey Robinson, 'The Way You Do The Things You Do'

If you thought that the decades long Great American Leaders Search had ended with the inauguration of President Obama, well, you’re wrong. Six months into the New Depression most Americans don’t know how we got here, what we can do to get through this, and, most importantly, what we can do to avoid a mess like this ever developing again. We are clueless and ignorant, watching a debate over a stimulus package nobody really likes and nobody knows for sure will work.

I’m not going to lie to you. It sucks to be American right now.

Unlike politicians, we at Shambollocks! are not beholden to anybody. No corporate teat nourishes us, so we will level with you. We need to spend money. Lots of it. And after that, we’re going to have to spend more money. Lots of it. I don’t want to spend money. In general, I am a fiscal conservative. But right or left, the consensus is this-spend!

What should we spend it on? Infrastructure and investments in green energy. States should be given millions of dollars to improve public transportation. High-speed rail should be tested, and, if feasible, built in the Great Lakes and the East Coast. Renewable energy sources should be researched, financed, and given tax cuts. After that, cut taxes on businesses with fewer than a hundred employees. Extend limited housing credits to those who face foreclosure. Extend unemployment insurance through 2009 at least, with an option on 2010.

But my plan comes with pain. All universities will have endowments over a certain level taxed heavily. Those funds will be distributed in grants toward states’ funds for elementary and secondary education. All federal aid toward universities will be cut. If you want to go to college, you will have to pay for it. Or the state’s will have to work out their own aid. But no longer will the government fund an education that rewards the wealthy and the gifted. Those groups already have their rewards.

I don’t give a rat’s ass if Ivy League schools offer free tuition. I want Johnny Jackson in Philly, in L.A, and in Chicago to know how to read.

I would increase the highest tax bracket by one percent. They can afford it. I would greatly increase corporate taxes.  Money from corporate taxes would be given to the states to pay higher medical costs. If the corporations want lower taxes, they can tell their puppets in Congress to pass real health-care reform instead of giving it lip-service.

Financial institutions who receive aid will have to voluntarily enact plans to break their brokerage arm from their commercial lending arm from their financial products arm. If this crisis proved one thing, it is that bigger is not better. Stiffer regulation should ensure larger capitalization at all lending institutions. If you don’t have the money at hand when audited, you are taken over by the government.

Most importantly, all institutions given government aid must have their leadership restructured. Those who got us into this mess should join the unemployment line like everybody else.

That’s my plan.

What do we have right now? We have a president who has stumbled severely in his first 30 days. I knew the Clinton folk weren’t the solution.  I had no idea the Clinton folk would do the same mistakes they did the first time. I blame the nominees for their tax problems, not Obama. But he should have shown Geithner the door. He still should. And while he’s at it, show Larry Summers the door. He was on the board of Citibank! We will continue to tell the powers that be that no one with blood on their hands gets to clean this up.

BO’s people could learn a thing or two from the Bushies. Where is the use of the bully pulpit? Speak at the Hoover Dam. Let America know our proud history of financial reconstruction. The man was an excellent campaigner, but he needs to amp up his appearances. My gut instinct- this team knows how to win campaigns, but never knew how to govern. Ditch the Clinton deadwood, BO! This being said, BO tried to earn consensus on his stimulus package. He understands the gravity of this crisis. Considering the sheer size of this challenge, he gets a C-. He earns bonus points for having to deal with these idiots…

The congressional Democrats! Oy vey! I now know what it must feel like to be a Cub fan. How in the dickens could the Democrats, in one month!, get hoodwinked by Bobby Rush and Cook County Democrats into seating Senator Burris AND lose all momentum with Obama’s stimulus package. They just kicked ass in an election and have near-insurmountable advantages in both houses. No way they could lose, right? Nope, they did what they always do. They larded the stimulus package with needless spending, and allowed the Republican to rise from the grave. They’ve completely lost America. Their strategy remains the same- watch the Republicans blow themselves up. Hey, Dems, you’re luck is going to run out soon. Get together with the executive branch and start GOVERNING! They earn an F. And they get that for showing up.

Yes, D.C. is now riddled with zombie Republicans. When we last left the Republicans, their tomb had no flowers and few visitors. What a difference a month makes! Thanks to the horrid lack of Democratic governing talent, the Republicans are back for more of our brains. They refuse to support the stimulus because, hold on, it spends too much money! This from the party that blew up the Clinton era surplus in the time it takes me to decide to go record-shopping or not. Now the party of fiscal discipline (sigh), they’ve hammered the wussy Democrats as spendthrifts and socialists. Basically, nailing the script they’ve used on Dems for the last fifty years. They don’t want to spend anything, they want to cut taxes. They basically want to deepen the crisis. Bravo, Republican zombies. You continue to earn my vehement disgust. Zombies must be eliminated. Zombies don’t get grades.

So, in short, we have the status quo of the last thirty odd years in D.C. The Democrats don’t know how to govern, and the Republicans don’t want to govern. Big change.

Why are Americans so ignorant of the details of our plight? Because nobody wants us to know anything. The Tribune’s Friday front page contained a large photo of a swank dinner party. The accompanying article spoke of the rising rate of split checks at restaurants. The photo indicated which party member paid what. Their tabs: $212, $162, $135. In what middle class is that a budget night out? Hell, K and I sweat when we pay $30 out. On Monday’s Trib front page, they pulled off an amazing feat. No news on the front page. Not one piece of news. Their Monday feature told us of extraditions of illegal aliens. With the job losses, how many Americans do you think really care about these extraditions? How about explaining the stimulus legislation?! What do they teach these people at Medill? I now continue my subscription for purely humor-related reasons. I treat it like the Onion.

We need to pass this stimulus package now. Even Republican and bill supporter Arlen Specter said, “The country cannot afford not to take action. ” It’s the right thing to do.

Before you start throwing around the word socialism and besmirching the New Deal, take a look at what the New Deal gave us. And I hope you don’t need that Social Security. Or unemployment insurance. Yeah, those are the New Deal, too.

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