November 3, 2010

• The Election Results

  Fairly disastrous.  Here in Florida, we have a Tea Partier named Sen. Marco Rubio, and there’s a serious possibility that Alex Sink is losing the governor’s race to Republican Rick Scott, and in order to avoid being sued for libel, I am withholding what I think I know about Scott’s resume.

  John Boehner of Ohio is going to be Speaker of the House, heaven help us, but I guess we know that going into yesterday’s elections.

  I don’t think the Senate numbers are determined yet.  I’m not happy with the job Nevada’s Harry Reid has done as majority leader in the Senate, and he may or may not have survived his own race with Sharron Angle.  A few races are still up in the air, including that one. 

  Welcome to gridlock.  It’s hard to imagine anything useful getting done by Congress over the next two years.  President Obama is sure to veto any reckless legislation that comes to his desk, and of course the scariest prospect is that current voter sentiment will carry over to 2012 and if that happens, I’m hard put to remain my usual optimistic cheery self.

  Here’s what analyst Michael Cohen has to say today.

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  Opinion: America’s Misplaced Anger

  Michael Cohen Contributor

  AOL News

  (Nov. 1) — The American people are mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it anymore. They’re tired of billion-dollar bailouts that have bankrupted the country. They are tired of Democratic politicians who are raising their taxes. They are tired of a Congress that has basically done nothing over the past two years.

  Come Tuesday, these angry voters are going to shake up Washington, by voting for a Republican Party committed to reversing the failed policies of the Democratic Party. Sounds like a pretty good list of complaints, right?

  There’s one problem. It’s simply wrong.

  In reality, bank bailouts have actually turned a healthy multibillion-dollar profit. The economy has expanded over the past five quarters. And since Democrats took control of both Congress and the White House in January 2009, 95 percent of Americans have seen their tax burdens go down. Yet according to a recent Bloomberg poll, Americans (by a 2-to-1 margin) believe the exact opposite.

  What about Congress? Here again, Americans have very little sense of what their representatives have actually done. Over the past two years a Democratic-controlled Congress passed comprehensive health care reform, reformed the student loan program, overhauled the financial system and passed a nearly $800 billion stimulus measure. In short, the 111th Congress has been among the most productive in recent American history.

  Yet 72 percent of Americans believe that Congress has either accomplished the same as previous Congresses or less than usual. Even among self-identified Democrats, only four in 10 think that this Congress has gotten more done than previous ones.

  It’s a shocking commentary on the state of American democracy when so many Americans are singularly uninformed about the workings of their own government.

  Of course, it’s one thing that Americans don’t have a clear sense about what is happening in Washington, but it’s quite another when it leads to voting decisions that don’t even reflect their interests.

  Here is where the gap between anger and reality is perhaps most pernicious — and even counterproductive. The policies enacted by Democrats have — whether one agrees with them or not — created nearly 3 million jobs, expanded guaranteed health coverage to 30 million Americans and prevented a full-fledged economic depression from taking root. The controversial decision to provide bailouts to American automakers undoubtedly saved millions of jobs and prevented the Midwest from being plunged into a full-scale economic meltdown.

  Of course, the obvious rejoinder to this list of accomplishments is that the country is still mired in a jobless recovery with nearly 10 percent unemployment. As the argument goes, the measures that Congress has enacted are having little actual impact on the lives of ordinary Americans. And the blame for this is falling mainly on the incumbent party, the Democrats.

  But even if one is congenitally opposed to deficit spending, it’s hard to quibble with the notion that the Democrats’ efforts to pass a stimulus bill last January were geared toward creating jobs and spurring economic growth. One may feel that only the free market can provide for Americans’ health care needs, but there is little doubt that the comprehensive health care reform bill passed last March was focused on expanding health insurance coverage for millions of Americans.

  In short, the policy agenda — whether one opposes it or not — has been tailored to relieving the economic burden on the American people.

  It’s pretty difficult to make the same argument about Republicans, who have uniformly opposed any Democratic effort to help those in economic need. Bills to extend unemployment benefits and increase payments to states in order to protect jobs and critical social services or focus on job-creating infrastructure projects — all of which are supported by a majority of senators — have been repeatedly and flagrantly filibustered by Senate Republicans.

  Sponsored Links Serious GOP alternatives on health care or growing the economy are nearly impossible to identify. And the policy prescriptions of the GOP, like cutting spending or cutting taxes, would harm the economic recovery and further blow up the federal budget deficit — which has been the nominal excuse for why Republicans are opposed to any other form of government intervention in the U.S. economy. This is not to mention the fact that the centerpiece of the Republican agenda (extending the Bush tax cuts) is opposed by a majority of Americans.

  Indeed, recent comments by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggest that growing the economy is of minimal interest to Republicans. “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Barack Obama to be a one-term president,” McConnell has said.

  Yet come Tuesday evening, it is very likely that this is the party to which the American people will turn to lead them out of their current economic malaise. Now that’s something worth getting angry about.

  Copyright, 2010, AOL News.  All rights reserved.

  • 5:01 am
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