The 2010 campaigns have less than a month to run, and it's high time I made a few points. I'm shaking my head at people who voted for Barack Obama thinking he could fix a severely damaged economy, get everyone back to work, rewrite the Constitution so Washington works differently, and solve world peace in 18 months, and who are disappointed that he hasn't gotten all that done. Do I wish some things had been done that haven't? Hell, yes. I've said before on this blog that I'm disappointed that more hasn't done for the environment and to address climate change. But I didn't think so many people out there would be simple-minded enough to think that he owned a magic wand. Washington is all about deal-making, and unfortunately the Democrats didn't have a big enough majority to get done what they wanted to do without having to deal with the Republicans, who basically sat on the their hands and refused to legislate, something they're actually being paid to do, the last time I looked.
The answer is NOT to vote the Republicans back in, yet I know that they will make big gains in the elections. Part of that is because people on the right just tend to be angrier, and angry people vote. Well, I'm angry too, and everyone should be at the joke that is the GOP's new plan, Pledge To America. There's some vague promise in there to cut taxes (while we already have the lowest tax rates since 1960) and cut the federal budget. Anyone who knows anything about the federal budget should already know this -- there is no meaningful way to cut the federal budget without cutting Social Security and Medicare. Period. None. So what the Republicans aren't telling you is that they intend to do just that. John Boehner, the wanna-be Speaker of the House, has said so himself. He wants to raise the Social Security normal retirement age to 70. For a lot of us it's already 66 or 67, now the Republicans want to raise it higher. Do they really think people want to work to age 70? Isn't that just hurting a) the middle class, and b) the job situation, as older people who don't retire at 65 will cause a dearth or jobs for younger workers? Does John Boehner really understand anything??
I've been wondering why they don't just suggest increasing the cap at which people pay Social Security taxes. It is now $106,800, with a tax rate of 6.20%. That means if you make $106,800 or $2 million, you will pay $6,621.60 in Social Security taxes (and your employer will pay the same). So why don't the Republicans suggest that instead of raising the Social Security normal retirement age you just increase the wage cap to, say, $175,00? Or $200,000? Ohhhhh, I forgot... the Republicans wouldn't raise taxes on people who make a lot of money! Silly me!
Which is why they don't want the Bush tax cuts that went largely to the wealthy to expire, despite the fact that it would cost $700 billion over the next 10 years to keep them in place! Which, coincidentally, is the same amount of money spent on the stimulus plan that they campaign on as being such a waste of federal tax dollars. **Sigh**. Remind me -- why would anybody vote for these people again?
I'm not sure that the Obama healthcare plan was a good idea, either, not because now more people will be covered (they should be) or because the insurance companies will have to get rid of their lifetime caps (they should have anyway), but because the public option got taken out. The insurance companies now have no competition and no reason to hold rates down. So what happened? I just got informed that my employer-sponsored health care premiums will rise by more than 12%. Bastards. I knew this would happen. On top of that, some insurance companies are refusing to write plans for children only and otherwise doing despicable, sneaky, and nefarious things to make up for the government mandating that they actually have to pay out claims. This is why we needed some real competition for these companies, and watering this bill down and taking out the public option just meant that the insurance companies were going to get creative and find other ways to screw over everybody. Figures.
What about the governorship of California makes it worth $140 million? That's what Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay has paid out of her own pocket to try to win the election there. That is just an unconscionable amount of money to spend to gain a little power. Hey, Meg -- if you've got $140 million to burn I could give you some suggestions about charities to spend it on! How about The Nature Conservancy, the NRDC, the National Wildlife Federation, The Audobon Society, the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity? How about donating some money to animal shelters or the ASPCA? What the heck are you thinking??
For those of us who remember the scary days in 2008 when we weren't certain if the entire financial system was going to melt down, think about where your 401(k) is now in comparison to where it was then. Think about the fact that we were losing 750,000 jobs every month. Yes, there are still big problems, but we didn't get into this mess in 18 months and it will take longer than 18 months to get ourselves out. Impatience, in this case, is definitely not our friend.
