I'm annoyed at Eeyore right now. Or maybe I'm actually talking about his brothers - who all went into government. Some of them now go by the names of Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, and John Boehner.
These are people who can only see the negative, who are convinced that America has no future, that the era of American prosperity is over.
Never mind that these Eeyores got us here by leading us through over two decades of unparalleled greed. Never mind that the problem from start to finish was unbridled capitalistic furor - and a retreat from Roosevelt's New Deal.
Now these Eeyores are rewriting history, trying to prove that Roosevelt's ideas actually extended the Great Depression. They still believe that Big Government is the problem - when in actuality, if we had only HAD a big enough Government, the scoundrels who put us in the current economic mess would have gotten caught with their hands in the cookie jar, long before they could do the damage they did.
These Eeyores are so determined to prove that cutting taxes is the only way to stimulate an economy that they'll happily flush economic hope down the toilet - just to prove that Obama's Stimulus Bill is wrong. They fail to see the X Factor: the power of dreams and hope and communities caring about each other. They need to watch It's A Wonderful Life again.
They're hoping Obama will fail because they think that freedom from restraint is always the answer - that ethics and responsibility and justice and kindness are synonyms for the word weak.
Translation? The idea that deregulation will stimulate the economy is like the promoting faster delivery service by removing all the traffic lights.
* * *
Eeyore can't see the value of positive thinking. He thinks logically. He's annoyed by Tigger's "too positive" attitude.
The Republicans hate to think that government might have a role to play in the coming economic recovery. They talk about fiscal restraint - just when it's time to prime the pump. These pirates act as if they haven't spent the last eight years turning the nation over the lobbyists, sucking up to the oil companies, giving tax breaks to the wrong people.
These bullies were led by a President whose Attention Deficit Disorder was so severe that he thought the answer to every test question on economics was tax cuts. He never figured out that Ronald Reagan might have talked tax cuts - but he also raised taxes when necessary to balance the budget.
They didn't have the decency to come up with a real alternative to the Democrats' Jobs Bill (A round of new tax cuts doesn't count, John Boehner!). They just play Eeyore on a black Monday morning, complaining, complaining, complaining. They're all about no, no, no.
During the recent creation of the stimulus package, they played the role of the Kid on the Playground who takes his ball and goes home when the rest of the kids won't play his way - then complains that no one will play with him.
Out of one side of their mouth, the Republicans claim they weren't allowed in the clubhouse - that they weren't allowed to get involved in writing the Jobs Bill. On the other side of their mouth, they shoot spitwads at the three Republicans who seemed to have no problem prying open the door of that clubhouse and helping to rewrite the bill.
Yes. Imagine how much stronger the bill might have been had these bullies started helping, rather than insisting on either their way or the highway.
You can't have it both ways, Mitch McConnell. Make up your mind.
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Yes. Rather than joining the few Republicans who came up with a solution, these Republicans anarchists stood outside the negotiations, led by the shameful Ohio representative John Boehner, who hissed and snarled into any and all media microphones, trying to run down the reputations of the three senators who were trying to help the Democrats solve problems.
Why? Don't they get it? Don't they see the massive numbers of Americans who walk the streets without work? Don't they hear the voices of their countrymen who have given up on the American Dream?
After rescuing all the bankers and stockbrokers, why is it suddenly time to be frugal - just when it's time to invest in the little guy? Do we only help people who drive a Mercedes Benz?
Well, you do if you're Eric Cantor, the minority whip for the House, who ensured that NO Republicans voted for the Stimulus Bill.
* * *
You can always recognize the bullies. They claim to speak for the group. I faced them in my own small schoolyard. Those bullies were rude and stupid then, and the bullies I see in Congress today are no different. Their intelligence is feral - they'll shoot at anyone who doesn't believe in their dying ideas.
They figure that if they keep saying the country is overrun with bears, the other children will be too frightened to come out and play. They tell people that Obama's Stimulus Package is filled with pork for these grizzlies. That these bears will eat little children for TEN LONG YEARS.
Bullies like this like to tell scary stories about what will happen if we follow Barack the Magic Negro. They play racist songs like this on their radio shows.
HA, HA, HA. Wasn't that funny? We're not racist - we're just being ironic.
And their goal is to eat the juicy fruits left behind by the littluns who flee.
* * *
This pack of bullies even has an ace card they'll use when Obama succeeds, when the economic playground is cleaned up, when the financial world is safer (albeit the pirates will be making deservedly less money).
I saw the game happen after Clinton fought to balance the budget by raising taxes at the beginning of the 90s. Once the economy took off again, these bullies flipped this ace on the table.
"It's the Reagan tax cuts," they kept saying. "That's why the economy is so good now."
Then they deregulated the financial markets and the banks. They used their Republican majority to destroy the social network. They destroyed the foundations of our economy by eviscerating key financial laws. And they're going to try and play the same game again.
Mixed metapors be damned - when The Little Red Hen named Obama succeeds, and when the Eeyores of the Republican Party are proved wrong -
When the wheat starts growing, and the harvest is wonderful, and the baking bread smells great -
When the American economy defies expectations and takes off again, recreating the middle class -
Do you think the Republicans will give credit to the Jobs Bill, which is intended to help give new hope and a sense of safety to the little guy?
No, no, no. Mark my words.
The Republicans will claim that it all would have all happened anyway. That the Great Economic Recovery under Obama had nothing to do with the Stimulus Bill - "because the bill didn't stimulate."
Ugh.
Go home, Eeyore. Send out Tigger.