Could the Democratic Party be leading us to an economic disaster?

[kentuck]

My greatest fear is that the Democratic Party will lose the mandate and the momentum they won in the last election. If they do that and the Republicans regain control of the government, we know what they will do. They will cut taxes and cut social programs that help the most needy. In these times, that will be the "economic disaster".

How can it be prevented? The Democratic Party has to convince the people, the voters, that they are on their side, not the side of Big Business and Wall Street. Otherwise, the future may be very dark. This is the political environment that we presently occupy.

Political loyalties aside, this is about the people.

[LaydeeBug]

1. NEWSFLASH: We are ALREADY IN an Economic Disaster!!! eom

[kentuck]

2. As the old saying goes...

You ain't seen nothing yet.

[NJmaverick]

8. Very good point!

[Xenotime]

3. We are in one and it was given to us by the bush administration.

Obama has done a great job at keeping unemployment from going up. It could have been much worse.

[terrell9584]

5. Right....

And unemployment is only at 10%........


And anyone who only has half a brain will buy that. Most economic experts, on the other hand, put the actual unemployment rate somewhere in the 20s.


The truth is, the first and foremost concern this year was putting people to work. That was ignored in favor of bank bailouts and health insurance company giveways. That's why the Republicans, who were all but declared politically dead a year ago, now lead the generic ballot for Congress by 10 points.


Roosevelt increased his majority in 1934 because he focused on what was most important to voters in 1933. Obama has ignored what was most important to voters in 2009 and prioritized issues that did not have majority support from the American public (like the 60% against the Senate bill). The results will be seen at the ballot box.

[dkf]

7. We sacrificed jobs for a crappy no reform insurance bill.

If only Obama had concentrated on loans for small business how many private sector jobs could have been saved? He decided just to spare government employees. Shame on him.

[Donnachaidh]

34. uhh --WHAT?

Exactly WHAT has he done to keep unemployment from going up? Links please?

[jwirr]

4. Thank you, because that is what I have been trying to say for a long

time. No matter how angry I become at the lack of progress being made I must vote in all elections to keep my daughter and all others like her safe. Thus I will be voting Democratic again.

[kenny blankenship]

6. Reaganite policies will result in economic disasters for the majority

and for the country as a whole, regardless of which party is presently implementing them.

[Winterblues]

9. It is time for the people to get off their ass and not wait for elected officials to do everything.

I watched a thirty second ad created on the Rachel Maddow Show the other night, she said they did in a couple of hours. It was very good. Why do we have to wait for the elected officials to place their ads explaining our positions? We need our own 527 groups to begin as early as possible creating ads explaining the differences between Democratic ideals and Republican ones. We need to use Republicans words put side by side with fact. I remember when Dick Armey stood on the House Floor and stated as a fact that if clinton's Budget passed it would completely destroy the economy and devastate the middle class. Clinton's Budget did pass and America went on to experience the "Greatest Economic Expansion in History". Dick Cheney said we would be greeted as Liberators and they would throw flowers at our feet. I mean it should not be difficult because almost every word they utter proves false...We need groups like Move On and as many more as possible to get on it. I will donate to such efforts but not to the elected officials themselves unless they have been strong defenders of the American people instead of Big Business. We just can't advocate for a particular candidate...We can certainly explain to the people how disastrous it would be for the Republicans to regain control of the US Treasury.. Remember nine billion dollars in shrink wrapped hundred dollar bills just disappeared and no one knows anything..Under Republican Oversight..It actually should be easy...

[liberal_at_heart]

22. I hate political ads

Almost all of them are dishonest. I want the truth so I do my own research. This year I will be doing even more research into what the candadite's voting records are. I'm not falling for promises anymore. I want proof.

[Winterblues]

24. Do you believe Republicans were incompetent over the last Decade?

Was the response to Katrina competence? Was attacking Iraq competence? Was allowing the US economy to reach the position it was in in 2008 competence? Should the people have this explained to them or should they just look it up for themselves while doing all their other daily chores as well?

[kentuck]

30. But the Democrats have not shown themselves to be competent..

So that opens the door for the Repubs to regain power. It's not good enough to say the Repubs were incompetent if you are incompetent also.

[Octafish]

10. It's no accident: We are heading for societal catastrophe.

You said it, Kentuck. It is about the People. The thing is, the corporate masters have the money and the power. From what we've seen over the past year, they also have control of the Party's agenda, if not direct control of the Party itself.

We Democrats now control the White House and Congress -- yet the only big things that can get passed are war appropriations and Wall Street bailouts. Meanwhile, good jobs and the middle classes disappear, people die from lack of universal health insurance, public education gets worse, and the rich get richer.

I'm a Democrat. Like you and all good DUers, I'd like to see more of us who give a damn about the People lead the Party. In a year, I'd bet, we would already have remade the nation and made a good start on healing the planet.

[Selatius]

11. Convincing the population would require concrete action: Social programs, job programs, etc.

These are the things that FDR delivered upon when he was elected to office, and the people loved him for it, while the elites hated him because it was all paid by taxes levied on the richest.

There is no FDR this time around, and that's the tragic part.

[Fumesucker]

12. In other words the Democratic party has to convince the voters to believe a lie..

It's become glaringly obvious that the Democratic party as a whole is on the side of Big Business and Wall Street.

Convincing the public otherwise is going to to take a level of propaganda that would have Goebbels commit seppuku from shame.

[Winterblues]

14. It is between Democrats and Republicans, who you going to vote for?

It would do no harm to explain the differences in how Democrats Govern compared to how Republicans Govern. Democrats Govern Republicans Rule and I am not positive Americans want to be Ruled especially if it is explained how that is the case.

[kentuck]

15. People vote for politicians that do the job...

They vote against those that do not do the job.

[closeupready]

17. Yep.

n/t

[Winterblues]

21. Then Democrats should have no problem what-so-ever

Considering that we have a decade long record of Republican incompetence and lack of doing the job. Where's Osama Bin Laden? Where is all the US Treasury that was there when Republicans began their Rule but somehow just vanished with no one knowing anything...:shrug:

[Romulox]

23. Your "contrasts" are actually points in common:

Osama Bin Laden is still loose (likely dead, btw), and Obama has greatly increased war funding without any concrete plan (let alone real life steps) for withdrawal.

As to the US Treasury? You must be joking! The US Treasury has TRILLIONS in new debt under Obama watch, which would be tolerable, in this the worst economy in 70 years, if the money had been used to help regular Americans. It wasn't. It was sent to multinational financiers and their "foreign counterparties". :hi:

[Winterblues]

26. The US Treasury has TRILLIONS in new debt under Obama watch,

Right out of Rush Limbough's mouth.. Obama has submitted one Budget only and it was for 3.5 trillion dollars only up a few billion from Bush*'s last Budget. TARP was passed under Bush* even if the expense gets added to Obama's term. Where did all these Trillions come from? The American Recovery Act was only seven hundred billion, where are all these Trillions?

[Romulox]

28. No, your post is dishonest, as is your invocation of Rush Limbaugh

(whose show I've never heard or seen.)


1) Obama strongly supported the TARP as Senator. He voted for it, and was reportedly instrumental in convincing his colleagues to support it.

2) 1/2 of the TARP funds were disbursed by the Obama administration. The structure of the bill was obviously a quid pro quo to win then Senator Obama's support.

3) The Fed Reserve Bank has taken on TRILLIONS in new debt in support of the bankster bailouts. Obama liked the job that Ben Bernanke was doing as Chairman of the Fed so much that he re-nominated him for another four year term.

4) Obama's Treasury Dep't just extend a $38 B new tax break to Citibank.

4) ARRA's single largest ledger item was tax cuts. Much of the rest of it was pork. Nonetheless, the ARRA is the only thing the Obama admin has done on this list that I at least semi support.


Finally, it is pathetic to attempt to smear people to your left with the name of Rush Limbaugh. Believe you me, Rush and Obama agree on more points regarding the economy (e.g. "free trade" and deregulation,) than Rush and I ever could. :hi:

[Greyhound]

33. While it is true that Obama & Co. have sustained and slightly increased the $1.5T shrub theft,

it was explicitly the Obama administration that put us on the hook, first for $12T - $15T, and now that unimaginable "cap" has been removed entirely. Essentially, we are now and forevermore indentured to Wall Street. No matter how recklessly they gamble, no matter how egregious the theft, the losses belong to us.

[closeupready]

16. Maybe Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Maybe Tip O'Neill.

We'll have to wait and see.

[Fumesucker]

20. For the kinder, gentler oligarchs of course..

Or maybe just not bother..

I am weary unto reverse peristalsis of voting for the lesser evil.

[dhpgetsit]

13. I'm afraid you are right

If they pass health care "reform" with mandates and no public option or cost controls, the party is screwed. If they don't turn around the employment picture significantly, the party is screwed.

Right now I don't see much hope for the Democrats holding any momentum.

[krispos42]

18. They're refusing to lead out OUT of an economic disaster

cuz, yanno, that would be SOCIALISM!!!

[blindpig]

19. They are not leading,

they are just letting capitalism do it's thing.

[WI_DEM]

25. No what Obama inherited was a disaster and anybody who pays attention

can tell that overall things have gotten better. Of course much more needs to be done but I can't agree with you that the Democratic party is leading us to economic disaster.

[Romulox]

27. NAFTA, MFN for China are festering sores on the American midwest c/o Democratic economic policy.

So "lead" is a funny verb to me in this context.

[ljm2002]

29. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has already shown...

...that they are in bed with Corporate America. There are differences, to be sure, between them and the Republicans, but both parties favor their elite constituencies at the expense of the riff raff. One difference between the parties is that the Republicans are only too willing to play to the basest motives of their riff raff, while the Democrats are scared silly of appealing to their populist roots for fear of being even remotely associated with their own riff raff.

In the meantime the corporations continue their stranglehold on policy issues throughout the government. And our Democratic leaders continue to promote the fiction that "we are all investors now", as if that makes our interests coincide nicely with the CEOs and Boards of Directors of corporate America who make obscene amounts of money for obscenely little work, as they scratch each others' backs and pay off the politicians and all in all live large while the country goes to hell.

[Greyhound]

32. +01. "we are all investors now"

More like we are all indentured now.
:thumbsup:

[Greyhound]

31. The republiks lead us to the disaster. the Democrats are just pouring

diesel fuel on the flames.

The momentum is already gone because of their failure to move on the mandate they did have.

And just as hundreds of economists have told us, the solution certainly exists, but it requires bottom-up action and these assholes are completely stuck in Raygunville.