Where's the Outrage?

In my opinion, there are lots of reasons to love the Rachel Maddow Show.  Maddow is really the only true progressive on the air today. I put Keith Olbermann in a category of populist more than progressive.

At any rate, her look at President-elect Barack Obama’s speech on the economy is truly progressive. She compares Barack Obama’s vision to Ronald Reagan’s. Ronald Reagan proclaimed that the government was the problem. This has been the dominant etiology of the United States and economic political thought for almost 30 years. Now, in this crisis, Barack Obama is stating that the government is the only agency that has the ability to fix this problem.

Some spending conservatives (blue dog Democrats and fiscal conservative Republicans) are trying to argue that spending cuts and tax cuts are what we need.  Here’s the problem — manufacturing is down because demand for American products is down. American consumers are not buying. American businesses are shedding jobs. Remember we lost over a half a million jobs in November. December’s job numbers are expected to be the same. Tax cuts are not going to stimulate buying. Tax cuts are not going to stimulate enough job growth. Targeted government spending will get businesses to begin to hire here at home to cover these government contracts. Businesses will then in turn have to buy supplies in order to do business which would stimulate more the economy. Individuals hired at a “fair” rate will then be able to spend money again stimulating the economy.

I believe that Barack Obama is on the right track. I’m just hoping that his powers of persuasion will be enough to pull Congress along with him.

Tags: Economy, Media, Obama administration // View Comments