Sunday, on ‘Meet the Press,’ DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz looked at a chart showing unemployment up 25% since Obama’s inauguration, the national debt up 35% and gas prices up 104% and stated that her party was, “able to, under President Obama’s leadership, turn this economy around.”
Senate Democrats, most notably Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a man who has never seen a tax he doesn’t like, or a spending program without value, are hinting of a massive new federal spending package designed to address the country’s “infrastructure” funded through a bevy of new taxes.
While Democrats cringe at the term “stimulus” due to the abject failure of the $787 billion federal spending bill in 2009, Harkin thinks another one is in order.
“We really do need some economic pump-priming by the federal government,” Harkin says.
“There’s very broad support,” adds West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller, who claims to see “no other way to get at this problem.”
Both Harkin and Rockefeller are serving their 5th terms as senator; that’s a combined 60 years working in Washington, yet they still haven’t figured out that government cannot create jobs.
There is simply no way another stimulus bill, whether you give it a new name or not, could pass the House of Representatives. If more than 3/4 of a billion dollars of stimulus resulted in fewer jobs and greater debt, why would the two elder statesmen believe this time would be any different? The truth is that neither truly cares since they won’t face voters in 2012. Rockefeller and Harkin don’t have to run for re-election till 2014 when any political favors they can deal out in a second stimulus can be called in. Regardless of whether another stimulus bill is a futile effort or not, both can go to their supporters and tout their caring intentions.
More often than not, in Washington money goes to those who support a special interest group’s pet bills, not whether they ultimately pass or not. It’s a pure pay-to-play scenario. Lobbyists knock on doors, offer up donations from their employers, based on a legislator’s support. Since no one Senator can pass a bill, they cannot assure passage, but they can promise to vote in the affirmative when called upon.
House Democrats, however, are broadly supporting a second stimulus because they have nothing to lose. All 193 Democrats must face the voters in 2012 and they’re counting on having either a bill they can take home to their districts, or a failure to blame on their Republican opponents.
Apparently no one in the Democratic Party is listening to business that is claiming it’s the government itself that is causing the greatest dampening effect on growth. Businesses are dependent on predictability and the Democrats have created great uncertainty with Obamacare, the President’s intention to sunset the Bush tax cuts and new regulations put into place by the administration to impose the strictures of Cap and Trade as an end-around Congress.
Given current trends, the Democrats are facing a rather unpleasant election in 2012. Projections from within the administration predict an unemployment rate over 8% and continued slow economic growth till long after the November 2012 election. With the loss of most moderate Democrats in the House last year, the remaining Democrats are far more partisan and liberal, and with the electorate is so firmly against the direction of the country, they are likely to face more losses next year. The Senate is potentially a larger problem for the Dems; for every Republican facing re-election in 2012, 3 Democrats must face the voters. In a bad economy that’s no better than standing for a firing squad.
There is one, and only one way the Democrats in both houses can improve their outlook and that’s to get behind reducing discretionary spending and addressing the long-term stability of entitlements. If they continue sending the message that we can spend with abandon, voters are going to reject them in record numbers.
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