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Sunday, March 24, 2008
National Regrets
and Paying for Reagan-Bush Policies
by Stephen Crockett, co-host of
Democratic Talk Radio
Our current list of national economic
difficulties and governmental failures is a direct result of nearly 30
years of failed Republican policies. We are paying the price in many
ways for our national love affair with slick, emotionally appealing
Republican political rhetoric and candidates. We ignore the harsh
reality behind the deceitful words.
We have all experienced bad relationships and
failed romances. Long after the romances are over, we are still
dealing with the negative consequences both emotional and financial.
We can no longer keep paying the unhappy costs.
The legacy of distrust, dealing with debts
accumulated based on lies, self-doubts for believing the nice sounding
lies and living with an awareness that we all are subject to the
weakness of emotional reasoning remain long after the relationships
have collapsed. There is always the possibility that the burden of
dealing with the problems is so great that we go into denial and
repeat the same mistakes by buying into slightly repackaged versions.
It plays hell on emotional, physical and financial well-being. We all
have been there.
It is long past time for the American public to
end our soured love affair with deceitful Reagan-Bush Republicanism
and start cleaning up the mess left behind. It will be emotionally
upsetting but has to be done. The damage is great. It will require a
real change in both our behavior and thinking to undo the damage and
avoid repeating the same mistakes. It can be done!
In 2008, we are finally be forced to start paying
the price for the falsely named set of economic policies once labeled
“economic deregulation” that became the national political creed with
the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. We shifted the tax burden to
those least able to bear the strain by raising taxes on both the poor
and the middle class. We cut dramatically the tax burden of the
wealthy and even more so for the Super Wealthy. We encouraged paper
financial profits over real economic growth. We exported our
industrial base weakening our nation because it temporarily profited
our economic elite.
We ended usury laws, weakened government
regulation of our financial institutions, permitted government
“no-bid” contracts to go to political powerful corporations and
ignored anti-monopoly traditions. Consumer protections were weakened.
Our federal courts were packed with Republican Right-Wing Radicals
willing to overlook any kind of corruption by government officials,
corporations or Republican politicians as long as the results favored
the wealthiest of the wealthy and the politically powerful.
Our dollar is in the toilet because we exported
debt in exchange for cheap imported goods. Wal-Mart raked in a fortune
by lowering wage rates in community after community, fighting all
efforts at unionizing their workers, and undermining our manufacturing
base by encouraging American factories to relocate to China. A
government truly serving our national interest would have adopted
trade and tax policies that would have stopped Wal-Mart from pursuing
these policies. However, the Reagan-Bush Republicans did the opposite.
Even during the brief periods of Democratic
Presidential rule under Clinton, Republican policies were often still
pursued. The NAFTA and WTO deals received White House support although
the majority of Congressional Democrats often opposed these
falsely-named “free trade” deals. They were passed largely with
Congressional Republican votes. Media consolidation resulted as a
direct result of some Democrats buying into the Republican “economic
deregulation” arguments. Media consolidation reduced competition
instead of promoting it. It hurt small business advertisers and media
consumers. Both policies have been severe failures for the American
nation. They have undermined the health of both the American economy
and American Democracy.
The Republican Presidential candidate John McCain
promises to deliver more of the same failed policies. Although McCain
has an impressive past military record, his services in the political
arena are not impressive. His record on economics or finding a quick
exit from the Iraq quagmire inspire little hope or confidence. McCain
is simply not prepared to deal with the modern challenges facing the
nation in the 21st Century.
For most Americans, a McCain victory will mean a
lower standard of living and even less real influence on government
policy. McCain is certainly no friend of American workers or
consumers. McCain will do nothing to restore America’s industrial base
or basic economic health. The “100 Year War Man” has no answers for
the real fundamental problems facing our nation today! He is a real
threat to our long-term national security.
Both leading Democrats are likely to be a big
improvement over McCain. However, we still will need to elect Senators
and House members willing to support more populist economic reforms
that actually reverse some of the damage done over the past 30 years.
We need to elect the right kind of Democrats and to keep pressuring
them to restore economically responsible policies. We need to demand
more open government, more civil liberties protections and
democratically responsive governance.
I urge strongly that voters educate themselves
before voting in November. Two excellent books that we all should read
by then are Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston and Bad Samaritans by Ha-Joon
Chang. A daily visit to Buzzflash.com or Mid-Atlantic Labor.com would
certainly help you become a more informed voter. Listening to talk
radio shows like The Rick Smith Show, Thom Hartmann, Andy Johnson, Ed
Shultz, Guy James, Democratic Talk Radio or Air America programs would
help with the brain rot resulting from listening to Rush Limbaugh,
Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and the like.
You can count on the Republicans feeding you, as
voters, lots of crazy emotionally charged slogans and arguments. The
Corporate media will go after reform minded Democrats like resigned
New York Governor Spitzer with zeal and venom while largely ignoring
similar or worse behavior by currently serving Republican Senators
like Louisiana’s Vitter or Idaho’s Craig. Vitter and Craig are
reliable votes supporting the failed Reagan-Bush Republican policies
while Spitzer actually prosecuted some of the worst Corporate abusers.
Only by educating yourself about policies can you
avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. For your own sake
and that of your children, this year break the cycle and vote based on
substantive issues like healthcare, trade policies, re-industrializing
America, shifting some of the tax burden back to those most able to
pay higher taxes, resumption of usury laws, jobs, consumer protection,
balancing the budget, ending an unaffordable war and a return to
anti-monopoly law enforcement.
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Written by Stephen
Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio
http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ).
Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland
21919. Phone: 443-907-2367. Email:
midsouthcm@aol.com .
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