Economic Stimulation or Political Strangulation?

Why was it not patriotic to question President Bush’s decisions but it is okay to denigrate President Obama’s?

How is it possible that the man who has been in the Oval Office for less than 100 days is the architect of the collapse of the economy of the future, but the one who occupied it for the last 8 years bears no responsibility for the present?

I am baffled. What is stimulus and what is spending? How do we define these terms? In this environment, aren’t they the same thing? What exactly is going on here? It seems I have fallen down the rabbit hole with Alice, except Alice doesn’t live here anymore. I heard she had to move into the shelter when the bank foreclosed.

It seems to me that we need to define stimulus before we can have an opinion on what is or is not stimulus. Listening to the news it seems like a moving target. The political semantics going on are enough to make one’s head ache.

And so, I have been wondering a lot about what certain terms mean. For example, economic development. What exactly is that? These two ideas, stimulus and economic development, have been haunting me. I feel that the two are intrinsically connected. That to have stimulus you need economic development. And I wonder, why is it that pundits are saying it is wrong for the President to invest in public works projects, but good for corporations to invest in private projects? Is money only green when given to special interest groups? Are only for profit projects capable of creating economic development? I wonder too, what engine drives the economic force of a Nation? A State? Or even a Borough?

By what means do we grow? I believe we must examine these questions, and look at the President’s stimulus plan and budget with the respect we would give to any visionary project. President Obama is planning for decades, not days. His vision is to secure the future for our children, and we need to question the questions, not the man.

Let us ask why family planning was taken out of the stimulus. Is it not stimulus to offer poor women the means to prevent pregnancy? The Republicans claim that they object to funding abortion, but that is not what these funds were for. They were for education at family planning clinics. If a woman can choose to get education and it helps her decide to not get pregnant and not go on welfare, but to get a job or continue in school, is that not stimulus?

If one person is taught to how to prevent STD’s and avoids becoming ill and needing medical assistance and can live a longer, healthier, more productive life, is that not development?

Who is making these decisions? The very same minds who brought us Just Say No and who refuse to see a connection between education and wealth, or rather lack of education and poverty. And speaking of education, let’s ask why it is wrong to fund repair of our schools? How many jobs will it cost us to NOT repair our schools? How many contractors, plumbers, electricians, painters, landscapers, masons, and all the related fields would have benefited from the creation of these projects? These are the questions we need to ask and answer.

Since the law of the land says that a woman has a right to choose, why did we have to take out the funds for family planning? How can that possibly be right? The Opinion of the few, that these funds were for abortion, something that is legal, and that the government should not fund abortion, despite the funds not being for abortions, somehow is justified? Huh?

And if we really believe that our children’s education is vitally important to our future, how can we not fund repair of our schools? I can hear some of you asking, “Is this a trick question?”. It is if you haven’t thought of it.

Why was it “spending” under Bush, but “pork” under Obama? And since when have Democrats “controlled” Washington? I believe the election in ’06 left Dems with a very slight majority, with Senator Joe Lieberman as the deciding vote. And this is a Senate in democratic “control”? This is political semantics, and I think we need to stop listening to the rhetoric and start finding ways to follow what is really going on.

Welcome to the Age of Irony. A time when to get any “real” news, you have to watch the “fake” news on Comedy Central.

Honestly, I often feel as if I have fallen down that proverbial rabbit hole, except in this story I was insured by AIG, could not collect on my insurance policy, lost my job, had to declare bankruptcy, and ended up homeless when my 401K and money market lost all their value in a game of truth or dare the Bush Administration was playing with Wall Street.

And don’t bother to argue that the blame is with the Democrats. Not this time. This is the goal of “small government”. The Conservative mantra that less regulation is good, and NO regulation even better. The last 8 years have left many of our regulatory agencies broken and dysfunctional. Not that Democrats had no part in the drama, just not the starring role.

Now is the time for us to set goals, to reach for the stars and rise above politics. Sounds lofty and good right?

It would, if we had goals. Or more precisely, if we understood what was or was not stimulus. It is difficult to achieve goals you cannot set because you don’t understand the concept. And if you do not have goals you will never reach them.

So let us together try to define stimulus and economic development. The first goal of both is fostering new growth. We must attract and develop new businesses and invite new ideas. This is true on the national and local level. For our local economy to flourish, we need economic stimulus and development. We need to attract new businesses to Phoenixville just as we need to stimulate growth on the national level, and we need to rebuild our consumer confidence and spending. With me so far?

Following this theory, then, creating jobs is good. Educating workers is good. Having a stable healthy workforce is necessary. If these are the goals, then perhaps we need to fortify our education and healthcare systems. Maybe repairing schools and making health care affordable would help us to achieve the goal of economic stimulus. And maybe, just maybe, family planning would help too. Maybe the way out of a recession is planned spending, or to use the politically correct term - stimulus.

But I have to ask this question, are we really in a recession? I think not. We are not Michigan, Florida, Arizona or California. There have been some layoffs, but not on the same scale as in other states. So I wonder, is it really just a media panic? Most people who work for someone else are still getting their same salary, have the same bills to pay and had little savings to start so that isn’t much different. So what is it? The people being hurt the most by this media hysteria are the local small businesses. Most small businesses rely on weekly cash flows to stay open, and cash is scarce as consumers are too afraid to spend. What came first, the media hype or the recession?

Amazingly enough, big box and discount chains are still doing well. People still need to buy stuff. Unfortunately, shopping at this type of business mainly helps the Chinese economy. We need to get our local economy back on track. Supporting local businesses employs your family and friends. Buy Local. Think Global. We are the change we want to see. We need to continue to find new ways to stimulate our own economic development. And we need to remember, President Obama didn’t make this mess, but given a chance, he may just be able to fix it. Let’s give him the chance. Better yet, let’s give President Obama the same benefit of the doubt we gave the Bush Administration regarding WMD’s in Iraq.

Call your State Representative, Senator, or Congressperson, and ask them questions, then tell them what you think. Come up with your own definitions and goals. Write to your local newspaper and call the local news. Host a party and talk about politics. Economic stimulation must begin with opening your mind, and only you can prevent political strangulation from closing it.