Who has Greater influence over the Economy? The President or Congress? (vanity)

Sure, I suppose everyone has some influence in some way over the economy. And I suppose it is the American people themselves who have the greatest influence of all over the economy, and perhaps all of our problems are due in the larger part to the American people themselves and what they have been doing to themselves and to other Americans and who they have been electing.

That maybe the American people themselves are to blame, and not Wall Street, and not all the politicians, and not the Jews and such.

That, maybe the American people themselves are the problem, but when a politician is running and wants the vote of the American people, that the American people probably are not going to vote for a politician who stands up and says, “I want your vote, the vote of the American people, and my message is you are the problem, the American people”.

It would be sort of like, you have this family unit, and they are maxed out on all their credit cards, they are missing the minimum payment and can’t get credit, but now the rest of the family gets to vote for who is going to be the “head of the household”. And there are two candidates for the “head of the household”, and one says “vote for me and I will take your credit cards away because you are the problem”, and the other says “vote for me and we will all go on a vacation to Disneyland and you don’t have to pay for it, someone else will”.

But I have questions that I need some help on in regards to government and those who we elect into our government, and the influence they have to actually fix something or if they can even fix anything.

Because the economy is the issue, we are in an election right now for office of President and for so many offices in Congress, and to me, a donkey is a horse designed by a committee, and there are all these people on committees who are going to solve everything for us, and if the economy is really the issue that needs to be addressed, then I want to ask who has the greater influence over the economy, the President or Congress?

Right now I am being told by most of the old media and by one Presidential candidate in particular, that everything that has gone wrong is due to eight years of the Bush administration. In other words, they are trying to tell me that it is the President that has the greatest influence over the economy.

In fact, since the only thing the old media and one Presidential candidate in particular tells me over and over again in so many sound bites, in so many news reports, in so many editorials, to help me understand all this - is that everything in the economy has gone wrong because it’s all George Bush’s fault, then this is really all about the President.

And yes, I understand what they are trying to tell me in that regard. That this problem is very complex, so complex that I am not intelligent enough to understand, that it’s folks like Obama who are much more intelligent then me and are the only ones who can understand this complex problem.

That folks like me can only understand a very simple answer, and the very simple answer is that it’s all George Bush’s fault, that it is the President. Because I am either too dumb to too lazy for anything else but a very simple answer.

It’s all Bush’s fault, and so, I am being told by these people that it is the President who has the greater influence over the economy, and not Congress.

The old media is very excited about telling me what Obama has to say regarding this matter, and how government is going to solve all my problems when he becomes President, but I sort of want to hear what both candidates have to say in this regard.

Obama and the old media have made it very clear, and very simple for me, that the change Obama is talking about is to throw Bush out of office, to not re-elect Bush who is running in 2008 but to bring America change and to elect a new President call Barack Obama.

And then the economy will turn around, we will have jobs in Michigan, and the DOW will go back to over 13K, and everyone will have universal 401K’s, universal health care, universal Dow Jones Industrial averages, and universally, in fact all over the world, Obama will save the people universally all over the world, and we will universally point the finger at the rich people who are all going to pay for this, and that the rich people he is universally talking about all over Obama’s world, isn’t me, isn’t America or the American people. It will all be free, and 95 percent of us will get a tax break, I’m not the rich people they are talking about and I never will be.

I get the simple message. Now I know that I am suppose to repeat out loud in an angry voice to myself, to my family, at the office, in the restaurant, in the public bathroom crowded with others, in the library with the posted “Please be Quiet” sign, in a voice seething with contempt and with a hiss added for effect as if the revelation has descended onto my head like a hammer from above - “It’s all Bush’s fault!”.

But then, I am wondering what the other candidate has to say also, the John McCain guy. And I hear him talking about “I will work with Congress” on the economy, and suddenly I hear for the first time a word that hasn’t been in the discussion of the old media who is telling me it’s all Bush’s fault, that there is something called Congress.

I am a graduate of our University system in America, but having graduated decades ago and not able to find a University Professor around in the local park where I was walking my dog, I asked some guy. He wasn’t a Hockey Mom, but he might have been a Joe six-pack.

Well, I didn’t just walk up to Joe six-pack and ask him, “What does the President do and what does the Congress do?”. . . It was a long story, but then I asked him, somehow worked into the conversation this question with this perfect stranger who kept looking down at my dog.

He told me that Congress writes the laws of the country. Then after some thought, he told me the President either signs these laws “making them legal” or vetoes them. There’s more to it than that, he said, but basically that is it. And he added, the President is the Commander in Chief of the military.

So I asked him, “Who do you think has more influence over the economy, the President or the Congress?”. He told be, “well, both do … I suppose” … But who has the greater influence, I asked? He said, well since Congress writes the laws, then I guess the Congress has greater influence.

I thought, “now I understand why McCain was saying something about working with Congress on the economy”, because there is this thing called Congress and it in fact does have a big, if not very big, in fact maybe even bigger than the President, influence over laws and policy that impacts our economy. Yes, both the President and Congress have something to do with it, but really they work together, and if you think about it, it appears that Congress has a bigger influence than even the President.

Since the Congress is so important, has such an influence over the economy, and what they do or not do can impact our economy, I needed the answer to a question.

My question was, the economy is a mess right now, and everyone is telling me, the old media is telling me, candidates are telling me, that politicians have the answer, then I wanted to ask which politicians are in charge of Congress right now.

I decided to take my dog out for a walk at the park again. You know, I found some young guy who partook a conversation with me. I asked him, who is in charge of the Congress. He told me the Republicans were.

Now that sort of made sense, because that is what the old media is also telling me all the time. That the economy is in a depression, and that the Republicans run everything.

“So it’s the Republican’s fault”, I thought. And, McCain is a Republican.

There was an old guy who was also walking a dog. I out and out asked him, “Who is in charge of Congress?” . . . surprisingly, he didn’t give me the “you are a nut or worse” reaction, but simply told me, “The Democrats are in charge of Congress”.

Hey, I thought - everything was fine up until 2006. Then things in the economy started to suck. And then it really sucked. And, what did they do? Those politicians in charge?

Now I was really confused. I thought it was all Bush’s fault. And that the Republicans run everything, and we need change. And we need to throw Bush out of office and elect change, elect Obama into office.

But then I find out we have both a President and a Congress. And we have this McCain guy who is telling me they work together. And I find out that the Democrats run Congress and everything sucks, but that it is politicians who can save me, and the politicians are Democrats, and I need to re-elect all the Democrats back into office again so that we can have change, and everything will be universal.

I went back to the car and turned on the radio. It was one of those financial advisors on the radio. I listened in for awhile. And, I know like Obama and the old media says, that I can only understand a very simple message, that it’s all Bush’s fault and stuff, but this guy made me even more confused and it’s probably because I’m not smart like Obama and what the guy on the radio was talking about wasn’t simple.

It appears that there are a lot of other things also going on in addition to what politicians are doing or not doing - that impacts the economy, too.

My God, I thought. Maybe politicians can’t solve anything. And even if McCain works with Congress, it might not help, because politicians perhaps aren’t the answer.

In fact, from what the guy on the radio was saying, it sounds like politicians more often contribute to the problem.

It appears, if I re-elect all the Democrats who are running everything right now and are writing our laws, if I re-elect them all back into office, we might not see any change. I mean, weren’t they suppose to save me?

Now I heard about this 850 billion dollar program that was going to save our economy. And that makes me feel a little better. Obama is talking about all the universal programs that are going to be for me, and I won’t have to pay for any of it, that the rich people are going to pay for it.

Which is good. Because that means that obviously the 850 billion dollar program that is going to save our economy must be one of these programs, and that it’s all been paid for by the rich people and not me.

Because, since the answer is so simple - and you know you got to keep it simple for me because I’m not smart like Obama - since the answer is the rich people, then for sure Congress who passed this universal program also paid for this wonderful program using the rich people’s money.

I mean, Congress voted for this program, the Democrats, and so they for sure worked it that the rich people paid the 850 billion dollars and not me, because that is what Obama is telling me how the Democrats work.

And Bush signed it, and McCain supported it, and Obama supported it, and the President and Congress worked together.

They are all working together, and now we are saved. But, it’s still all Bush’s fault - I understand that, because when I got home, I saw that on MSNBC.

So, the change we need is, when the President signs into law the legislation that the Democrats in Congress write, that now this will be Obama signing it and not Bush.

In regards to the all over the world part of the equation, the other Obama worlds, I noticed that, in order to remain in power, to win the election, to become the next dictator, that their dictators and presidents and politicians over there are now telling their own people “It’s all the rich American’s fault … and I want to take the money from these rich people and give it to you” . . .

And if you look at it from their perspective, from the Obama perspective – they do have sort of a point. After all, to them, to the poor of those countries, even the poorest American, every American, is rich compared with them. And when the politicians over there promise the people “free bread”, they really mean bread as in something to put in their stomach. The only thing is, nothing is free. And one way is to get the money from the rich people.

Over 70 years ago some of the first communistic issues adopted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt were, Social Security, IRS taxation, and He lied to the American people in regard to the beginnings of the second World War.

Then to make a long story short ... step by step and incrementally continuous steps have continued down the road of socialism/communism. all the while calling it something else. Once a program is implemented it grows. Like the camel that gets its nose under the edge of the tent .. it in time is filling up the inside of the tent. Many programs that began based on sensible ideas the G.I. Bill, for housing and education i.e., get broadened and perverted ever increasing. Layer upon layer these programs multiply, seemingly ... good ideas. The chicken in every pot and car in every garage ideas presented by candidates to get elected (both parties.)

Flash forward to the last 20 years .. the encouragement of CREDIT, CREDIT, CREDIT, buying cars on long term credit, buying houses on 35 year credit, buying stuff on credit cards which gradually increased percentage of interest, etc. Just like everyone else ... we live on credit. So it followed that all along government was expanding and living on credit as well until it has gotten so extremely out of control as to bring everything to the edge of total collapse. The lies started long long ago, each party has had corruption, each party lies and does not deliver on their promises.

So where are we now? God is not allowed in schools, all religions are honored and okay except Christianity. Abortion is (paid by the government) on demand, homosexuality is taught and presented as an acceptable life style, The real power in government in Washington is not in the people. ... It is the the hands of the Bureaucrats, especially in the State Department. Communist ideas are being touted to us in other forms. Disguised sort of ...

There is virtually no difference in what the legislative bodies have done in the last 40 years ... it is spend, spend, increase taxes, over and over,.

I know that conservatives and liberals are quite different in what they espouse. Reagan stopped it a bit during his 8 years. Not enough. Now immigration, welfare, and democrats are a majority, either working for our government state and national, or on welfare, entitlement programs ... so they will vote for the democrats mostly.

IN SHORT/LONG ... WE ARE IN A HECK OF A FIX. No answer in sight. Of course the changes brought about to the Constitution and Supreme Court Decisions have had huge impact too.

Books and books and books are written about the overall situation ad nauseam.

It seems we are powerless to really change the forces behind our government.

SO WE ARE CONTINUING TO GO THROUGH THE MOTIONS.

I'm sorry ... I do not intend to depress you or make it seem hopeless. As long as people grouse to each other and continue to accept the current sate of affairs ... nothing will change the current course.

POLITICAL CORECTNESS HAS BEEN HUGE in controlling of thinking and acceptance of the unacceptable.

PRAY FOR THE INTERVENTION OF GOD.

The above is simply my opinion. I may be wrong.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.