Obama: "You really don't have to kneel before me."
Reich: "I'm not."
Posted on 01/23/2009 8:40:54 AM PST by dbz77
I'm already weary of members of the Republican Party and other conservatives doing little else but throwing rocks at the new Obama administration. And that's coming from someone who helped build the party before many of today's pundits were learning to speak.
Barack Obama is president. Get over it, and start coming up with new ideas and counter-ideas of your own, instead of making hateful or smart-alecky remarks just to sell books or attract attention.
Take Joe Lowery as a subject of right-wing grievance. (I've known him for years, and he has actually helped Republican candidates on many occasions.) As part of the inauguration's benediction, Lowery recited an out-of-date and out-of-step little ditty from the civil rights days. Part of it dismissed whites as morally lacking.
So what? He's in his late 80s and isn't representative of anything but the past.
And the fact that President Obama had to retake the oath of office because the Chief Justice messed it up is interesting, but only that. It doesn't stand up to a claim that the Obama presidency is somehow illegitimate.
Listen up, Republicans and conservatives: Your party and your movement only rise when they produce new ideas. Ronald Reagan did it in 1980 with his approaches to things like taxation and fighting the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
And the Republicans who took over Congress in 1994 did so by unveiling a specific litany of government reforms.
By way of practicing what I preach -- however navely or haltingly -- allow me to outline the rudiments of a free-market approach to start getting us out of this economic slough we are in. This idea might at least help make a dent in the bailing out of our financial institutions without simply throwing good money after bad.
Start with a simple premise: We know that beautiful foreclosed homes in places like, say, Florida have subsequently been marked down in value (and by using an idiotic accounting method, but never mind).
Knowing that someday their full values will return, wouldn't you love to be able to buy some of those homes at dirt-cheap prices, and simply wait for their values to return or even appreciate? Ditto for strip malls, office complexes, hotels, and on and on.
The obvious problem, of course, is that most people in America don't have the resources to afford big bargains during this down time.
But now ask yourself this: Would you rather invest in a big-name company that could see its value plummet, or in a collection of assets that have reached rock bottom, but were once quite valuable?
Clear and simple, there'd be little downside and much potential in waiting for the windfall of these assets to return to value.
And now my idea: Why should these billions of dollars of allegedly bad loans, tied to greatly diminished assets held by financial institutions, be purchased by our tax money rather than by a public eager to someday reap potential financial rewards?
In most past recessions, the bounceback on assets -- often long-delayed -- can be in the double-digit percentiles. Would you not buy a "share of stock" in the "corporation" holding these assets? Maybe 100 shares? Perhaps many more if there was liquidity to spare?
I sure would, and in part because, just like during World War II with war bonds, I would be investing in helping to fund a fight that is critical to our nation's survival.
Equally important, I realize that I'm going to fund it anyway, if only through tax payments that I will never see again.
I think I'd rather pitch in for Uncle Sam by having the opportunity to see the "corporation" holding these assets gain substantial value in future years.
This proposal probably has a million holes in it. Readers, feel free to help me find them.
But let's at least get a dialogue going. Throwing rocks at a president with a 70 percent approval rating won't get America's entrepreneurial engines running again. Let's leave the venom to those who make their living milking it from their own fangs.
Doesn't matter if something in the above doesn't jibe with what the Big Tent RINO's have been peddling. Get back to basics and you'll bring in the Base.
Get used to it. It's payback time.
No problem Boss man, but first I have 8 years of hell to get even for.
Then White Toby be good boy... really good boy Boss man.
I am a white that can’t get it right, clinging to my bible and guns.
I’ll go to my grave as a real man, knowing that I was right... and with my boots on.
Conservatives have produced many ideas, oh arrogant author. The Republican party has carefully and deliberately abandoned or outright ignored most of them in its maddened race to the center.
"Bob, stand up, let the people see you ... Oh, God love ya, what am I talking about?"
"LEAVE OBAMA ALONE!!!1!"
“I disagree: yes, we do have to have ideas. But don’t think that “throwing rocks” doesn’t work. That was PRECISELY the dem strategy since 2001, and it worked perfectly. In fact, it only took them 6 years of “throwing rocks” to destroy Bush, unseat the Republicans, and elect a president without ANY ideas. So not only is it possible, it is a good strategy.”
Exactly. Dems have 100% of the power right now. I can give a detailed proposal on improving the tax system, but it wont happen as long as Pelosi is there so why bother?... and Pelosi wont get turned out UNLESS PEOPLE ARE INFORMED OF HER MISTAKES.
Throwing rocks is all we got left!
Dissent - now, more patriotic than ever!
You fight with the materials at hand. The Democrats have the WH, House, Senate & the Media. We have... rocks. I wish we had more, but until Obama overreaches that’s about all we’ll have.
Big Government isn’t the solution.
Big Government is the PROBLEM!
Tell the idiots that the voter will reward the ‘obstructionists’ when they realize that the big Govt policies are bad for the country.
I am urging everyone to call your senators and tell them to FILIBUSTER THE STIMULUS BILL.
This guy is foolish. Since 2001, the democrats have walked out in front of cameras with bags of stones and nasty mouths. An look who won? They weren’t coming up with new ideas.
The GOP best be doing the same. At least for the moment.
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