I admit I don’t understand the ebb and flow of the economy very well. Example: I was surprised yesterday, on a day when the Federal Reserve Chairman said the current crisis good extend into 2010, that the stock market went up. Huh?
I’m baffled by some of the reaction to President Obama’s speech last night. To me, a basic run-of-the-mill taxpayer, the speech made a lot of sense. We need to prop up the financial markets and we need to spend money to make money. It also makes sense to regulate more since, clearly, the regulations in place now don’t work since they allowed those who run the financial sector to create the problem we have now (I’m mean, seriously, why would you lend money to people who could likely never pay it back). As a country we need to learn from these mistakes so that we have a fighting chance to not repeat them. Regulations seem the way to go.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal gave the Republican response last night. He feels the key to all of this is not to raise taxes (which Obama wants to do on the richest Americans… and to that I say, please do) or to increase the power in Washington. Jindal’s plan is to empower Americans. I read that and just see us getting right back to where we are now. The response also said that the U.S. shouldn’t be spending money it doesn’t have. Yet, look at the amount of debt racked up during the 8 years of President Bush. What Republicans said last night doesn’t mesh with the Republican dominated administration we just voted out.
What I’m not hearing from Republicans (am I not looking in the right place?) is how they’d fix the problems at hand. Rather than telling me why the Obama plan is wrong, lay out some plans of your own. What would you do? I’d bet there are elements of the plan that would make a lot of sense. Obama seems to want to be bipartisan and it just doesn’t look like the Republicans want to play.
Am I missing something?
