The economic mess we are in didn’t just happen like a hurricane or flood or drought happens. It was very man made. And it was made by Republicans.
I was very impressed with Paul Krugman’s words last night on ABC Evening News . He blasted the Republican opposition to the Stimulus Bill. And I think Obama would be wise to point out the same facts: “We’ve just had eight years of Republicans pretty much getting everything they want in Washington, and it happens to be the worst eight years since the great depression. I find it hard to understand how so many Republicans can be so confident about their economic judgment when having their own way for eight years led to this disaster.”
Krugman thinks that Obama has been much too easy with the Republicans. Obama has been working hard to attract individual Republicans to his leadership. And it appears that Obama has been working on an assumption that at least some Republicans would respond to his call for a new era of bi partisan problem solving. He appointed three Republicans to his cabinet, he added huge tax cuts to his stimulus package. But nothing. Zip. Nothing in return.
Krugman says, “The modern Republican party is a hard line, conservative, very cohesive group of people. They’re just not going to go along with anything that deviates from their philosophy. Obama did a tremendous amount of attempted outreach (to the Republicans), and he got absolutely zero, absolutely nothing. I hope he has learned his lesson from that.”
