Wednesday, January 28, 2009

World's View of the Untited States

If you've been following my blog, you know that I've been in Australia for the past couple of weeks. While there, it was interesting to watch the news and talk to people about the election of Barrack Obama. I found it interesting that the people in Australia (and I assume the rest of the Western world) see him as the savior of the world. He's going to right every wrong. If that's the case, he has a long, uphill battle. Especially considering the leadership of congress that he has to work with.

I personally think the government is making a mistake with this $800 Billion bailout and I call on my representatives not to endorse it. Why is Obama trying so hard to get Republican buy in? He doesn't need it to get the bill passed. I concede that there may be some part of him that is trying to prolong the honeymoon and build a bipartisan consensus. However, I also believe a dominating reason is to make sure he can distribute blame to Republicans, as well as the Democrats, when the plan doesn't work. I'm hoping Republican reps. will un-CY his A by not voting for it. I don't thing the first big bailout has done much, and another is not going to be any different. We can't fix the mess by doing what got us here in the first place, overspending.

I've been thinking about this after hearing the following quote by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md, made to President Obama during a meeting yesterday:

"Mr. President, I probably come at this from a slightly different perspective. I remember when FDR beat Hoover in 1932. So I remember the Great Depression very well. I don't remember any of the many government programs affecting the course of the Depression. Government programs didn't work then, I don't know why we think they would work now. Mr. President, I think our obsessive borrowing has fully mortgaged my kids and my grandkids. Now we're working on mortgaging my two great-grandkids. Mr. President, I think it's more than a little bit selfish to try to solve our economic problems which we created by burdening future generations yet to be born."


This prompted applause.

I agree with Rep. Bartlett.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

So... what would your solution be?

7:59 PM  

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