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Democrats, Republicans, or Just Economic Forces?
The United States economy has slowed and though it is not technically in recession, growth in the last quarter having been .6 percent, people are still feeling the pinch. The housing crisis has lowered home prices but at the same time fuel and food prices are skyrocketing.Who is to blame? Is anyone to blame or is this state of affairs just the part of an economic cycle that politicians have no control over?
President Bush laid the blame at the doorstep of the Democrats in Congress, taking note of their failure to pass a coherent energy policy, including authorization to drill in the ANWR area of Alaska. The Democrats retort that it is all President Bush's fault, as everything must be. "Tax cuts for the rich!" they chant as a mantra.
It is true that a lot of the economic malaise that now afflicts the United States is caused by economic forces that mere governments have little control over. But insofar as anyone is to blame for making things worse it, on the balance, must fall on the Democrats.
Democrats have been brain dead on energy policy since the first oil shocks of the 1970s. Instead of passing legislation to encourage energy production and energy efficiency, the Democrats pretty much play the demagogue and blame the big, evil oil companies. The Democrats have even revived an oldy but goody from the 1970s, a windfall profits tax, in order to punish the oil companies for making money in an era of expensive oil. The problem is that any tax, especially a windfall profits tax, siphons off money that could be used to develop more oil resources,
When one proposes to open up oil fields such as ANWR to drilling, Democrats retort that it will be "ten years" before oil from such places would flow, too late to help in the current situation. The truth is that it's more like five years, however let's concede the main point. However the first time authorization for ANWR drilling came up in the 1990s, then President Bill Clinton vetoed the measure. Had he not done so, a million extra barrels of oil a day would be flowing from ANWR by now, oil we could surely now use.
Comments
Ecoman
(Guest)
(Guest)
08/20/2009
neocon nazi's ...a.k.a. Republicans!
Bob
(Guest)
(Guest)
07/17/2009
I like titties.
Jimmy Barnet
(Guest)
(Guest)
03/20/2009
Jeff is well said. This article is clearly written from a Republican standpoint. "It's all the Democrats' fault!" Well, maybe if we weren't pouring all of our money into a war in the first place, and banks would stop lending to shady lenders (as Eduardo said), then maybe we could pull ourselves out of this recession. Congressional Democrats do not have the complete vote and they should not take all of the blame, no matter if they have the majority or not. We all need to unite if we are going to fix this problem. Consumers need to put money back into the economy to stimulate it, and banks should start making smarter decisions about who they give loans to.
Eduardo W.
(Guest)
(Guest)
01/22/2009
Whatever the stories they may, of who's will be blaming for the economic recession but it is no big deal that Fortunately, they have access to a payday loan when hard times hit. Other times it is not that easy. The federal housing authority is in need of more employees. It appears the FHA does not have enough resources to properly screen lenders. This could create something disastrous in the future. If the FHA can't tell shady lenders from legitimate ones, that will end up fighting another round with predatory lenders and home foreclosures as a result. How can the FHA repair the mortgage crisis when they are obviously much in need of reform? Housing markets, especially in places like California where home values are down, are going to need a huge payday loan, a stronger HUD enforcement, and more FHA appraisers who actually meet the requirements to get the housing crisis under control. I think the Obama administration should definitely use a part of the TARP funds to straighten this m
cthulhu azathoth
(Guest)
(Guest)
10/21/2008
excuse me but uh the bush administration has done more than the democrats in this issue. and moderate independent.com,msnbc,Kenneth Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University,. its time to set aside ure i hate liberals stupidity just becauase u hate gays and like the rich to get everything. and democrats need to stop being wimps and crazy. the fact is republican or democrat the blame lies squarley on bush for him not acting sooner when he saw the problem in 2002
Scott
(Guest)
(Guest)
09/16/2008
Liberal Communists............A.K.A Democrats..........!
oil countryies are holding us hostage.we do not have enough oil in alaska or anywhere else to help the lower the cost of gas,as long as we are in iraq things will not be better. if we were not spending billions of dollars in a war that should not have happened there would be resources to use in our own country we depend on oil from other countries when we should have seen this coming over the last 8 years.this president has droped the ball.he does not care what a mess ha has made of things,he only has a few more months left in office so he will let hte next president try and clean up the mess,so in my opion the blame is solely on mr. bush
Current Economic Crisis, in my opinion is causedby the gas prices. Here where I live, gas prices went up $1.00 within 2 weeks time. People have to work so they have to buy gas and other bills such as House Payment goes unpaid.
Your writing represents the kind of myopic and just plain wrong thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. Will you drill in all places, and exhaust all resources, until they are gone, and then realize alternatives are needed? If we would have addressed the problem in the 80's (as began by Carter and ended by Reagan in support of oil) we would find ourselves in a different situation. As for the general economic slowdown, that is directly related to the bad policies of tax cuts to rich and rampant deficit spending that conservatives seem to love so much. Here's an experiment to prove it- give me a credit card with no limit and reduce my taxes (but pass them on to my kids) and I could have one hell of a great economy too...of course, there is a time to pay for the party.
Marcelo
(Guest)
(Guest)
04/30/2008
Who's to blame? Read Ron Paul's Revolution: A Manifesto. The Fed, Foreign Policy, Neo-cons.
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