Well, it's signed, sealed and delivered. Our Democratic Party president has now rammed his "very important" $787 billion economic stimulus bill through both houses of congress; and it awaits the president's signature as we're typing this. This "historic" bill was likewise so important to congressional Democrats too, that nobody in the legislature was given a chance to take even a day or two to read it. And this is just the "beginning," Obama says:
President Barack Obama, savoring his first major victory in Congress, said Saturday that newly passed $787 billion economic stimulus legislation marks a "major milestone on our road to recovery."We don't know about the rest of our readers, but we do have a painful recollection of the last notable congressional bill that was rammed through congress and signed into law "sight unseen." From our point of view as lovers of the U.S. Constitution, we don't believe that one worked out so well at all.
Speaking in his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said, "I will sign this legislation into law shortly, and we'll begin making the immediate investments necessary to put people back to work doing the work America needs done."
At the same time, he cautioned, "This historic step won't be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but rather the beginning.
And while we'd "prefer to think" that our congressional Democrats have at least some slight clue what they're doing, we confess we're not at all convinced of that. Troublingly, it appears to us it's the same lame approach that's repeatedly failed in the past.
But what do we know? We're just the lumpentaxpayers, the ones whose only role in this game will be to pick up the tab for this latest crass display of Big Government Largesse.
And while we're on the subject of randomly dumping a possible $3.7 trillion into the giant money hole, and as we launch headlong into the biggest experiment in American Socialism ever, we thought we'd segue into some choice recent comments by ex-KGB Chief and current Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin, a worldly fellow who knows more than a little bit about socialism:
Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”.Keep your fingers crossed gentle readers... and hold on to your wallets. The Democrats who now stand at the helm of our national "ship of state" are merely "sailing out of the harbor" here.
“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”
Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB, Putin said, “Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.”
So what say our readers about all this, this wintry Saturday afternoon? Lodge your comments on this topic, or consider this an open topic thread. We don't care what you say... just say something.
