The Pledge
The outlook appears gloomy. Unemployment is high, good jobs seem to be no where. Cutbacks and givebacks are bombarding the average American. Congress members say one thing and do another. The 24/7 news entertainment media proclaims President Obama the worst President in history. Republicans appear on the verge of regaining control of both the House and the Senate. What more could there be?
You ask for more, well here it is. The Republican Party has rolled out “The Pledge to America”. This clever document provides almost no details but leads those who want to be lead to the comfort of conservative rhetoric.
The Pledge offers a promise to freeze government hiring, keep the Bush tax cuts, and to repeal the Obama health care reform. Now that is a pledge to run on. That is unless you are someone who has a pre-existing condition or are a recent college graduate and have not found a job yet. For that matter, there is nothing in this pledge that should give anyone unemployed hope that a job will be coming their way. As to the deficit, there is no idea presented on how that might be eliminated unless of course you want to give up your Medicare or deny someone else their Medicaid.
Democrats so far are asking figuratively to be thrown out of office. Democrats continue to remain silent on what history will likely record as noteworthy accomplishments. Rescuing the financial sector and the auto industry was both strategic and job-wise, the right thing to do. Imagine if banks had failed or that retirement plans had gone belly up? The auto industry is even a clearer example where so many other jobs are connected to GM and Chrysler, and had those two failed, Ford would have been in the same position soon after.
Probably the most sinister of the Pledge statements is freezing government hiring. This clearly places the blame for the mess we are in on the backs of government workers. While it is almost certainly true that government operations could be more efficient (less people), the three biggest expenses are Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and the Defense Department. The first two involve direct payments (not people related) and the Defense budget is almost always off the radar with Republicans.
The Pledge proposes sound bites that will do nothing for the economy or job creation. It guaranties deficits as far as the eye can see. And worst of all, it pits one group of Americans against another. Par for the course I would say.
This entry was posted on September 23, 2010 at 9:43 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Politics, Republican Party. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: congress, elections, health care, health care reform, jobs, medicaid, medicare, the pledge to america, unemployment
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