Grand Bargain…

I am not the smartest guy you’ll meet, but I am beginning to think I am smarter than most people in Washington.

Sadly, ignorance and incompetence overwhelms and prevails in Washington today.  The victors are the conservatives, the losers the progressives.

Correcting our budget crisis is not an economic question, it is a political one, and the politicians answering the question are not qualified for the job.

The root of the problem rests in the risks of democracy.  As long as we have a gullible and uninformed majority electing bad people to office, we will have unqualified leadership and inappropriate public policy.  Votes on election day matter as much — maybe more — than votes taking place in Congress now.

Republicans have the bad politics and Democrats cave in to them.  Listen to any Sunday morning news talk show.  The Democrats talk in terms defined by the Republicans.  The Republicans have framed the debate, controlled it, and won it.  We now have a government run by people who see our government only as an oversized, wasteful, and economically unsound bureaucratic mess.  This is a political opinion, not an economic fact.

There are ways to fix this problem.  Again this is an issue with an economic solution, but politics have hijacked the debate.  The biggest Republican lie that Democrats do not stand up to is this idea that the United States does not live within its means.  Perhaps politics has made Democrats weak, but they fail to deliver the simple answer:  We have a funding problem, not a spending problem.  We have obligations, not entitlements.  We need to fund our government with smart and sufficient tax policy and own up to our obligations.  Government is not the problem, how we choose to support it is the problem.

Republicans gave us — some of us more than others — tax cuts we could not afford.  They did this so they could destroy social programs that go against their selfish, short-sighted ideological preferences.  For decades conservatives – conservatives morally superior than many of today’s Republican leaders – tried to divide the United States on social issues, but they respected obligations of government.  Today the self-described patriots have succeeded in dividing us by installing irresponsible fiscal policy and fostering economic lies.

Anti-tax, anti-government policies have not helped this country.  It certainly has not helped most Americans.  These policies haven’t even helped most Republicans who support them.

Just years ago it looked like we would be back in surplus today, but we pushed irresponsible tax cuts and enormous unfunded expenses like our wars.  One can easily argue that anti-government policies set up our financial collapse and that our anti-tax positions left us with no corrective opportunity to move on fiscal policy.

Moreover, supply side economics DID NOT deliver the prosperity conservatives promised.  Even in the best of times, real wages for most Americans remained flat or declined.  Real household debt reached record levels.  And don’t forget this recession.  Did the policies that allowed us to roll up to the economic collapse in 2008 serve us well?

It is time to call a spade a spade.  We have shameful stupidity on Capitol Hill.  Anti-intellectual Republicans are a real threat to this country.  They are rearranging an American social contract that has worked for generations.  The results are disastrous.  Better, smarter people need to lead, but that won’t happen until Americans become smarter and better.  People simply don’t get it and that the real disgrace.

What kind of bargain is this?

Will it be Obama’s Economy in 2012?

It is a McConnell-Cantor-Boehner Economy Stupid

Oten you hear people comment — either with frustration or joy — that in 2012 President Barak Obama won’t be able to say he inherited Bush’s economic mess.  Is that entirely true?  Can it even be true?

Certainly President Obama comes up short when you look at his fiscal solutions.  A stronger stimulus program and now a second stimulus program would be wise and beneficial, but there is nothing like that anywhere on the horizon.  How could there be?

President Obama is up against a political mindset that is decidedly anti-government and perhaps more significantly, anti-Obama.  This mindset governs a political party that would rather inflict further harm on our society than serve our best interests all in the name of an ideological fight.  It is difficult to see how these people can truly believe they have facts on their side.  The facts about our economic situation are out there, but opinions reign supreme when facts don’t square with your ideological goals.

In reality, the conservatives own this economy even more than they did in 2008.  They have done absolutely nothing to work with Democrats.  Nothing.  They deny what success has occurred — the economy did topple a little toward recovery after government intervention — and focus on the destruction they have wrought.

We have our own history and best practices to show how a functional balance between government and business supports a strong economy.  This is a social contract between the people and their government to help manage the best interests of all, not a fortunate few.  Conservatives don’t remember that history, they suggest myths of economic individualism and “objectivism” in its place.  And as these ideas get implanted in our public debate and policy decisions, the results have been disastrous.

Ask again…are we better off today than we were 10 years ago?  20?  30?  50?  Certainly we have benefited from our past success.  Technology is a simple way to show that everyone is a clear winner in the long run.  We take for granted today many things that would have been available only to the very wealthiest individuals, and many more daily goods and services would have been unimaginable 50 years ago.  That is due to economic growth.  But where is our growth today and are we setting ourselves up for a future of ongoing sucess or a future that look more like society today?

As a percentage of GDP we have a lower tax rate than any time in almost 60 years.  The wealthiest individuals and corporations – the “job creators — have more wealth now than any time since 1928…where are the jobs?  Where is the prosperity?  What should give us confidence that more of the conservative economy is going to bring about a better future?

Obama’s economic effots have been hijacked by bad ideas and lies.  Progress is held hostage by a pack of ideologues beholden to people who dress up in a Revolutionary garb.  (If only these people understood the history they claim to honor; an age of secular enlightenment and reason.)

In 2012 this will not be Obama’s economy, this will be the GOP and the Tea Party economy.  Until the Party of No grows up and learns to compromise, there can be no mistake about this.

What We Need Is…

People Like This Could Save Us!

What we need is an old time congress of world leaders and experts, like they had in classic 1950s science fiction films.

Take Crack in the World, for example.  A group of scientists attempting to tap the Earth’s magma for energy make a miscalculation — whoops! — and end up causing the world to split in two!  Wow!

Rather than panic on the one hand or deny it on the other, people pulled together with dignity and a clean shirt to make things right.  They gathered experts and leaders to follow the facts and create solutions.  How reassuring and efficient.

Of course this is only a film, but that’s not the point here.  The film is something like a morality play showing us through entertainment the values and best practices of success; it praises science and reason, even if it does require a dose of Hollywood starlet to get it done.  (We are human after all.)  And our heroes are heroes because, even with their flaws, they take forward thinking risks believing in success.  No belly aching in these old classics!

And what do we have today in comparison?  Reality television.  And much of that decidedly is NOT about pulling together behind facts and reason to overcome a threat.

So let’s play make believe and imagine a disaster looming on the horizon today — Global Warming?  Economic collapse?  Fall of the United States?  — what can we expect our society to do?  Would we pull together, consult experts, and use reason and logic to rationally confront the threat?

Nope.  If you’re like me you’re on your back laughing tears right about now.  Don’t be silly.  Those were Can Do days back then.  Today is the era of Can’t Do.

Yes, science fiction, especially 50′s and 60′s era sci-fi, can be silly, but they highlight a positive cooperative attitude.

We’re not wired that way anymore.  It is each for himself and each expects too much.  We live high on caviar dreams and ruin ourselves pursuing them.  If anything gets in the way, we cry like spoiled children.  That’s what has become the prevailing expectation of our divided society, is it not?

Today, for example, we have a party of Chicken Little — Bachmann, Palin, Cantor, Boehner, McConnell, et al — who make even the safest odds impossible.  Even worse, the same people who give us reality television are the same people funding the irrational success of these political dolts.  Our “leaders” are merely pawns, serving the narrow interests of a few at the hands of the ignorant.  Nothing Can Do about that!

No Job is Too Small When Saving the Planet.

We have threats today more serious than half the world breaking off and tumbling into space because the threats we face are real, the damage imminent.

But…well…maybe…we’ll see…after all it is always someone else’s fault and we really cannot afford to fix things anyway.  Problems, problems, problems.  Best to go into the bunker and ride this one out…alone.

That’s the difference.  No sense of community and shared experience.  We live by the myth of rugged individualism.  We question authority and knowledge.  (If it ain’t in the Good Book….)  I don’t think I am exaggerating.  We have “leaders” who genuinely embrace these principles and steer policy by them.  Again, look to the spectacle of conservative American politics for your proof.  The greatest nation in the world is losing to ignorance and paranoia.

And it gets worse.

Where are our experts today?  They are shunned, denied, mocked.  Conservatives in particular have no need for tiresome facts.  They have opinions and regardless of how wrong they are, they stubbornly promote them as fact.

Don’t think this is true?  Tune into talk radio or a GOP press conference.  Read a conservative blog.

Let Us Fix That Problem For You

Man, and they did it all with so much more style back in the day.  Nice suits, hats, great shoes and glasses, men and women both.  Even if you’re going to drop a nuclear bomb into a volcano, your best Sunday suit is de riguer for watching the men go to work.

What do we have today?  Well, if you’re a Democrat, you likely still have a sense of style, but why is it conservative men seem to all look like college basketball coaches and the women…well, let’s leave that alone.  Stupidity isn’t very sexy.

The Professor and Mary Ann…

So now I am getting silly, and unlike the silliness of old films, my silliness might lean more toward pointlessness.  I’ll go on watching old films, however, and avoid the tragedy unfolding before us…at least for another day or so.  Just enough time to recharge.  We got a lot of work ahead of us, a lot of Can Do work…

Unlike Crack in the World, our world really is coming apart, but we’re more likely to oppose each other rather than come together.  That has to change.

How Did I Do on My To Do List?

Rock Island Swing Bridge...That Part Which Remains.

I think the first thing I need to say about my to do list ambition is this:  Even if I didn’t get through everything on my list as I had promised myself and you just a day ago, I did do many, many other things that were not on the list.  I think that counts for something.

Some might call that procrastination or a distraction or some such thing, but I think it demonstrates creativity and ingenuity.  Much of the day involved taking photographs with my HTC Evo.  (How do you capitalize Htc Evo, by the way?)  Take a look at that fantastic photo of the old Rock Island Swing Bridge.  I should crop it…it is a little top heavy and needs to be cropped, I think, but not a bad photo.

Of course while I was taking this photo — and about 15 others like it — I could have been tending to my To Do list, but had I done that, I would not have taken the photo of this bridge.  I’m happy for the bridge.  I don’t know if it will age me, but actually experienced being in a car crossing that bridge.  I am pleased to see some of it survives.

So let’s see how I did on my To Do list:

Well…six of nine things accomplished.  Not bad.  It is a good idea to work up to perfection and not jump onto it all at once.  Perfection without effort and evolution somehow lacks credibility.  I want my achievements to be credible, even if imperfect.  Plus…come on…the picture of the bridge isn’t all that bad, is it?

There is one or two things I did not put on my To Do list last night because I was certain I would not do them today.  That’s fair.  Although part of my strategy and intention for the list is to get things done that are otherwise neglected or unpleasant chores, there is no need to abuse myself.  Plus, not all neglected things are bad things…sometimes a guy just needs to follow through on things.  (You can quote that.)

And I was damn close to following through on all of them things, but then …I found this boat.

Look at it.  Boats like this deserve a closer look.  This one likely has some mold problems along with the frayed sun-bleached curtains, but other than that, it looks pretty good.  I’d prefer something other than fiberglass; there’s something romantic about an old leaking wood boat, isn’t there?  Nevertheless this boat caught my eye…and kept me from my To Do list.

Mississippi River Houseboat

You see I went out of my way to find a place where I could sit down with a cold beer and dial a few hard-to-reach clients.  A few of the river while working works well for me and calling late in the day is good way to sneak up on unsuspecting clients.   (The dinner hour is perfect!)  But shoot, there was so much to look at!  So To Do item “Call hard-to-reach clients” remains unfinished on my To Do list.

Do you know what all this wandering and procrastination has accomplished?  It kept me from my bitter political rants.  I believe I am finding my peace.  For example, there is a marker at the Rock Island Bridge that thanks dumb shit Tim Pawlenty for something…who knows what…and I resisted the urge to…well, never mind.  I was at peace.

I did feel badly for Minnesota State Senator Jim Metzen whose name appears next to floundering Tim.  What a disgrace.  But I won’t comment on that.  I don’t want to muddy this post with any comments that point out the shallow pettiness and ignorance demonstrated by today’s Republicans.  I simply won’t go there.  Politics is not on my To do list…not right now.

I only wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know that I am making progress on my promise to do my to do list.  I am looking forward to reporting more progress.  (There, that’s done.  One more thing off the To Do list.)

 

Not me. That's Grant Hart. Hello Grant.

 

Check out this great site.  I found the photo of Grant here.  Loads of interesting links: 
http://www.thirdav.com/

By the way, one item going on my To Do this week…contacting Rok at Zemanta to get my Zemanta blog software fixed.

Getting Things Done…One Step at a Time

Not a very good photo--I was driving--but there they are! Girls on bikes.

In an ongoing pursuit of my successful effort to steer clear of posting anything meaningful for causes either great or small, I will wander through some thoughts on getting things done.  This is better than writing about bad drivers, bad manners, and bad politics, isn’t it?

Although I should recognize two young women who are lucky to be alive today…wait, maybe that’s overstating it…they are lucky to not be hurt.  Driving eastbound this morning on 36th Street up from Lake Calhoun, two young women were in the right lane and I was in the left.  At Hennepin Avenue it seems they wanted to take a left and go north on Hennepin, the only direction available there.  Lo and behold, the light turns green and gives a green arrow for a left turn!  Not hesitating for a moment, both girls turn left, cross my lane — and within only inches, my bumper, too — and merrily pedal their sweet little way northbound on Hennepin.

Me?  Well, I brake — of course — and my laptop goes crashing into my dashboard along with a pile of carefully stacked papers and things.  My dark roast depth charge managed to slosh all over, too.  And I got one of those nervous adrenaline rushes that come with near disaster.  When I passed the bicyclists, they were happily chatting, cool morning air breezing through their young sunny hair.  La, de, da…

I don’t want to write about that.  People will start to think I am an old grouch!

Oh, but I am…how can I not be?  I had to drive down I-35W from Forest Lake to Minneapolis.  A person almost feels it coming in, the lack of character and style.  One almost feels un-human driving through such a desolate freeway-scape.  It really kicks in around Lexington or maybe Highway 10, which runs into Blaine and Coon Rapids, a spot of aesthetic despair if there ever was one.

Driving down I-35W on both sides of the freeway there is nothing, absolutely nothing.  Boat dealers, air conditioning contractors, mega-hardware stores, and endless miles of four-lane suburban mini-highways clogged with anonymous traffic racing to and from places like Walgreens and Applebee’s, then racing again to some blank split-level house in a pitiful development some people choose to call home.  Oh, it’s ugly.  Break down in that environment and help could be days away.  You can bet my hands are tight on the wheel and my eyes ever alert for any danger that might entrap me there…

But I don’t want to write about that either.  I was going to write about getting things done, remember, and a key to accomplishing that is focus; don’t get distracted.  Don’t wonder, for example, whether the semicolon is dead and whether randomly placing one in a sentences was a good idea.  No matter…I doubt any grammar whizzes read this blog.

So back again to getting things done.  Or should I say accomplished?  Who cares?  Here is how I am going to do it:

I am going to make a list each night and the next day just do everything on that list.  Simple.  Whether it can be done or not, I am going to do it.  I’ll even put a few challenging things on there just to make it challenging.  There are, alas, so many simple things I should do, however.

Like my dear friend Katherine…her dog died…have I called?  Nope.  That’s the kind of guy I am and that’s the kind of thing I can fix by putting it on my list.

Or suppose I want to finish a book.  Looking at it doesn’t get that done; I have to read it!  (Another semicolon.)  So how do I fix that?  I put “Read for one hour” on my list and I don’t quit the day until I have done exactly that…at minimum.

Maybe I think it is important to write about ignorant, misguided politicians, comparing them to Brownshirts or something like that, but just haven’t gotten around to it.  How do I fix that?  I put it on my list then do it.

Simple.  Easy.  Done.

There are things that don’t need to go on the list, things like take a nap or go for a walk.  But I think I’ll put those on my list just to add to my sense of accomplishment which in turn will lead to a greater sense of self-worth.  Speaking of which, I have a copy of a book that just doesn’t fit into my library and needs to be returned.  It is Win:  The key principles to take your business from ordinary to extraordinary by Frank Luntz.  (Come now…What was I thinking?)

Who needs a freaking overpriced book that essentially fills your head with “winning” jargon?  All I need is a list!

Return that book.  It is on the list.

I have some eye-rolling things I have to do for the office, too.  Tell people how I succeed and my top “winning” lyric et cetera.  Makes me queasy just thinking about it.  I think I’ll come up with something terribly cliché.  I’ll say…I keep a daily to do list!

So much to do…so little time.

What’s on your list?  I have an idea!  Tell your friends and family to read this damn blog, thank you very much.

 

Staying Clear of Politics

Linden Hills Walk.

I am not sure what this post is intended to accomplish.  It is a sort of feeling-sorry-for-myself kind of a post.  Maybe I am the bitter pill.  So slog along.

I am staying clear of politics — and several minutes of voice mail and a hell of a lot of email — I opted for a stroll around the neighborhood today instead.  I fear tomorrow will be a harsh return to my day-to-day reality following a weeklong vacation and I’m just not quite ready for that yet.  The GOP might ultimately fulfill their destructive ambitions leaving us with very little peace and security, so why not enjoy peace and security while it remains?

But I fear that whether conscious of it or not, the damage done has already gotten under the skin of many people.  Today has been a gorgeous day in Minneapolis.  Sunny and mild with a comfortable breeze blowing cool dry air on an otherwise overheated summer.  Everyone seemed so damn cranky today.  Perhaps it is an urban thing and after an easy week with family and friends, coming back to this is such a stark contrast I just feel more out of place.

One spandex clad bicyclist barked at an older trio on the bike path to “just relax” when they called out “to the left” alerting him that they wanted to pass.  In my experience, if there is anyone who should be told to “just relax” more often than not it is going to be the 40-something guy on a bike wearing spandex.  These guys are notorious for giving bicyclists a bad image — hogging the road, flipping the bird, and failing to shave the black curly belly hairs that roll out with a saggy gut are a few of the more inoffensive offences.  What a jerk.

Then there was the couple walking with an odd old chap that … well, I’m not sure what was up.  All that I can surmise is Uncle Eli had some words of wisdom to share with me, but I must have blown past them and not stopped to give him a moment to share.  “Enjoy the Sabbath, neighbor,” was the unmistakably sarcastic attack angrily shouted back to me.  (Meant to cut and burn.)   “How dare he!”  How dare I what?  I’m just walking.

To avoid a punch in the nose, I didn’t look at anyone or anything on the beach at Lake Harriet.  I did notice that the new swimming raft was gone, however.  I wonder where it is.

Seriously, everyone is on edge today.  What’s up folks?  It is a long-awaited for nice summer day!  Perhaps economic Armageddon has people down.  Maybe people were thinking about how happy and positive and progressive Minnesota used to be back when we were a Can Do state.  I don’t know…

So I started thinking about my escape.  I have just returned from Lake Osakis.  (In complete neighborly nerd fashion, I wore my Lake Osakis holiday shirt hoping someone might stop me and say “Oh, hey!  You were at Lake Osakis?”  Fat chance.)  Osakis is nice, but I’m not sure I would want to be there year ’round.  I think I am more of an eastern to northeastern Minnesota guy.

As I ease back into urban life and the work week, I’m hoping to see more smiles.

Lake Osakis, Minnesota.

Time to Wander Once Again

I am back.  Finished a week-long and all-too-short vacation.  But I feel better.  More balanced.  I might not call fat politicians fat or stupid ones stupid anymore, I don’t care how Republican they are!  I’ll just stick to the facts.  They are dismal enough.

And I think I will focus more on the brighter side of life, follow the Yellow Brick Road, as it were, and see where that takes us.  There is a lot of bad public and economic policy ahead of us — Republican ignorance has a strong grip on the levers of power — but there still remains happy things, like clouds and lakes and cows.  Good wine, too.  In fact, while I contemplate my return (I’m sure my one regular reader won’t mind) I think I’ll skip off to dinner and write something here later.

Tell your friends.

 

Squirrels Do Fall Out of Trees

Grey Squirrel

No…I’m not going to call any politicians stupid or compare them to Morlocks or anything like that regardless of how true that might be.  (Republicans.)  I am just going to mellow out and pretend that I don’t care.

I want to talk about squirrels.  I like squirrels.  I like squirrels about the same as I like crows, and that’s quite a lot.  I sometimes wonder how often a squirrel falls out of a tree or even if they ever do.  I have seen very young squirrels — the little hairless critters — fallen from a nest before, usually after a storm, and figured they had no sense about themselves anyway and certainly no strength to hang on against the wind.  But what about adult squirrels?

Late this afternoon I was out behind my place and I heard a loud thud.  Something had fallen.  I turned and saw a large squirrel thrashing about 15 feet away.  It didn’t look good, but quickly he was on his feet — more or less — and tried to run, which didn’t start out well.  I presumed the worst and felt sorry for the poor beggar and then he got to his feet again and sort of zig-zagged in stops and starts toward some shrubs growing next to the garage.

Perhaps if I were not so close to the squirrel he might have stopped there to recover, but he leapt for a tree trunk instead, barely hanging on, then letting go, rolling back into the shrub.

I decided to talk the poor squirrel at this point just in case he had picked up a bit of English somewhere along the way.

“You ok, Squirrel?”

No answer, but I wasn’t expecting one.  I reassured him that I was not going to make him my dinner or my slave.  Either he understood or resigned himself to whatever might come.  The squirrel sat there panting and after a minute, jumped again and somewhat clumsily climbed a tree and found a branch a safe distance from the ground and crawled out to the end of it.

I talked to the squirrel for a while and he seemed ok, even if it wasn’t one of his best days.  Or was it?  Perhaps he’s falling out of trees quite often.

This had to have been quite a fall, however.  I’m not sure how he survived.  The nearest branch above where he landed has to be 20 feet up and this had to have been a clean, unbroken fall; I heard no branches slapping and breaking before the thud.  Perhaps squirrels are like cats, they might be built to fall.  Unlike a cat, however, they are built more like a tube of sand with short stocky legs.

I checked again to see if the squirrel was still out there.  (It is difficult to ID a squirrel.)  I saw no squirrel on the branch where I left him earlier and no dead squirrel on the ground beneath it either.  I’ll go on believing that he is just fine.

The photo of the squirrel above, by the way, is another squirrel I chatted with earlier in the week.  A youngster.  He did have a bit of an attitude — impatience, really — but otherwise well-mannered, unlike so many kids these days.

 

Compromise

As long as Republicans refuse to compromise, you cannot criticize Governor Mark Dayton as he tries to resolve the budget mess in Minnesota.

By insisting that they have the only answer and refusing to compromise, Republicans prove yet again how unfit they are for governing.  Never mind their lack of facts to support their backwardness, they simply do not possess the awareness or skills to serve the best interests of our future.

Of course there are two ways to look at compromise.  Compromise can be a give-and-take or it can be a negative outcome of a bad situation, as in compromising the future of our state.  In this sense, Republicans excel.

Republicans are set on putting our traditions and security in jeopardy.  They want government to fail.  They want to dismantle what better Minnesotans had once created for all of us.  In short, Republican interests don’t serve the state and I am getting tired talking about it.  The danger Republicans pose should be obvious.

Governor Mark Dayton has offered cuts that conflict with his principles.  Using facts, not opinions, Dayton explains how tax parity and fairness can raise desperately needed income to balance our state budget.  He is talking sense and he is offering a compromise.  Dayton is a serious and hard-working professional.

Republicans on the other hand?  Nothing…nothing but the same bad ideas that put us in this mess in the first place.  Obviously we could not afford tax cuts in preceding years, what makes us think we can afford them now?

So yes…conservatives want to compromise, but not in productive way, they want to compromise the basic security of our society.  Republicans strive to fundamentally change our society, rearrange economic opportunity, and sell off individual power and freedom.  These people are bad — very bad — for our future.

Therefore better people cannot back down.  Support governor Mark Dayton and other good people fighting to protect decades of progress and success.  That is the way to ensure a better future.

(This is becoming very, very tiresome…)

Minnesota and The American Family Analogy in Politics

Conservatives like to compare our government with families and business.  Never mind that government isn’t anything like a family or a business and shouldn’t be run as if it were, but they do like simply folksy examples.

In Minnesota conservatives have dug in and insist that the state must learn to live within its means, a favorite trope of the political right.  Once again facts mean nothing to conservatives.  Minnesota had been living well within its means and thriving until we started underfunding everything here.

If we want to the American family analogy, this is like moving into the company town, buying a house from your employer, and having your wages cut so you end up in debt to the company store.  This exact situation doesn’t exist in the United States anymore — I don’t think — but a parallel exists when banks give people credit cards with high lines of credit then raise interest rates making it more difficult to repay the debt, but now I am wandering a bit…but you get the idea.

Thousands of Minnesota families will be hurt by the shutdown.  Yes, government jobs are jobs — real jobs and important jobs — that pay real wages and salaries.  Thousands of Minnesota families will have a difficult time making ends meet.  So what are they going to do?  If you follow the conservative line of logic, a two-income family should probably cut the hours the employed family member works.  Times are tough, after all, and it just won’t do to “feed the beast.”  They should probably eat less — even if they are starving because you have to live within your means — and expect better meals in the future.  Why?  Oh, I don’t know…because if you cut and cut things naturally get better.

This is a stupid line of thought, but it is exactly the way of thinking that conservatives take seriously.  You cannot find facts and numbers to support their economic positions because they don’t exist.  Conservative politics shouldn’t be taken anymore seriously than my flippant idea that starving families should take in less income.

Start asking some simple questions of conservatives.  If deregulation and tax cuts are so good for jobs, where are the jobs today?  If capitalism is so great, why are so many American investments going to places like China?  You hear a lot about “uncertainty” in the American government holding down job growth.  Are places like China, India, or Brazil governed with more certainty than the United States?  Allow me to curse:  It is all bullshit.

If business owners needed to make profits and saw profitable opportunities, they would take those opportunities.  Note I say if they needed profits.  Frankly, a lot of business is trying to outlast this political fight for economic and ideological gain.  They have cash reserves.  They are not hurting.  And they are not hiring.

Wages Trending in Decline

It is also a myth that companies won’t hire because they fear a double-dip recession.  They will tell you they don’t want to hire someone just to let them go in a year or two.  Really?  Is that the benevolent side of cold hard capitalism?  No, it is bullshit.  They’ll also tell you that the new health care legislation makes the future too uncertain — again that abused word — but the truth is there is no uncertainty there unless you expect that if you win your political fight it might be changed.  And that is exactly why business seems to care so much about “uncertainty.”  They are on the sidelines hoping to make their economic lies become reality.

Demand will create jobs.  A smart business owner will not manufacture a product for which there is no demand.  People who cannot afford a product, even if they need it, will not buy it for the simple reason that they cannot.  (Look at America’s health care system for an iron clad example of this economic truth in action.)  And yet we are still toying with the failed policies of supply-side economics.

There is no economic recovery because conservatives are sabotaging the recovery.  They are not participating in good faith in any measure.  They don’t want to.  They cannot let our progressive leaders — people with ideas and facts behind their ideas — win.  If conservatives are going to change the fundamental security and freedom of the United States, qualities of life we all took for granted, then they have to win.  They can gut America’s social order only by gaining control of the economy…and they are succeeding.

So back to Minnesota.  Governor Mark Dayton needs to be commended.  He may prove to be a national hero.  The left needs to be as stubborn as the right.  Facts and truth are on the side of the progressives.  You simply cannot buy the level of government America needs to succeed with what conservatives are willing to pay.  The economy will not support a middle class without smart

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton

economic policy at the government level.  Conservatives hate workers and the middle class.  In essence they hate themselves.  Their self-destructive stupidity and narrow-mindedness cannot be tolerated.  Even they will win if they lose.

Minnesota has American families suffering through a government shutdown now.  It is a economic and politcal laboratory showing how destructive and divisive such a mistake really is.  Minnesota is a warning to the rest of the country and it can become an example of what happens when better ideas outlast weak ones.