Wall Street

So Wall Street does not like the Democratic Party’s proposed reforms. Imagine my surprise. During the height of the great depression Wall Street fought President Roosevelt’s reforms with every resource at its disposal. Then as now the capitalists had to share a large measure of the blame for the economic collapse. Then as now their greed and questionable practices posed a danger to this nation. The New Deal legislation was passed in spite of the opposition of the financial institutions and the large corporations, and fifty years of unprecedented prosperity followed. We ran into trouble when much of that legislation was repealed or ignored. How quickly we forget.

It is not easy to pass much needed reforms when such powerful interests oppose them. Those opponents will use their considerable resources to publicize lies about those reforms and to defeat the Party that is trying to prevent the reckless practices that have caused so much trouble. In this regard, one of the most effective tactics is diversion. Which is to say that the special interests will attack the reformers on issues that have little or nothing to do with the reforms. The most successful attack on President Roosevelt was the government’s deficit spending. Indeed, the concern about the consequences of that deficit spending actually caused Mr. Roosevelt to prematurely scale back some of the programs he was using to stimulate the economy. The hue and cry over the deficit now is also a smoke screen. The real issues are production and employment. It is all about jobs! People who work pay taxes, and they will buy more goods. This in turn will provide the incentive to produce more goods and hire more people. The increased revenue resulting from a healthy economy will then allow the government to reduce the deficit.

Today the special interests are aided and abetted by a Party that is putting partisan politics ahead of the interests of this country. The Republican Party is opposing the badly needed reforms and the stimulus program. They opposed the health care reform that would have driven down the cost of health insurance and would have, therefore, given the people of this country more money to spend on the goods we produce. They are heartlessly opposing an extension of unemployment insurance payments, which means more home foreclosures and fewer people who can afford the goods and services we produce. They are even apologizing to British Petroleum for the fact that the Democrats are insisting that BP compensate the victims of BP’s reckless and negligent behavior. What is obvious to anyone who is paying attention is that the Republican Party is trying to keep our government from dealing with this recession and the causes of this recession.

The motive for the Republicans to obstruct any recovery from the recession is cynical self-interest. They are hoping to gain a political advantage by making this government fail. They do not care about the victims of the recession or the victims of the oil spill. They are more than willing to let the people of this country suffer for whatever political success that suffering will bring to their political party. The choice in November could not be clearer. The people of this nation must hold the Republicans accountable. They must reject the party that is putting its interests ahead of the interests of this country!