ATTENTION: G.O.P. & DEMOCRATS

“We are the benefactors of unprecedented growth that began in the 1780's and really did not slowdown until the 1970's -- two full centuries of it. Our prosperity was not granted by some invisible powers nor from destiny but from fortune and well applied hard work that may not be so simple to reproduce.If we want to be prosperous in the future we need to understand that our prosperity will not persist on its own, we must deliberately set out to make it exist in the future. We must be mindful of reducing the debt but we should not impoverish our people just to do that. We must borrow and spend wisely to develop a strong and sustainable economy.

The Republicans are hampered by magical thinking about cornucopias and self-regulating free markets. They are like people who gamble because they believe that luck is not related to probabilities but to invisible forces, and lose all their money in games where the house has the odds in its favor. They think that despite past history, the private sector will suddenly become our savior, will suddenly give us jobs and domestic industrial prosperity, if we just cut taxes and regulations.”

This quotation is from a blog I saw online on nytimes.com from a person who signed the name as “Casual Observer”. I think this commentary contains a lot of perceptive common sense and insight.

I earned my living in the business world, so I would be a real hypocrite if I denied all the value I saw in that world. I was, however, also realistic enough to see the vices as well as the virtues of that world . Free enterprise has created miracles in economic growth and been responsible for many of the benefits of our lives today, but the flip side also rears an ugly head in the extremes of greed and utter selfishness displayed frequently in the process which have been evident throughout history but especially in recent times.

You cannot totally free business from regulation. When totally unbridled, the result frequently is callous disregard of the good of the majority of people and the enrichment of the few at the expense of the majority. “To hell with you---I’ve got mine” is the watchword of these greedy ones.

Look at this standoff between public employees and the governor in Wisconsin---and Ohio, for that matter. Both governors of these states are out to stifle the unions as part of efforts to control state budgets. In the process they are trying to limit the power of collective bargaining. Unions were created for a very good reason: to control the excesses of capitalism that trod on workers’ rights and stifled their pay. No doubt, sometimes union demands became excessive and were in their own way stifling to economic growth. (Then you also had the auto companies who in good times conceded too much to union demands and paid the price in recent times.) To take away collective bargaining is to deprive workers of the basic right to present and argue for their demands. Balance is everything: rights for both workers and management must be found.

The Republican Party, in their newfound zeal and frenzy of cost cutting, are really playing games. I don’t think the Democrats or our President are much better in the game playing going on in cost cutting---with symbolic cuts in individual programs and not dealing with the real money in entitlement programs. We need true bipartisanship to form committees to sit down and come up with realistic programs for Social Security, Medicare and Health Care---where the real action and attention is needed. Some commissions have made recommendations. Now we need select brains to sit down, sift through the variety of proposals and adopt some sensible proposals to deal with the real problems in entitlements.

“Casual Observer” hit the nail right on the head; it bears repeating: “We must borrow and spend wisely to develop a strong and sustainable economy.”