via Robert Creamer: Obama and the Revival of Responsibility
Obama reminded America [during his address to a joint meeting of Congress] that his predecessors had squandered a fiscal surplus to enrich the wealthiest two percent of Americans with tax breaks. They refused to invest in the education and health care of our children. They endangered the future of our climate and planet to allow energy companies to engorge themselves with profit. And they jeopardized the peace of the world to satisfy their longing for empire.
And they sat there with their arms folded across their chests stubbornly refusing to take the blame for any of it, as a child would do when confronted with the facts. He was even booed by them when he spoke of slashing earmarks from the budget and cutting waste such as no-bid and cost-plus contracts from defense spending. These are the men and women who flatter themselves by claiming to be the “loyal opposition”. The only thing they are truly loyal to is the Republican party - no matter how out of sync with America they have become.
They promoted hate and fear. Senators and Representatives spread anti-Muslim sentiments across the media and into the homes of people already fearful of the future in light of the 9/11 attack. They influenced millions upon millions of people to confuse hate and xenophobia with patriotism and pride.
The Republicans booed the President as if they still had some moral hill to stand on, some small step-stool of an ideal that they can climb and wave their little flag of trickle-down Reaganism and Phil Gramm deregulation. Ignorance abounds over there. Republicans march on oblivious to the burned out ruins of right-wing neo-liberalism that surrounds them. They will stand and boo as if their world is as bright as silver, as if their cause is new and smart - in front of cameras! But when it is over, on the drive home with their wives, they will quietly acknowledge with a sigh that the once raging fire of their laissez-faire ideals that once burned as hot as the sun for so long are now black as soot and are cold and dead as ash.
ith a huge surplus, now the deficit ceiling is over $11 trillion. Each year’s budget shortfalls under Bush were over $400 billion. Bush expanded the government. He borrowed and spent like a drunken sailor.
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