Baller-in-Chief

(From Daniel Starling of the Kansas City Tribune Online)

I will use the analogy of a basketball game where one side has pledged to respect Dr. Naismith’s original idea of a “non-violent alternative to football” while the other side is playing the game like the 1990’s Detroit Pistons. Who is going to win? The toughest and strongest team on the floor every time. Take it to the hoop, Mr. President. Drive it downtown, in your face, monster jam!

As debate in the Senate on the almost $1 trillion economic stimulus package enters its finals stages, Americans must be wondering when the “new reality” of American politics is going to take hold.

Working through the night, moderates in both parties are trimming around the edges of the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” to stop a threatened Republican filibuster of the plan that passed the House of Representatives without the support of one single red state representative.

Without the necessary 60 votes in the upper chamber, the President’s first great legislative initiative could have gone down to defeat, marking a very rocky start for the Obama administration. To this humble observer, it’s will be a great tragedy if this legislation goes down to defeat because of the same old, tired and discredited Republicans.

President Obama might truly believe milk and cookies will help thaw relations between the parties, but it is obvious to many that the Republicans, who labored for years under the ideology of the Neo-Conservatives, are holding firm—afraid of being the first one to cross over party lines to support the stimulus.

It’s old school party politics; where party enforcers threaten the membership to keep in line to preserve their precious filibuster position. All of this while the country goes down the tubes. Reaganites unite, in the form of blockade. Same old Republicans!

According to the New York Times, January’s employment numbers should drive the urgency of action home to D.C. “Economists expect the national unemployment rate to hit 7.5 percent, and to reach double digits in some industrial states. Last week, almost 4.8 million people collected unemployment insurance, the highest weekly number in 40 years.”

Despite promises of cooperation—from both sides–and quick help to millions of Americans suffering the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, it seems we may have to wait longer for real assistance to begin having an effect because of the same old Republicans, doing their D.C. slow-footed shuffle.

Americans are watching in horror as the economy is shedding almost 500,000 jobs a month while D.C. politicos do the same old dance. For anyone paying attention to the debate it must seem like a bloody version of musical chairs, with the seats being pulled out from under the long-time Democratic constituencies like organized labor, just to placate recalcitrant Republicans.

Late on Wednesday, the Senate passed an Amendment to the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” stating that the so-called “Buy American” provisions—which require
American tax dollars to be used on employing Americans and using American made goods–clarified the provisions saying it “shall be applied in a manner consistent with United States obligations under international agreements.”

According to the compromising Senators, the Act “is expected to cost more than $900 billion and create three million jobs over the next two years. A large portion of the funding will be targeted toward immediate projects designed to strengthen the nation’s infrastructure: roads, bridges, tunnels, public transit, water systems, and ports. This infrastructure investment will create demand for domestically-produced goods, such as iron, steel, and concrete.”

“Domestic sourcing statutes, commonly referred to as “Buy America” provisions, were established to give preference to domestic materials in federally-funded highway and transit projects for state and local authorities.”

Under the last eight years of Republican control of enforcement, little or nothing was done to enforce these provisions that currently exist in many local, state and federal contracts. Sound familiar? Same old Republicans! Just ask Harry Markopolos how effective the Bush Administration was in enforcing existing statutes!

So finally the truth comes out. They just don’t want the American workingman to get a fair shake. Trying to stop the most important government legislation in a generation over the fact that the Unions are pushing for American tax dollars to be spent on using American resources and labor. Same old Republicans!

This kind of government job creation through the Works Progress Administration worked in the 1930’s to get households and individuals back on firm financial footing. FDR didn’t serve the Republicans milk and cookies. He served tough love to those who clung to the notions that caused the crash—the same ones that have brought us back to the abyss—these same Old Republicans!

I was thinking back about my encounters with milk and cookies and Republicans. There was a very gentle and proper woman who lived down the street from me in the 1970’s, may she rest in peace. She served me milk and cookies once—or maybe it was Pepsi—she taught me how Republicans from the Great Depression really felt about the New Deal.

It was one of my first encounters with a hardcore right wing, religious Republican. Growing up in the historically “Red State” of Kansas, I had the chance to make the acquaintance of one or two of this breed. I recall that I was a young adult attending a family function for my best friend’s birthday, at the home of his grandparents. Both were vehement Republicans.

My friends’ otherwise very nice and always gracious Grandmother chastised me—and my family–for supporting the Democrats—a family tradition–and went on to tell me “FDR was the worst President ever” and how she would repeal Social Security if it was up to her.

My father worshipped Roosevelt. He spent his adult years roaming America looking for a job. He knew the horrors of the Great Depression. He lived the “Grapes of Wrath” and never lets us forget it.

I remember her remarks appalled and frightened me. The ugliness upon which she heaped hatred and abuse on the President my family considered the greatest ever. Her “Republican” ideology didn’t make any sense to me and it still doesn’t. It is from this same cloth that blowhards like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are cut. Same Old Republicans!

They don’t give a damn about the health and welfare of our country or its people. They just want to “win”, “get rich” and “be right”. They don’t care about the poor and suffering masses because they see themselves above it. They never were and never will be. President Obama doesn’t need to listen these folks. They lost the election and their policies have left us in giant hole, depression, recession or whatever you want to label it.

Now suddenly, after years of running up record deficits under the Bush regime, Republicans have decided to reclaim their mantle as fiscal conservatives. Claiming that their opposition to the stimulus package is based on the size and breadth of the package. Let’s cut it in half they say. “Worst piece of legislation ever brought to the hill!” Sen. Mitchell said they other day.

It was like a bad joke where no one was laughing. Painful to watch the same old politicians rattle off their staid and tired reasoning for opposition to the economic stimulus while Americans are being forced out of their homes, laid off from their jobs and struggling to survive without healthcare or depleted retirement funds.

I am writing this column as a reminder to President Obama that politics is not about milk and cookies; it’s about humble pie. And these guys need to “eat crow” as they say.

I will use the analogy of a basketball game where one side has pledged to respect Dr. Naismith’s original idea of a “non-violent alternative to football” while the other side is playing the game like the 1990’s Detroit Pistons. Who is going to win? The toughest and strongest team on the floor every time. Take it to the hoop, Mr. President. Drive it downtown, in your face, monster jam!

Unfortunately for Americans and despite President Obama’s good will, Washington D.C.’s politics will remain a rough and tumble sport where only the smartest and strongest survive. It’s been that way since before FDR, and President Obama needs to sharpen his elbows, twist some arms and get this done.

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