Being a father with two young children, I am well acquainted with the Nickelodeon cartoon The Fairly Oddparents, in which a boy with fairy godparents wishes for all sorts of weird things. When the wishes backfire and turn disastrous, he simply wishes them away and everything returns to normal.
The Nickelodeon writers seem to be handling John McCain's economic policy. The candidate has repeatedly claimed that America's financial problems are all "psychological" and that we can just wish them away. And on Wednesday, McCain adviser Phil Gramm told the Washington Times that all this "recession" business is in our minds.
"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said. "We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline."
Buck up, act like a man, and everything will be fine, he says.
Well.
Is it "whining" when we agonize about how to make the mortgage payment? Is it "complaining" when we stay awake at night having to choose between putting food on the table and getting medicine for our kids? And is it "mental" when we worry about how to afford the gas to get to work?
I think not.
Gramm's comments - and McCain's initial support until a public outcry made him back off - betray what he really feels about the rest of us. He and his ilk literally seem to have no clue what is happening beyond their limos and gated communities. Protected by their millions of dollars, they have sealed themselves off from the rest of us, secure that they never have to face the economic squeezes that the rest of us deal with every day.
As long as the fat cats are sitting pretty, the rest of the world can go to hell.
And that is Republican economic policy in a nutshell.
No comments:
Post a Comment