Why Obama is ON THE JOB!

David Kolb: Tea partiers not the only ones hoping for some change

Published: Wednesday, October 06, 2010, 6:36 AM Updated: Wednesday, October 06, 2010, 9:52 AM

David Kolb | The Muskegon Chronicle

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David Kolb

“How’s that ‘hopey-changey’ thing working out for ya?”

I hear this a lot from tea party types giddy with the prospect of stuffing Congress with their roster of half-wits and dingbats.

Even if you have to parse a Sarah Palin tweet to understand its meaning, what the ex-half-term governor of Alaska is suggesting is that the “change” and “hope” embodied by the Democrats in the last presidential campaign is nothing but smoke and mirrors, a bunch of garbage, really.

Health insurance reform, heading off a second Great Depression, financial and banking reform?

Pfffft, according to the Obama haters.

Cardholders Bill of Rights, ending predatory credit card practices?

Who cares.

The Student Aid & Fiscal Responsibility Act, the biggest investment in college aid in history, a bill that expanded access to student loans and reduced the federal deficit by ending wasteful student loan subsidies to banks?

So what.

What about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which mandates equal pay for equal work, and the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act to protect citizens with different sexual orientations?

Yawn.

The rescue of SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan, from the oblivion to which it would have been consigned under the Republicans? A program that expanded health coverage to 4 million low-income children and preserved it for another 7 million?

Big deal.

How about the HIRE Act, then, which created 300,000 jobs with tax incentives for businesses hiring unemployed Americans, which spurred small business investment and spending on rebuilding infrastructure?

Or the Cash for Clunkers program that, while it lasted until the money ran out in a matter of days, saw nearly three-quarters of a million new vehicles sold, revitalizing a moribund U.S. auto industry?

Aw, nothing but socialism.

Well, what about saving the U.S. auto industry, which the GOP would have flushed down the proverbial toilet?

Excuse me, I wasn’t listening.

These aren’t accomplishments, the tea party Republicans contend, but rather clever ruses aimed at bankrupting and destroying America.

Such as the stimulus bill, which garnered not even a single GOP vote.

Republicans preferred the nauseating free-fall of the economy we were enjoying in late 2008 since it furthered their goal of “breaking” President Obama.

They did their best to kill the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and after it passed, they reviled it as a failure rife with fraud. In this week’s Time Magazine more of the truth emerges from underneath a landfill of Republican lies:

“People of good faith can disagree over whether President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package is creating enough jobs, piling on too much debt, or helping the country in the long run,” Time’s editors write.

“But it’s about time to retire one set of critiques of the stimulus: that it would be riddled with fraud, hamstrung by delays, and crippled by cost overruns. So far, while the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is clearly not a political success, it is just as clearly a managerial success — on schedule, under budget, and according to independent investigators, remarkably free of fraud.

“Yesterday, the administration met its self-imposed deadline of spending 70 percent of the Recovery Act, or $551 billion,” the article continued. “By the end of the fiscal year almost all of the unspent stimulus money is already committed to specific projects, except for a few longer-range initiatives like high-speed rail and electronic health records. And the completed work has cost less than expected, so the savings have financed over 3,000 additional projects, from airport improvements in Atlanta to new child-care centers at military bases in Louisiana, North Carolina, Mississippi and Oklahoma, from a new five-lane road in Jacksonville to a $14.5 million transformation of a World War II ammunition factory into an eco-friendly government building in St. Louis. ”

But surely the stock market is crashing as a result of “Obamanomics”?

Hardly, and many 401ks had recovered all the money they lost under our last president and then some.

Why, even the gold bugs are doing OK sitting on their hoards of bars, coins and ammo.

What do the Palinites, the tea partiers and the right-wingers want for America instead of this “hopey-changey thing”?

This crowd, which has largely taken over the national Republican Party and will soon be running your local and state GOP organizations if they are successful this Nov. 2, are running on a platform of a rollback to the good old days of George W. Bush, which they believe a majority of Americans want.

Just don’t take my word for it. Read the Republican “Pledge to America,” which parrots the same old mantra of right-wing conservatism.

Spelled out, that’s more tax cuts for the rich and more spending cuts for the rest of us.

You see, right-wingers want you to give them another chance to wreck the family car, like they did in their joy ride under co-Presidents Bush and Dick Cheney.

I think that’s nuts.

I also think it’s nuts not to give Democrats a few more years to keep on the job of fixing that wreck, this time without Republican obstructionism, filibustering and mindless “no ” votes.

Now there’s some “change” I can believe in.

David Kolb is former editorial page editor of The Muskegon Chronicle. E-mail: writersgroupllc@aol.com