7.6% Unemployment, Rewards Of The Bush Years

I know I will hear a lot of Republicans start crying about the "blame game" but let me make this perfectly clear. It is no game, and the blame for the current economic mess can be lain directly at the feet of the failed policies of the Republican lawmakers and their president, George W. Bush.

The unemployment figures came out today and they were even higher than expected. A whopping 7.6%! All of those job losses are a result of a trickle down effect, and not the kind promoted by the GOP. Lack of adequate regulation prompted financial institutions to create more and more exotic instruments to create higher returns. Strange and impenetrable concepts like Credit Default Swaps and derivatives. These odd inventions were not even legal until 2000 and their effect on the economic decline is massive.

Take the lax regulation on Wall Street. That kid of laissez faire oversight bright us folks like Bernie Madoff. People who had no one looking over their shoulders while they fleeced their clients of billions.

The other part of the problem has been the policies that rewarded companies for outsourcing jobs and production as well as a general laid back attitude toward any kind of trade regulation at all. Free trade is a good thing if it has the kind of protections that do not make it a one way street.

But I am preaching to the choir. Now we have a president who is taking a common sense approach to the problem and perhaps he will be able to get things changed. That can happen only is the Congress stops playing games and starts trying to forge a new path. More blanket tax cuts will not fix this mess. It will take some wise spending and in the end a higher tax burden on everyone. Regressive taxes are not the answer, but carefully crafted moves perhaps in the direction of a Value Added Tax might help. Think about it, and write your congressperson and senator!