As the year comes to a close, I find that very little exciting political news is circulating...Most of the news today is about debates that have been going on seemingly all year which makes me wonder, what have we as a nation accomplished in the year 2009? The sad truth is...not a whole lot...
The ongoing healthcare reform debate is still very much in the air. In the last few days there has been talk of a compromise among Senate Democrats over their version of healthcare reform which would expand Medicare and Medicaid to seniors as young as 55 and low-income families with a gross income of $33,000 est. and would ineffect allow million more Americans get affordable health insurance. In exchange for this expansion in federal programs, Senate Democrats appear ready to drop the public option so they can at least get all 60 Democrats to vote together and perhaps even a few Republicans...all this sometime before Christmas supposedly...but the debate won't be over of course. We must remember that IF the Senate passes a bill, it has to somehow reconcile it with the much more expansive and liberal House bill and that seems very unlikely considering how much more liberal the House is compared to the Senate (though Democrats are notorious for sacrificing their principles for political support/survival)...so we could still be months away from any kind of reform if any at all..
The Economy is still a bit shaky with small growth being seen in the GDP and it seems (for the time being) the unemployment numbers are slowly falling but consumer spending and bank lending is still very shaky and unemployment is still at 10% and the people are very angry of the continuing wastefull spending of Washington and this has emboldened the President's critics. The only true bit of good news as of late is the realization that some $200billion of the bank bailout money won't be spent so the government is now tryin got decide what to do with this big chunk of change....Obama has talked about a "stimulus lite" aimed at job growth and support for small businesses but some Republicans (and some Whigs and Independents) are calling for Obama to use the money to lower the Federal Deficit. So is the economy better because of the Obama administration? The jury is still out on that though I do believe if McCain were President the economy would be worse for wear.
And now the President has renewed our efforts in the war in Afghanistan with a troop surge of sorts with a fuzzy deadline..or sorts. For the most part I have avoided discussing the war here on my blog because though I do consider myself a history/military buff and I understand the challenges in Afghanistan more than most I don't believe I have to right to second guess our President. I do believe he made the right choice both by sending more troops though the vagueness on the exist strategy does both me a bit...but politicizing a war just isn't right and I just remember that he is more qualified than I to make such decisions and leave it at that...
So where does this leave us? The seemingly uselessness of Congress this year has even amazed me...though Healthcare reform is needed..it isn't needed right now...what Congress should be focused on is stabilizing the economy and trying to get people back to work and cutting wasteful spending so our deficit doesn't continue to spiral out of control...and sadly it seems like that will never change no matter who wins next November...because Republicans can talk all about fiscal conservatism but I doubt they'll really embark on any such behavior if they gain power next year...nothing ever seems to change in Washington D.C. these days no matter who's in charge and until Americans realize that and do something about it it's never going change....a December to remember indeed....
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