Conservatives, where were you when I needed you most?

Since before the 2008 election there were conspiracies floating around questioning the authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate. Now it's devolved into semantics: "a certificate of live birth is not a birth certificate!!!" they say. I've addressed this silliness in a previous blog entry, so I won't go on at length; but it is interesting to note that since many of the right-wing pundits have added fuel to this conspiracy theorist fire, Republican officials are receiving some blowback.

Just recently, Republican congressman Mike Castle held a town hall in his district and lost control to a woman demanding (to loud applause) that he pay more attention to Obama's birth certificate. Here's the video:

Imagine how uncomfortable it would be for Congressman Castle to explain to his supporters that they are worked up over a manufactured controversy perpetuated by right-wing propagandists in attempt to undermine support for a popularly elected President. I think the end result would include tar, feathers, and a rail. But I digress...

Now I ask, where was this rabid skepticism when we were told that Iraq was an imminent threat and stockpiling WMDs? Where was this flag-wrapped demand for proof when we were told that the Iraq war would pay for itself and the initial investment would be less than two billion dollars? For those who don't remember that promise, here's the video:

Imagine if the "birthers" had held the same passion for proof of WMDs, as they do for a birth certificate. Bin Laden might have been captured and we still might have some cash in the treasury.

Now the big rage is all about Obama's deficit spending. Trillions of dollars in deficit spending and Tea Bag Parties all over the country protesting it. What's lost on the tea bag crowd is the difference between the spending of this administration and the previous one. The revenue cuts, wreckless spending, and corporate giveaways put us in this ditch. The spending we are doing now is the cost of getting out. Where were the tea baggers decrying socialism when Bush redistributed the wealth to the top 2%? Where were these folks when Bush gave billions of dollars in subsidies to Exxon Mobile, at a time when they were the most profitable corporation in the history of civilization? It would have been nice to have those protesters joining me in my outrage, instead of questioning my patriotism.

For those who don't follow my thinking on this, here's my thoughts:

Getting in the ditch:

1. Tax cuts for the wealthiest among us under the promise that tax cuts generate revenue. Virtually every economics Ph.D. who has worked in the Bush Administration acknowledges that the tax cuts of the Bush years haven't paid for themselves. Link

2. Billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies for the most profitable company in history Link

3. Sending $12bn in unmarked, shrink-wrapped $100 bills into Iraq, with no oversight regarding who was receiving it and how it was being spent. Link

4. Allowing $9 billion of Iraqi reconstruction funds to go unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management. Link

5. Allowing $700 billion in bailout funds unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management. Link

Cutting taxes during war, causing fuel prices to spike, ignoring the millions of families bankrupted by health care costs, and a litany of other things contributed to getting us where we are.

Where was the tea bagger outrage back when Cheney said "deficits don't matter"? Of course, now that Obama has inherited an empty treasury and has no choice but to engage in deficit spending, Cheney has a real problem with it. Better late than never, I guess.

Getting out of the ditch

So now there's a cost to fixing this. And we have to borrow the money to do it. But government spending that actually does generate wealth is what we are starting.

1. Healthcare reform. 65% of all personal bankruptcies in this country are due to healthcare costs. Of those bankruptcies, 80% had health insurance. By investing in a public option, we'd eliminate much of that financial destruction and families would have money to spend on goods and services. Some folks are opposed to government health care programs. Ronald Reagan, in 1961, warned against the creeping socialism of Medicare:

The same was said of Social Security, which cut the elderly poverty level in half in only a decade.

2. Job creation programs. As an example, lets look at one of those terrifying big-government-pet-project-socialist-programs introduced to pull us from the depression: The CCC, also known as Roosevelt's Tree Army, was credited with renewing the nation's decimated forests by planting an estimated three billion trees from 1933 to 1942. So far reaching was the CCC's reforestation program that it was responsible for more than half the reforestation, public and private, accomplish in the nation's history.

What it created: more than 3,470 fire towers erected; 97,000 miles of fire roads built; 4,235,000 man-days devoted to fighting fires; more than 3 billion trees planted; 7,153,000 man days expended on protecting the natural habitats of wildlife; 83 camps in 15 Western states assigned 45 projects of that nature; 46 camps assigned to work under the direction of the U.S. Bureau of Agriculture Engineering; more than 84,400,000 acres of good agricultural land receive manmade drainage systems; Indian enrollees do much of that work; 1,240,000 man-days of emergency work completed during floods of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys; disease and insect control; forest improvement - timber stand inventories, surveying, and reforestation; forest recreation development - campgrounds built, complete with picnic shelters, swimming pools, fireplaces, and restrooms.

This is what I'm talking about: Using stimulus money to invest in physical improvements to the nation. The unemployed get work and a paycheck, consumption is stimulated, and the nation is physically improved. And this can be extended to programs like building an alternative energy infrastructure.

So for those out there waving tea bags and shouting about government spending and "pet programs", it would have been nice to have had you when we needed you most.