Republicans, polls tell us, are about to retake the Senate. As long as there's a Democratic president, nothing much will change, really, other than the end to filling judicial vacancies. For now. But whereas Democrats are trying to rally women around reproductive rights, and Hispanics around immigration, and everyone else by pretending they never heard of Barack H. Obama, they're missing -- for reasons that escape me -- the opportunity to explain one of the most important outcomes if Republicans eventually get control of the whole shebang: economic ruin.
No one mentions how much better the American economy is doing compared to virtually any other Western country. This, of course, is entirely due to measures opposed by literally every R congressperson, the opposite of which they'll pig-headedly and in ignorance of the evidence from across the waters, put in place if they have the chance. Austerity, namely. Refusal to spend on infrastructure, insistence on cutting government and taxes.
Here's a snippet from a sobering article about European economic disaster in The Economist:
Something radical is needed. The hitch is that European law bans many textbook solutions, such as ECB purchases of newly issued government bonds. The best legal option is to couple a dramatic increase in infrastructure spending with bond-buying by the ECB. Thus the European Investment Bank could launch a big (say €300 billion, or $383 billion) expansion in investments such as faster cross-border rail links or more integrated electricity grids—and raise the money by issuing bonds, which the ECB could buy in the secondary market. Another possibility would be to redefine the EU’s deficit rules to exclude investment spending, which would allow governments to run bigger deficits, again with the ECB providing a backstop.Note that the "solutions" are the opposite of every R plan since the dawn of the dead known as Reaganomics.
There are other issues, even bigger ones: dumping environmental regulations, the end of any effort to address climate change, return to virtual poll taxes, attempts to reverse health care progress. And more. But those things might not be noticeable for a while; and they won't affect the wealthy as much as everyone else. But if our economy reverts to immediate post-Bush? Which is exactly what Rs would do? That'll be felt very soon, and by almost everyone.
Not that the people most at risk are even thinking about it. Because Ebola. Because children at the border. Because ISIS and Benghazi.
Because Fox "news," carrying water for the only people who stand to gain -- for a while, anyway -- from living in a country that prefers to hand them tax breaks instead of fixing its roads, paying for education... makes sure that its viewers haven't a clue.
But who cares, right?
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