Zombie Politicians and Zombie Pundits (Guest Voice)

Zombie Politicians and Zombie Pundits

by Marc Pascal

Banks that have essentially failed but are provided ongoing capital from public bailouts are referred to as “Zombie Banks.” They are dead but still walk the earth. While we have some of these staggering around in the U.S. right now, over the next year the Administration will eventually put them out of their misery and reorganize them into extinction. President Obama has already warned us that the process will be expensive.

The same appellation can be made of the minority Republicans in Congress.

They are essentially “Zombie Politicians.” Their ideas are been completely discredited by the facts of our economy and the results of the prior 2 elections. However when still in power they created such an economic and governmental budgetary mess that they still think they can control the country in perpetuity. It was ironic that the Republican response to President Obama’s recent speech on 2/24/09 before a Joint Session of Congress was presented by a person who gave a great impression of a “zombie,” Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. Not only were his ideas dead but his facial features and body language were that of a zombie.

The past 8 years of Republican rule left this country with massive federal deficits and the resulting huge interest payments on the accumulated federal debt. They bequeathed us a bankrupt financial sector thanks to an utter lack of regulations and meaningful oversight. They have enmeshed us in 2 expensive foreign wars that sap billions from the public coffers each month. They have completely demoralized the economy and the U.S. population with a near-complete credit freeze and mounting unemployment that has not been seen for more than a quarter of a century. Republicans have it in their genes to create such messes. They did it before during the 1920’s to create the memorable Depression of the 1930’s.

Many Media commentators, pundits, web bloggers, and the small army of political and economic analysts at various university and private think tanks assumed that the Democrats would have few if any options in governing the nation after 2008. The very idea of increasing taxes on anyone would be an anathema, particularly when tax cuts ruled in good times. Now when a recession controls, there argue that no one can even mention raising taxes now or ever in the future. Furthermore, with such massive debts and dependency upon foreign countries and investors to buy all our debt, no new plans or public programs can be created because they would likely raise that debt. Instead, everything must be put off to some indeterminate future date. They do not see the quickly mounting job losses across the nation as a valid emergency to promptly act on behalf of the American people.

In summary, our “zombie pundits” argue that without any money available, the inheritors of the Republican debacle would be fiscally and politically trapped to simply wade through a third Bush-like term in office until Republicans resumed power in 2012. Too many of these “zombie pundits” are more comfortable when incompetent Republicans are in charge. They are actually too intellectually limited to handle more than one new policy proposal a week. Their feeble minds are being overloaded by just a few weeks of the new Administration.

President Obama correctly listed numerous national problems that have been ignored for too long: Our dysfunctional healthcare system, our neglect of our vital national transportation, energy and educational infrastructures, our increasing dependency on foreign oil, global warming, social security underfunding, and a myriad of other pressing issues. He and the Democratic Congress were elected in November 2008 to address our country’s ills.

The recent visit by the Japanese Prime Minster with President Obama and his subsequent interview comments were prescient. The U.S. is the sole country that can bring everyone out of this global recession. China has all of its foreign currency holdings in dollars and will not do anything to hurt itself or the U.S. We actually have a significant time window for deficit spending because the world prefers U.S. securities in these terribly unsettling times. And he also recommended that the U.S. seriously pursue high speed rail.

This explains the Obama Administration’s proposed 1.75 Trillion dollar deficit that accompanies a large litany of new federal programs included in the Federal Budget for the next fiscal year and then continuing well beyond. The federal budget now uses honest accounting principles to actually include all the costs of the Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars, and fully accounts for the other expenditures of bailing out our financial sector. More importantly, polls show broad public support for the President’s new policies.

Much to the surprise and dismay of the zombie politicians and pundits, President Obama has essentially ignored the arbitrary “constraints” imposed by an unelected and intellectually lazy group of people.

Invariably the opposition is “shocked, shocked” at the tax increases repealing their irresponsible prior tax cuts.

Did they think their policies were written in stone binding all future generations?

They are also appalled at all the new public programs being presented – didn’t they forever eliminate that possibility with massive deficits?

This country and our children cannot afford four more years of zombie Republican rule. We have to completely re-align our priorities for the future. We will never be held prisoners of the past and we will not let the losers of the prior 2 elections dictate the future of this country. We shall overcome the huge mess the Republicans left us. And in the process we shall become a better nation in the future.

Marc Pascal has J.D. and M.B.A. degrees from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio 20 years ago. He worked for many years as an in-house legal counsel for several large business enterprises and later started 4 new ventures with partners. He now lives in Phoenix with his wife and young song. He is an independent business and management consultant who provides consulting services to various privately-held business enterprises in the Phoenix area.