It’s still the economy, stupids!

Massawhatsit?

This was the front page of our local paper yesterday morning.

You’ll notice that, although it made the front page, the result from Tuesday’s election in Massachusetts is in small type and to the left of---and by the conventions of graphic design in the less eye-catching spot---of the news that IBM, one of the largest employers hereabouts, is vowing “aggressive” cost cutting.

That means lay offs.

People are just costs to be controlled, as you know.

Yeah, yeah.  Teddy’s seat.  Historic upset.  Health care.  Whatever.  We’ve got problems of our own.  Here in New York we’ve got a budget shortfall of close to seven and a half billion dollars.  One of the main sources of jobs in the region is probably about to shed them.  And the governor is announcing that  "The days of continuous taxation and the days of continuous spending have come to an end".

Which is essentially a way of saying that from here on out New York State is going to be just another third-rate state, offering poor services, mediocre schools, and a continually collapsing infrastructure.

Same thing’s going on all across the country, including Massacusetts, although keep this in mind, New York and Massachusetts are having less of a rough time of it generally than other states.  You think things are bad here?  Move to California.

Forty-eight states are facing budget shortfalls.  States where that shortfall is a lower percentage of the overall budget than here in New York are struggling to get their services and schools and infrastructure up to the level of mediocrity.

I don’t expect this to happen, but Congress could help just about every state out of the red by appropriating 50 billion dollars right now, or about what it’s going to cost us to stay in Afghanistan for another year.  They’d have to raise some taxes to do it, and most of it wouldn’t be money well or wisely spent, and states that needed more than a billion would feel short-changed, but the point is that the states are hurting and they’re going to continue to hurt and they have no place to turn except to each other, which is to say, the federal government, and what is the federal government doing to help?

What are the Democrats who happen to be running the federal government at the moment---despite the apparent belief of the Media and frightened Democrats in Congress and, I’m sorry to say, one living in the White House, that the Republicans took control on Tuesday by getting just about the exact same number of people in Massachusetts who voted for John McCain in 2008 to vote for Scott Brown, proving that a vote for a US Senator is worth far more than a vote for President.  It appears that even Barack Obama didn’t believe the people of Massachusetts spoke when they voted for him two to one over McCain.---what are the Democrats going to do?

Run and hide, I guess.

People are worried and scared and don’t know what to do and Democrats like Evan Bayh want to show solidarity by acting worried and scared and as if they don’t know what to do too.

It’s obvious that Scott Brown won because he was able to get out every single vote he needed to the polls while huge numbers of Democrats stayed home rather than vote for him or Martha Coakley.  Most of the people who voted for Brown were Republicans and conservatives (“Independent”  has traditionally been shorthand for “I don’t want anybody to know my damn business but I can’t remember the last time I voted for a Democrat) who most likely voted for John McCain.  They didn’t like Health Care Reform before Barack Obama was a United States Senator.  They didn’t say anything with their vote that they hadn’t said a thousand times before.  Indeed, that’s one item on the tea partiers litany of self-pitying complaints.  “Nobody listens to us!”

But the many Democrats and Independents who did vote for Obama in 2008 and then voted for Brown Tuesday have been fairly emphatic that their votes Wednesday were not repudiations of health care reform, the rest of the President’s agenda, or the President himself.

They, and the Democrats who stayed home, were saying, “Nobody in Washington appears to be worrying about us!”

Not that Scott Brown is going to start worrying about them once he gets to Washington.  His fellow Republicans won’t let him even if he’s inclined.  Nor will he do anything to stop the excessive worrying about bankers and their bonuses and insurance companies and their profit margins.  But he will make it harder for Democrats to pretend to be worrying about regular people while worrying about the bankers and the insurance companies.  He will be a brake on Democrats’ hypocrisy.

He will also do what he can to stop all the worrying and pretend worrying about poor people in states other than Massachusetts.  Nobody really wants that.  Nobody with a heart, at any rate.  But it’s not reasonable to expect that people who are hurting and struggling pay out money they don’t have or need for themselves on the vague promise that somebody, somewhere in Idaho or Kentucky might need that money a little bit more.

In other words, the liberal and liberally inclined voters---that is, the members of the fucking Democratic base in Massachusetts---who went for Brown or who emphatically did not go for Coakley would probably be glad to help out people in other states if they knew that by doing so they’d also be helping out themselves or their friends and neighbors at home in Massachusetts too.

Here in New York the governor’s arranging to have more teachers laid off and to cut back on funding for health care (Talk about an irony) and to start charging the parents of babies with special needs for the services and extra care those babies need (another irony considering the governor’s own special needs.  FYI, he’s legally blind).

And now what’s the Democrats’ response going to be?

You know that very little and limited bit of health insurance reform we were going to grudgingly give you?  We’re going to scale that back now.

Really?

It’s the economy, stupids!

Hat tips to Taegan Goddard, Greg Sargent, and Steve Benen.

______________________

The New York Times has found that Scott Brown did best in the parts of Massachusetts where unemployment is highest.

To their credit, there are Democrats talking about jobs.  Unfortunately, says Steve Benen, too many of them, that’s about all they want to do, talk about jobs.

A post on the White House blog implies that reports like this one and this one that the President wants to scale back on health care reform are missing the point.

President Obama begins to get it.

Comments

[Shawn]

Noooooooo! Dems, LISTEN TO LANCE!

Not only is Lance smarter than stupid right wing teabaggers, he's smarter than YOU too!

LISTEN TO LANCE!

Lance is the political center. Lance is the balance point of reason. Joe Lieberman is the Fringe.

For the love of Vishnu, Please! LISTEN TO LANCE!!!

[Lance]

Shawn, based on your comments over the last several months, it appears that you think it's my job here to write posts disagreeing with myself. That it's up to me to point out how much I don't know, how I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, and how everything I believe and feel is wrong. I'm curious. Where did you get the idea that I should write posts that make it unnecessary for you to write a thoughtful, well-reasoned, actually researched comment or blog post of your own?

Also, I'd like to know. Do you ever actually follow a link from one of my posts so that you might learn, for instance, that it was a Republican pollster who's saying the race wasn't a referendum on Obama and health care?

[Uncle Merlin]

Hard working Blue Collar people here in MA are now saying it's time to start polishing the guns. That all we have in Washington are millionaires who have not the slightest concept of what it is like to live pay check to pay check, or even Middle Class anymore.

I'd be happy to set up the Empire and force all those DEM & REPUB Senators to get time cards ,punch in 30 hours a week with one hour for lunch and one full day in their districts once a week. And to be sure they always ride public transportation and public airlines from now on. Oh and no more health insurance for them we can save a bundle for education ,they can shop for their own. Oh and as Emperor I will build a large outdoor unheated domed forum near the Mall. This will be the only place lobbists will be allowed to meet/have contact with Senators,under pain of death for both, and it will have total public access 24-7. So YOU will be able to sit in on any conversation as a citizen of the Empire.
Oh and as Emperor I would streamline the Rules of Order, no more riders on bills, all bills in English that is the language we speak here and debate times regulated with total coverage online,on tv, on FB & Twitter.

Senators get two weeks vacation , one in February one in August.
I would also create a Citizen Representative who would also have a time card and seat on the floor and Veto power. He/SHe would take from all citizens, with valid SS#s, the online tallies of reactions to bills & debates to the floor.

All this inforce until we have a working independant energy, space, and education policy.

All Hail the Empire!

[actor212]

The problem with New York is simple: Pataki borrowed his (and our) ass off to pay bills that rightly he SHOULD have paid by raising taxes.

But he had, you know, aspirations...