Published on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

Alexander Hamilton’s Advice To The Obama Administration

by Thom Hartmann

This is what we need to get back to. This also circumvents the socialism issue, about which no one here seems to have a clue.

Alexander Hamilton, in 1791, proposed to the United States our first true industrial policy. We adopted it over the next few years, Abraham Lincoln reaffirmed it fourscore years later, and it was again affirmed by every President of the United States until Reagan began his now-28-year “Reagan Revolution” which has disassembled America’s industrial base and impoverished our nation. For over 200 years, Hamilton’s policy made America the most powerful industrial nation in the world; now – after just 28 years of Reagonomics and Clinton/Rubinomics – we are the largest importer of other people’s industry, and the most indebted nation in the world.
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Published on Sunday, February 8, 2009 by the New York Times

What the Centrists Have Wrought

Comedian and Republican spokesperson, Rush Limbaugh, has come out hard against the proposed stimulus package and according to a CBS poll, he just might be having an effect.

Slightly more than half the country approves of President Obama’s $800 billion-plus stimulus package, a new CBS News poll finds. But support for the bill has fallen 12 points since January, and nearly half of those surveyed do not believe it will shorten the recession.  Feb-05-09  Source:  CBS News

Limbaugh, a proponent of the discredited “supply side” and “trickle down” economic theories of Milton Friedman has often criticized the job creating programs embedded in the stimulus program  of  the Democratic administration.

Why our political system remains corrupt

It is said that our government is subject to a revolution every two years with a new congress, but this is an illusion.  The reality is that the House and Senate are a high stakes poker game with an enormous entrance fee.

“Pay to play” is the death of our democracy and is endemic in our political system. Few politicians can resist the temptation to accept money or favors in exchange for a vote. No politician within this system is likely to risk trying to change the system.

Thomas Jefferson said that every government needs a revolution every once in a while. Our last revolution was the return to a laissez faire or a free market economy in the early 80s. Its failure, the second in 80 years, was predictable.

The New Deal worked for everybody but the robber barons and it is time we gave it another chance.  It is time for citizens to hold their elected official’s collective feet to the fire.