Christine O'Donnell Has Become the Democrats' Favorite Republican

In January 2009, both Democrats and Republicans made important calculations about what would happen to the economy over the next 20 months.

The Democrats believed (wrongly) that fixing Wall Street would lead to money starting to flow to businesses as credit and businesses would start hiring again -- A small stimulus (half the size that most economists recommended) was considered enough. They predicted unemployment would top our below 9% within a year and start falling. They passed the small stimulus -- loaded it up with tax cuts that would not have anywhere near as much impact as an equal dollar amount of spending on real projects -- AND guaranteed that virtually no one would notice the tax cuts in their paychecks (good economics, lousy politics).

The Republicans believed the economy was so deep in a hole that it would take much more than 2 years to climb out of that hole --- Thus, if they just said no to the entire Democratic program and the economy didn't improve, they could say, "See, we told you so. The Democrats don't know how to improve the economy -- we can do it with tax cuts and tort reform and immigration enforcement and a "smaller government."

[They even said the stimulus hadn't created a single job -- their evidence -- that the unemployment rate was higher in 2010 than it was when Obama was elected --- a totally irrelevant statistic -- the relevant question is, how much HIGHER would the unemployment be without the stimulus.]

The Republicans were right and if the economy is still in lousy shape in 2012, they hope to ride that wave to a majority in the Senate and a defeat for President Obama.

Then they will return to making the rich richer and everyone else less secure. They will try to make sure average citizens blame it on "losers" who borrowed too much to buy their homes and illegal immigrants who are taking our jobs. They will try to sell the snake oil that by CUTTING GOVERNMENT (firing government workers, changing Medicare into a voucher system and privatizing social security, and refusing to fund the new health care reforms) will somehow miraculously stimulate the private sector to start hiring again.

Of course that's nonsense as we learned between 2002 and 2007 (when middle class incomes FELL -- the first time that happened in a recovery since World War II) but people have short memories.

And of course the Republican message will be amplified by millions of dollars coming out of corporations to once again buy an election ...

It is a sad day -- and a sad bunch of years -- for America.

Michael Meeropol of NY 8:17AM November 03, 2010