Time to Get Serious?

Now that summer's almost over, I wonder if we can put some of the distractions of the past few months behind us. Does it really matter where Michelle Obama and her daughter went on vacation? Does anyone besides a handful of wackos really believe President Obama was not born in Hawaii? Is there anyone other than that lunatic representative from Texas, Louie Gohmert, who really thinks that terrorists are sending pregnant women to the United States so their children will be American citizens? Does anyone really care what Sarah Palin thinks? About anything?

We're still engaged in two wars, countries like Iran, North Korea, Yemen, and Somalia are becoming even more threatening to global stability, unemployment is unacceptably high, and the economy is sputtering along. Perhaps it's time to re-focus on issues that really matter. For example, at the same time they're complaining about the deficit, Republicans are pushing to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. (Those are the same tax cuts, in case you've forgotten, that helped make the Clinton surplus vanish in a puff of smoke.) As Paul Krugman points out in his column in the New York Times today, keeping those tax cuts would cost $680 billion over the next ten years. And almost all of it would benefit only the very, very rich, not small businesses and not the middle class where it might do some good. As Krugman put it, "it’s hard to think of a less cost-effective way to help the economy than giving money to people who already have plenty, and aren’t likely to spend a windfall."


Maybe with a little encouragement from us, our elected officials and candidates for office will stop pandering and start looking for real solutions to real problems.