Obama Troop Cuts: The Economy, Stupid

22 June 2011 |permalink | email article

For my two cents plain President Obama and his administration came up
short in his 12-minute address to the nation Wednesday night. But he
really addressed only one subject, winding down the war in
Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, given the foreign policy crunch, he
touched only lighting on the nation’s rapidly shifting political and
economic problem in a war-weary country. The Treasury Department’s
announcement it is completing the planned purpose of $600 billion in
Treasury securities, and then suspending its three-year-old economic
rescue campaign.

Afghanistan. George W. Bush got the nation into two wars while
president, first in Afghanistan but soon after in Iraq, based on 9/11
and faulty intelligence in his failed goal to democratize that nation
and quest to oust Saddam Hussein. So far it’s resulted in the deaths
of 4,500 Americans there and 1,500 more in Afghanistan, where troop
cuts starting by year’s end and another 20,000 next summer leaving a
puzzling question about the remaining 100,000, supposedly out by 2014.
If there is any hero here it is Vice President Biden who has long
pushed for curtailing the U.S. military engagement. But ABC polling
found that 73% of Americans want a substantial number of combat troops
out this summer. It won’t happen.

Economy. Obama bluntly acknowledged the domestic strains in the
country, saying “America, it is time to focus on national-building
here at home.” Given the ballooning national debt, the country’s slow
economic rebound, and $120 billion price tag for the Afgan war this
year alone, were all considerations raised by the president. That
said, it is impossible to understand why Treasury hard to understand
is abandoning its economic package to stimulate serious economic
growth. Obama has fallen into the trap that caused FDR in 1937 to end
the stimulus package which put millions of Americans back to work in
the heart of the Depression. That tragic mistake was that only after
World War 2 that America got back on its economic feet. Obama needs to
change course!

Read ‘em and weep

Per The Washington Post: of 75 women now serving in the House, 24 are
Republicans in the chamber the party controls 240-193. Only one of
those 24 GOP women, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, chairs a full
committee. What does it say about anti-women Republican gender bias in
advance of the 2012 elections?

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