The President, Congress and the Stimulus Legislation

Every day that the Congress plays around with the President's stimulus package is a day that America's confidence in government drops. The gall of the Republican Party to hold up this legislation with amendments and counter legislation and idiot calls for more disasterous tax cuts is almost to much to stomach. Their Republican president left this country totally in ruin. We are close to a Depression, have two wars to resolve, an environment in distress and civil rights in jeopardy. They had eight years to solve America's problems and on every count left us in shambles. They have lost the moral right to lead.

Without further delay, it is essential that we pass the stimulus legislation almost intact. Changing the legislation to bring it closer to the already proven failure of the Bush taxes cuts is just pure nonsense. The olive branch was extended to the minority party; they insisted on amending the bill, making it less effective. Then not one of them supported it.

For President Obama, there is an important lesson in this battle. We must lead from vision and not from fear. He innately knows this and yet somehow in this nasty process, he has forgotten that fact. This legislation should not only be about saving our collective economic asses but also about "Making America Great Again!" Americans want to believe that all this sacrifice will lead to a better world not only for themselves but also for the next generation.

That is why I was somewhat saddened not to see more tangible and modern infrastructure projects in the legislation such as a high speed national rail system. Not a big fan of tax cuts being the answer. The best tax policy is to create jobs and to get us out of debt. One time relief is going to be spent paying down rent or credit cards and not creating a powerful America. We need to build for the 21st Century in an environmentally safe way. That creates jobs.

There is enough in the legislation right now about modernizing our healthcare system, rebuilding our schools, packages for alternative energy and making safe our existing infrastructure to create a vision. We need to hear more about it. Much to his credit, the President is working day and night to pass this critical legislation. There really, at this point, is no other alternative.

We must support him.