Ditches

May 5, 2020

Ditches

What is it with Republicans and ditches? Every time the Democratic Party turns over the keys to the car and the credit card that goes with it, they max out the card, and drive the car into a ditch. The previous Republican administration, having inherited a a budget surplus from Bill Clinton, immediately squandered it with tax cuts and unpaid for military incursions. Barack Obama took over an economy in 2008 on the verge of depression. Jobs were annhiliated, mortgages were foreclosed on, and pension accounts were wiped out. Now, under another Republican administration, we have an economy in even more dire straits. Trump inherited the Obama recovery, and immediately squandered the gains with unnecessary, massive tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Rather than invest in the future, we added fuel to the consumer economy and aggravated the inequality in our society.

Republicans and Trump didn’t invent the pandemic in a U.S. laboratory, but they left us uniquely vulnerable to its effects. We were headed for a ditch, and the coronavirus pushed us in.