The republican

By
Max J. Castro                                                                    Read Spanish Version 


majcastro@gmail.com

With
the world’s economy on the brink of disaster and the Director of
National Intelligence saying that the financial crisis is the number
one national security issue, what did the Republicans on Capitol Hill
do? Like Nero, they fiddled while the globe burned in protest from
France to Latvia to Chile and many places in between.

The
worst economic crisis since the Great Depression wasn’t enough to
persuade the Republicans of the bankruptcy of their small government
ideology. En masse, with only three exceptions in the Senate and none
in the House of Representatives, they fought and obstructed the
massive stimulus package designed to revive the economy. Then they
lost.

Obama
has scored his biggest legislative victory yet. On the heels of
victories on equal rights for women discriminated on the job and
children’s health care, the administration was able to muster just
enough support to pass an enormous expenditure bill in record time.

What
accounts for Republican intransigence in the face of a national
crisis, a very popular president, and a sure defeat? Ideological
blinders seem a necessary but not sufficient explanation. There was
surely a dose of calculation as well. This crisis is so deep and
pervasive, so novel and global, that there is a good chance that the
stimulus package and the financial bailout will not spare this
country and the world from a long and very painful economic era.

In
that case, by disowning the stimulus package now, the Republicans
have put themselves in a position, come the next election in 2012, to
say: “I told you so.”

It’s
a huge, desperate, and perverse gamble. In order for the Republicans
to win, the country –and the world — must lose big. And in that
event, the interpretation might easily be that the government did not
do enough because of Republican resistance.

The
Republicans are a party in trouble. They have lost both coasts and a
good chunk of the Midwest. They have lost the growing number of
Latinos and even Asians, not to mention African Americans. Now they
seem to be betting their inheritance on the prospect of disaster.

With
the stimulus bill, the audacity of hope met catastrophe theory. This
time hope won. May it be the first of many victories.