A crisis of confidence, a lack of leadership.

In my country...

    This is the current meme going round the Serious People of the village.  Barak Obama’s lack of leadership is leading to a crisis of confidence in our country.  I don’t buy it.  The fact of the matter is, we now have open warfare in the US Congress.  The GOP has been very forthright about it’s No. 1 goal – making President Obama a 1 term president.  This truly is the GOP’s number 1 goal – more so than working to move our country out of the deepest recession that it was in when he took office.  To make laws to move our country forward, we have to have some level of agreement between the House and the Senate which are controlled by different political parties.  The GOP has shown it is not going to do anything, anything at all, to give the President what could be seen as a “win”.  The game of “no” the GOP is playing is beyond anything we have seen in politics in the modern history.  The GOP wants lower taxes on businesses and individuals, but when the President proposes moves to allow small businesses to purchase and depreciate equipment on more favorable tax terms, the GOP says no way.  When the President proposes changes to Medicare and Social Security (which I disagree with) in a $4 trillion “grand bargain”, the GOP says no.  The truth is the GOP’s strategy, its political strategy, is to have the country stay mired in the aftermath of recession through the 2012 elections.  They have no plan to create jobs, get our country back to work, increase tax revenues (even through increased economic activity).   Remember, the GOP’s stated number one goal is to do anything, and everything, possible to ensure President Obama is not reelected – even if that means stopping things that would move our country forward.