This is not your dad’s Republican Party anymore
Submitted by richardstoyeck
Stock markets are strange because they reflect the sum total of all
our hopes, fears and prejudices at the end of each day. Every so often
something big comes along that can have very strong influence on the
stock market, and the direction the market is going to take. Bear
markets when they do come, come out of nowhere. Everybody is surprised
by them, but once they happen, the pundits have what seem to be perfectly
reasonable explanations for why they happen.
I submit to you that next week’s Congressional midterm elections
will be seen retrospectively as a so-called WATERSHED election whereby
dramatic change will be brought about. You will only know this in
hindsight over time. If the Republicans are trounced in the House,
and lose heavily in the Senate, there will be a tidal wave type change
in the direction that the country is going.
During the course of the modern Presidency which is considered to
be 1932 onward with FDR’s election, our leaders have always been
influenced by polls. This is true for all Presidents except for our
current President, George Bush. It is absolutely amazing to consider
that our President won the White House by 557 votes in Florida in
2000 and 85,000 votes in Ohio in 2004, and nevertheless governs like
he had a 40 state landslide.
He has adopted the notion that all he had to do is win by one vote,
and the power was his to effectuate and do whatever he wanted to.
For six years, he has been right. The Congress has essentially rubber-stamped
everything the President has asked for, and he has not been held accountable
for the false assumptions under which the war in Iraq was initially
waged. Next week will be the first time to hold the President accountable
for the mismanagement of the war over the last three years.
What kind of conservative is the President? He has outspent any liberal
Democratic President in history, mounting up deficits at a rate that
a drunken sailor would envy. He gave tax cuts to the rich, and financed
the cuts through deficit spending by borrowing the money from Japan,
China, and Europe, and leaving the unpaid burden to our children to
worry about. Does this make sense to you? If you are going to give
tax cuts, shouldn’t your budget be in surplus first.
He has chosen to cut all spending for stem cell research to protect
the rights of the unborn, yet doesn’t believe in programs for
the poor. A third of this country is running around without even the
most basic health insurance, and he’s protecting the rights of
the unborn.
He doesn’t want the government to fund abortions. Okay, but think
about this. Without abortions over the last generation, there would
have been 20 million unloved, uncared for additional children born
in America. It would not have affected the rich; they always had access
to abortions, and always will, regardless of the law. Where would
we be today with such a policy? If you want to argue that these unborn
children would have been adopted and cared for, I have one word for
you, SURE. There are already hundreds of thousands of abused children
going through our foster care system that nobody wants. The President
would have added 20 million more.
Iraq is bleeding this country financially, and is in the very beginning
of destroying our social fabric. You can count the children serving
in Iraq of our Senators and Congressmen, and White House staff on
the fingers of a mutilated left hand. Why is it that the so called
folks who run the government never seem to have their children’s
blood spilled on these foreign adventures? They are always willing
to send somebody else to die.
By the way, just so you know, I consider myserlf a conservative Republican
that is appalled at the actions of the leaders I participated in putting
into office. This is not the party of Barry Goldwater who believed
that abortion is a personal right, who believed that you don’t
wage wars, unless you bring overwhelming force to the objective. This
party has turned into a party of elitists, who were elected by average
citizens just trying to do the right thing.
At the same time, these elected leaders are not responsive to us.
Strange as it may seem, we elect our leaders, and after the election,
the lobbyists OWN them. How can you possibly spend a hundred billion
dollars on drugs for senior citizens, a program I support, and NOT
write into the law that the government has the right to negotiate
lower prices for these drugs? Wow, the drug companies give the Republicans
over $10 million to fund the election, and the Republicans give the
drug companies another $20 to $40 billion dollars in excess payments
for their drugs. Frankly, the payoff wasn’t big enough.
How did it come to this point? The Republicans always stood for the
rights of the individuals, and fiscal responsibility. Now we have
thrown fiscal responsibility out the window. The leaders argue as
long as the rate of growth, of the deficit is lower than the rate
of growth of the economy, its okay to have deficits. This is the same
line the Democrats used for 40 years, only now it’s coming out
of the mouths of the Republicans.
Here’s the bottom line, and read it carefully. You and I as
citizens of the greatest country in 10,000 years of civilization are
at the crossroads. We have to choose and choose now. Our freedoms
are being usurped by corporate and institutional interests. Once we
elect officials, it seems they are at the mercy of lobbyists who have
what seems like infinite amounts of money to influence our democratically
chosen leaders. The laws and programs that you, and I as liberal,
and conservative thinkers would choose are not getting done. Instead,
it seems that special interests are having their needs met to the
detriment of 300 million Americans.
We can not survive very long as a viable society, and meet the growing
economic and military threat posed by China’s emergence, as well
as other nation states unless we are all aligned in the same direction.
The waste and mismanaged programs we are seeing are going to generate
a drag on our system that will make us far less competitive in the
next ten years to deal with the rest of the world. Farming is gone,
it’s a non factor. Manufacturing is heading the same way, with
globalization. We are headed towards a post-industrial society. We
are almost there. We will move towards a fully service oriented society
shortly. Will we have the jobs for our people to replace those jobs
going overseas? Maybe, maybe not, but next week we have an election,
you must choose, choose wisely.
Goodbye and Good Luck
PS:
The biggest joke is that if the Democrats get elected, we are going
to trade one set of lobbyists for another, one set of special interests
for another, one party devoid of ideas for another. Somehow, the people
need to be back in control again, and voting for the default party
isn’t the right answer either.
About the Author
Richard Stoyeck’s background includes being a limited partner
at Bear Stearns, Senior VP at Lehman Brothers, Kuhn Loeb, Arthur Andersen,
and KPMG. Educated at Pace University, NYU, and Harvard University,
today he runs Rockefeller Capital Partners and StocksAtBottom.com
http://www.stocksatbottom.com
