Is Washington Completely Out Of Touch With Main Street?
I’ve got an idea the following Huffington Post piece might very well describe how a number of Americans feel right now about our elected officials in Washington.
From Post contributor Don McNay last night:
Can you hear me calling you?
-Mike and The Mechanics
Mark Twain said that when he died he wanted to be in Kentucky because everything happens 20 years later in Kentucky than in the rest of the world.
I live in Kentucky but I want to die in Washington. It might be the ticket to immorality. The people running Washington seem to exist in an alternate universe.
Sunday’s Huffington Post headline read “Sherrod Brown: Obama Focused on Main Street but not all his advisers are.”
How long did it take you to figure that one out, Sherrod?
What was the first clue? Double-digit unemployment? Huge Wall Street bonuses? The fact that no one on Obama’s economic team has ever worked on Main Street in his or her entire life?
Operating a business on Main Street is a lot different than lecturing at the Harvard Economic Club. The team President Obama surrounded himself with has spent way more time in a faculty lounge than in the corner barber shop.
In the alternative universe of Washington, the idea that Senator Brown, a progressive Democrat from Ohio, would criticize Obama’s advisers, is considered earth-shattering.
Partisanship rules in Washington. And Democrats and Republicans never deviate from their talking points.
No one is supposed to think for himself. Even just a little bit, like Brown did.
In the alternative universe of Washington, they don’t really understand that people on Main Street are hurting. Not only are they hurting, they are angry.
Charlie Rose recently hosted Warren Buffett on his show. Buffett is one of the richest guys in the world, but he thinks he, and other rich people like him, should pay a higher percentage in taxes.
Buffett noted that “K Street lobbyists” had developed too much influence in Washington and the average American was not being heard.
Buffett was a big Obama supporter. But he is also a realistic businessman. He understands that our economic future depends far more on Main Street than on Wall Street.
Part of the reason Washington can be an alternative universe is that it’s a city that tends to be immune to recessions and depressions.
I was in Washington recently and a friend told me of his dilemma of trying to buy an affordable home. Washington has one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. The federal government has not had any significant layoffs or cutbacks in many years. They keep on printing money. There are many others who work for agencies or firms that deal directly with the government. They are not feeling the recession, either. It seems the business of government is always booming.
People in Washington are not feeling our pain. Or the extreme pain that their counterparts in state and local governments are about to feel.
My business is somewhat recession-proof, but I operate just off Main Street in Richmond, Kentucky. Economic despair is all around me. I have friends, and friends of friends, come to me daily looking for a job. Not a high-paying career with possibilities for advancement, benefits and a pension. Just a job. A paycheck.
I don’t know what to do for them. I don’t have jobs to give them.
We advertised for an entry level position earlier this year. We were flooded with applications, including people with advanced degrees and boatloads of experience.
As Sherrod Brown so astutely noted, some of President Obama’s advisers don’t “get it.”
Those of us on Main Street knew from Day One they wouldn’t “get it.” Nothing in their background, education or life experiences prepared them to understand the economic crisis from a Main Street perspective.
I don’t blame the people Obama appointed. I blame the guy who appointed them.
We don’t get to vote for Secretary of the Treasury or Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
We do get to elect a president. A president I voted for. One who campaigned on “change we can believe in.”
We have not had change on the economic front because Obama chose his advisers from the same bunch of Wall Street and Washington insiders that George W. Bush chose from.
Tell me how Timothy Geithner, Dr. Lawrence Summers and Ben Bernanke are different from Henry Paulson, Alan Greenspan and the people Bush had around him?
Imagine how different economic policy would be if someone who understood Main Street was calling the shots.
We would have the kind of change we really could believe in. And was promised.
I guess “interchangeability” just doesn’t float Mr. McNay’s boat…
Source:
“Washington: Totally Disconnected From Main Street”
Don McNay
Huffington Post, November 23, 2009
November 25th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Good post.
“Imagine how different economic policy would be if someone who understood Main Street was calling the shots.”
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O.K., just to get the discussion going…assuming that you understand Main Street better than the folks in Washington D.C., what shots would you call?
1. Implement a high tax on imported manufactured goods, in order to bring the Manufacturing industry back to America.
2. Cancel TARP. No more bailouts. Period. Let the banks sink or swim. Let the States figure out how to balance their budgets.
3. Investigate ALL the mortgage & lending fraud over the past five years.
4. Cancel foreign aid. Why should we borrow money from China in order to give it to other countries?
5. Implement policies that will encourage people to become more self-sufficient
6. Your Comment here
7. Your Comment here
8. Your…(you get the idea)
-Mammoth
November 25th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
I thought that Huffington Post piece was a good one as well Mammoth. I’ll give others the chance to respond first. But I shall return.