what's the point of two parties?

(PR) This is definitely both a political post and a rant. I've been good about separating those two, but lately, things are just insane.

I wish I could say that what is transpiring this week is absolutely unbelievable. But really, it's not.

The GOP will use the power of government to help rich friends when they need it ('begrudgingly', of course--they really, truly, deeply believe in the power of markets and the evil of government all the time except for this one horrific case). The Democrats will be split between the rank and file being screwed and the leadership selling them out, whether actively or passively.

And voila. We have terrible public policy backed by a narrative spewed by both Republican and Democratic leaders that has no basis in reality, a narrative that actually damages understanding of the problem and makes it more difficult to deal with the real issues. The problem is not credit. It's not liquidity. We don't need to rescue the gamblers. We need to value work in our economy. You want to make assets worth something? Give money to people who don't have any. We've already spent about $900 billion on various corporate giveaways. With this new fangled idea of having the government buy assets that companies can't sell, the tab appears to go much higher. You know what we could do instead? Spend that money on investments that will earn a return, like infrastructure, light rail, schools, and healthcare. Or give it to people who didn't get filthy rich the past 30 years. A trillion dollars split among 100 million American families is $10,000. TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS! That would make a real impact in the real economy, not a paper difference for companies that purposefully took on risk they shouldn't have, expecting to dump the problem on the taxpayer when things turned sour.

When corporations and CEOs need bailouts, 'time is of the essence' and the President and Congress can get stuff done in a matter of days. But when our soldiers are dying in Iraq, or people are losing their homes, or workers' wages are falling, or somebody can't get healthcare or our schools are literally falling apart, well, sorry folks, you see, it takes a long time to get anything done.

Take a number. Be quiet. Have a seat. No, don't stand up; we might have to arrest you for disturbing the peace.