Transparent and Accountable

Excerpt from the Dems Platform:

21st Century Government: Transparent and Accountable

President Obama and the Democrats are committed to rethinking, reforming, and remaking our government so that it can meet the challenges of our time.

Pasted from <http://www.democrats.org/democratic-national-platform>

I had started out commenting on the whole paragraph and ended up with the following addressing only the first sentence of that heading copied from the DNC platform.

1. This is probably one of the truest statements made because the Democrats led by President Obama has on the past six years nearly fulfilled their promise to rethink, reform and remake our government. That problem is that this makeover of the government has not helped many and hurt more.

2. Rethinking is true.  Not new thinking; but pretty much a rehash of the LBJ and Nixon mindset. Establishing enemies list to sic the IRS and Justice department on to and a backdoor intrusion on our right to privacy with monitoring by the NSA.

3. Reforming:  Reforming is a natural process with the moving in of any new administration.  They throw out the previous cabinet and form a new one.  There is a layer of bureaucrats I call the spoils layer that lays over the top of all government agencies that each and every party hands out to the loyal participants of the election process.  That is okay, expected and accepted.  It is also the reason that IRS, NSA, the Justice department, Department of the Interior and so on can circumvent the law and in the end literally get people killed like Fast and Furious and Benghazi because they think like Obama and know there is no penalty.  

4. Remaking:  Out government does not need remaking. Our system isn't broken.  See, my post "Is the System really broken?" However, true to their word Obama and his insiders are remaking the government and not in a good way.  There has been a few times in the past where the bulk of power to govern the country has swayed from congress to the executive branch and back again. Lyndon B Johnson tried to wrest control of the senate as vice president and the senators of his own party prevented it.  Because they had a solid understanding of the separation of powers. The Democrats of today don't seem to have the same sense of the construction of our government. I say this because they have not pushed back on Obama at all on anything important that anyone can tell. 

5. All the above is "so that is can meet the challenges of our time".  Beside some of the challenges Democrats has fostered over the past six years which I will go into later let's consider some of the challenges at the time they took control.  Which are close to the same as they are today.
1. Unemployment
2. War in foreign lands
3. Devaluation of homes
4. Crashing of several manufacturing entities
5. Crashing of several financial entities

Across the nation unemployment hasn't really changed much since Obama took office according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Not withstanding a few fluctuations it's been about 4-6% since 2004 not withstanding some local regions are really bad nearing and toping 10%.  Now with that said, Republicans will say we are more worse off that you can imagine because the discouraged job seekers that have dropped out of the search for work thus are no longer reported on the official unemployment statistics.  They consist of about 90,000 people as of 2013.  Out of a work force of 110 million that may not seem like a lot to you. Unless, you are one of them.

Most everyone wants a job, but for a main issue for the parties to squabble over I think is pretty much a waste of breath.

War in foreign lands is a really hot issue with just about anyone that cares about anything. A lot smarter people than me has addressed this situation, both Democrats and Republicans. They both have excellent arguments.  The isolationists that tend to be more Democrat want us to mind our own business and leave the world alone. How can we argue with the idea of us all just getting along?  No one, really.  But is that the reality of the world? Out nation from post civil war to WW1 had a relatively good period of isolationism and peace enough to expand, grow, bring in the industrial age and set into place the infrastructure that put the U.S. in the dominant spot on the world theater when we finally stepped up and took an active role in the first world war. Communism is to small countries like Jessie Jackson is to corporations.  Countries said to the USA pay us and we will not go to the communist where Jessie Jackson says pay us and we won't sue you for not having enough black people on payroll.   The Cold War is over and is paying countries now necessary?  Perhaps, I think to some degree no.  So why would we engage in conflicts in other countries?  I think for two fundamental reasons. First is we are honoring our word, a treaty.  Japan for instance is not a mighty warring power because we told them we would protect them if they didn't build up an army again. We told Israel we would always stand by them.  How we doing on that? Not so well from what I see.   This is just to spark some thought.  I could go on and on at the sake of the other points.  Perhaps I'll return to this in it's own post.

Dropping home values has been one of the most crushing things to happen to the middle class in the memory of most.  I have seen over the years homes rise and fall in value along a fairly predicable path trending upwards. But to see it crash like a stock market Black Friday was not seen but by a few.  I cannot tell you the particulars as to the nuts and bolts of it in this post.  Basically, the foundation for this crash was set up by the Clinton in the early 90s with the blessing of the Republican congress to deregulate the investment houses and permit them to act like banks and invest in markets they should have stayed out of like home mortgages.  Then with the continual relaxing of sound lending standards like the ability to repay a loan people were getting in mortgages they could not maintain for long and didn't. Housing markets have yet to rebound to their former levels.  They will though in time.

Lets lump the manufacturing and financial entities collapsing together.  Essentially it's the same thing other than the segment of market they serve.  This is another that could take up its own posting to some length.  In the end, whether you think they should have been bailed out or not, they have been.  All and all I think that we are all better off for the bail outs.  It is certainly evident the government wastes more money in other ways than to shore up the backbone of our financial structure. What is irksome is the blame game.  Like the crash of home values these entities had their demise set up long ago well before Bush 42 and Clinton.  The primary reason they failed is the housing crash underwriting on bad paper and the debt load.  When the economy took that nose dive in 2009 people stopped buying new cars and stopped saving so as to eat. That was money that did not go into Chevy's bottom line, inventory starting stacking up and investment companies had no extra cash to lend and no one could pay their bills.  Thus over the waterfall we all have gone.