Who’s in Bed with Wall Street? It’s Not Who You Think.

I constantly hear complaints about the Obama Administration being too tied to Wall Street. Scarily, I find it ironic that the public, Democrats and Republicans alike, listens without analyzing the current situation for themselves – they accept as fact that Democrats side way too much with rich banks, but at the same time the party is clearly socialist. (Let’s think about that one more time: Pro Business Socialists.)

Those across the aisle in the GOP camp accuse the left of cozying up with the financial sector. As always, Republican politicians use scare tactics instead of proven facts to win public approval. Yes TARP bailout numbers sound big, but the loans awarded to the largest banks (ie Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup, Merril Lynch) have already been paid back – and with a 20% return! The biggest critics of Obama, Geithner, et al are actually Republican Congressmen, like Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl, who refused to sign off on the financial overhaul bill, a bill established to limit banks’ powers while providing more protections to consumers and providing larger portions of externalities to society.

The GOP also wants to extend tax cuts for the richest 2%, claiming it will keep money in the economy. These same people want to stop unemployment benefits, saying the lazy jobless won’t help anything. How can the public actually buy into this “logic”? Their arguments couldn’t be more contradictory.

Nonpartisan research analysis has proved that the highest tax brackets spend smaller percentages of their incomes than all other groups. While the rich are saving their millions, extending unemployment benefits would have a much more positive effect. Government spending is by definition the act of spending money. It re-circulates dollars throughout the economy. Those receiving unemployment benefits are much closer to living pay-check to pay-check than the rich are. Therefore they spend most, if not all, of their government checks. If the tax cuts to the upper 2% of the country expire, these extra tax revenues could pour directly into the economy (in the form of unemployment benefits and other social program) to stimulate commerce and job growth.

It is outrageous how manipulative the GOP is. They keep pushing their self-serving contradictions everywhere. Somehow, they’ve successfully convinced America that Democrats are the party of big banking – that is, the socialist party of big banking. People quickly forget that conservatives were the ones who sided with big business, eliminating campaign-financing restrictions for corporations. Or that the Republican controlled Congress and White House got us into conflicts in the Middle East that has cost citizens $1.1 trillion (the current “unacceptable” deficit is $1.3 trillion). Tax cuts and unemployment benefits are not moral issues like gay marriage or abortion. These are black and white economic issues that are now being decided by a popularity contest and not by data, history, or fact. Republicans have successfully turned the most pressing economic issues of our time into an American Idol game show. Too bad we don’t have Simon Cowell to expose blaring ineptitude.

Who’s in Bed with Wall Street? It’s Not Who You Think.