I try to avoid political posts, but when I found this article on foxnews.com, I had to write about it.
The article basically says that most economists agreed that Obama's economic policies would help the economy. Unemployment rose to 10% under the policies, but I've heard supporters of those policies say that otherwise, employment would be at 12%. Republicans, meanwhile, knew that opposing the policies would slow down economic recovery. They knew that a slower recovery would make Democrats look bad and give Republicans a better chance in the midterm elections. On Tuesday, the Republicans' strategy worked. And this is all according to the Fox News article.
It's hard to believe that a political group could take a stance essentially aimed at hurting the country and benefit because of that stance. I'm sure Democrats have done it in the past, but the freshness of this occurrence makes it seem that much more audacious, as the article calls it, probably in reference to one of Obama's favorite words. Personally, I would prefer "dastardly" because it almost rhymes with the word that I actually want to use but prefer not to.
I also think it's interesting that the Fox News article states outright that the Republicans tried to keep the economy from recovering in order to make political gains (it's right there in the title!). Regardless, I cannot help but assume that Democrats have used the same strategy in the past. It just makes me lose some more of my eroding faith in our system of governance. Perhaps proportional representation is an answer. At this point, I don't think that it would hurt to try it in the U.S.
