How I Know Obama's Plan Will Work

I watched Obama's speech last night. I was impressed. Finally, someone with bold ideas and the brains to actually get them done. Oh, and the ability to speak in complete sentences.

Naturally, the media will dissect what Obama said, handicap the odds of it getting done and what it all may mean. And certainly, there will be things about what Obama and the Ds propose that probably won't work.

Fine. That's the media's job. However, I think it's actually very, very easy to figure out if what Obama is proposing will work.

You know how I know Obama's plan overall will work?

Republicans and conservatives are so uniformly against it.

That's it. It's that simple.

Why you may ask? To that I reply, know your history.

Conservatives and the Republican Party have been on the wrong side of virtually every attempt to bring the nation out of recession or depression.

Think about it. As evidence, you need not go further back than the 1990s.

Remember that when Clinton came into office, the nation was in a recession and for two years he had a D-controlled Congress. In that time they passed progressive legislation including the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act if 1993 to set us on the path to a balanced budget and more prosperous times. The bill contained a mix of tax increases and a reversal of the now-disproven "Reganomics" supply-side economic practices that had steered us into recession. As we now know, this bill and other progressive measures set the table for an impressive 1990s and creation of the nation's largest budget surplus ever. We also know that W and the Republicans went on to squander it all in a return to "feed the rich" policies, but that's another story.

But back to my main point...guess who unanimously voted against the 1993 bill? Guess who at the time called it a return to big government and moving us toward socialism? Guess who said that the bill would put us on the road to ruin? You got it. Republicans. Unanimously.

Sound familiar?

It's the same refrain that the Rs pull out any time their philosophy is challenged. You could look at what they said in the debates to address The Great Depression in the 1930s too and you'd see the same hollow claims.

In short, the Republicans (and conservatives generally) have a very poor track record of judging what will get the country out of economic hard times.

And therefore, I'm pleased that they are so unanimously against Obama's proposals today.