Our newly conservative President Obama has laid out his vision for "winning the future" and it is largely conservative, Reaganesque bullshit. His SoTU speech was the moderate version of Reagan's old flag waving garbage about how much better the US is than the rest of the nations of the world. We are not in a big tournament against other nations, though the voting public seems to think we are.
It is right that this Democratic President become more conservative in response to the huge conservative win in the fall election. He's dropped any ideas about creating jobs, helping the unemployed and is barely pushing higher taxes on rich people. That's a drag.
As an antedote, I offer some suggestions for getting the US economy chugging in the right direction again. Highlights from http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.1/galbraith below. I think these ideas are brilliant analytical suggestions that are politically impossible.
Create an "infrastructure bank" that would be called "big gubment" by Republicans. It would plan, fund and oversee upgrades to national systems that need a boost.
Neighborhood Preservation Corps - more "big gubment" federally funded bureacracy to demolish condemned buildings and projects to replace them.
Further federal support for other local services (police, schools, parks, libraries) that are suffering because of loss of tax revenue and laws against deficit spending at the local level.
Increased Social Security and Medicare benefits, and a temporary lowering of the retirement age to 62.
All perfectly sensible stuff to me, but I lost.
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