Reinvestment (Stimulus) Act

The “Buy America” and $500,000 maximum wage provisions sound pretty good. “Community Based Economics” is one of our Ten Key Values, and a maximum wage was recommended in one of our Green Party workshops early in the decade. It looks like Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins – both from Maine – are the most powerful people in the country right now. As moderate Republicans they can provide the 60% majority to break a filibuster.

It seems Obama is in a race against time to clean up Bush’s mess before people starve. I’m not sure if a “bad bank” is the answer. It may be consistent with the recommendations in “The Web of Debt”: If a bank is insolvent, it should go into receivership. There has been talk of a new “Yucca Mountain” Savings and Loan.

With all the progress that’s apparently being made, I’m starting to become a little paranoid that something will go wrong. If Obama really is a president of the people, I’m worried that the uber-rich will retaliate somehow. Maybe Cheney will smuggle in a dirty bomb or something, heaven forbid. Conspiracy theorists tell us that these guys are obsessed with number patterns. I’m not a mathematician, so other than 3/11 and 9/11 I don’t have any good guesses about when a Cheney hit might occur.

But overall I am optimistic that nothing like that will ever come to pass. I may not have voted for Obama, but I do want him to succeed as long as he is benefiting the people. Rush Limbaugh may want Obama to fail, but I want him to succeed.