Making Sense Alerts

With little fanfare, Congress gave final approval last Saturday to a 2009 defense authorization bill with a price tag of $612 billion. That legislation includes only partial funding for the Iraq war. When the full cost of the Iraq war is included, military spending will total about $700 billion in the coming year. If we really wanted to make America more secure, we’d divert a huge amount of this money from waste, fraud and misadventure to projects that would strengthen our nation.

National security is a subject on which progressives have struggled to find a winning message. It’s a topic where conservatives get away with surreal talking points, such as, “Let’s fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here,” which Sarah Palin repeated as recently as last week. [New York Times] McCain simplistically asserts that America’s choices in Iraq are “victory” or “retreat.” [Washington Post] How can progressives turn the debate from a recitation of absurd slogans into a serious reconsideration of America’s role in the world?

As our economy falls apart, conservatives are changing their tune. Donning the garb of reformers, they pretend that they weren’t in charge of Washington over the last eight years and that they had nothing to do with the mess we face. It is vital that we hold them accountable for their record—and that we contrast conservative misrule with the progressive alternative. Here's how to do it on jobs, trade, health care, Social Security and energy.

To stave off financial collapse, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have pumped out nearly $900 billion to bail out the bad bets of Wall Street. Now there’s movement for a “comprehensive” response, with taxpayers asked to take over the toxic paper of the banks, a bailout that may put over $1 trillion at risk. Conservatives are arguing that this crisis is due to government interference in the marketplace: that the Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to make bad loans; that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, in their quasi government status, were at the root of the crisis. This is the big lie. The reality is simple and plain.

John McCain assured Americans on September 17—as he has at least 20 times before—that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong.” [The Hill, 20 times video] Can he be any more out of touch? Putting aside the cratering of Wall Street, consider three recent economic indicators that haven’t gotten much attention. They show that the fundamentals are crumbling.

The American Dream is on life support, but you wouldn’t know it from recent political news. Journalists and pundits have been talking about lipstick on pigs, Cindy McCain’s drug use, the bridge to nowhere. Why aren’t they discussing the real issues—like failing banks, falling wages, rising costs, and economic inequality? It’s time to demand a debate worthy of a great nation in trouble. That’s why the Institute for America’s Future is beginning a series of “op-ads” today that will highlight the real issues—and enlist others to challenge the media and the campaigns to answer fundamental questions about America’s future. To read the first of these op-ads, click here.

We are witnessing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Wall Street’s “shadow banking system” has been revealed to be a house of cards. Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan is calling it a “once-in-a-century” financial crisis. Who is responsible? Who should be held accountable? What is the real solution to this crisis?

According to federal investigators, Big Oil has been plying the federal officials in charge of managing offshore oil leases with gifts, drugs, and sex.

On Sunday September 7, the Treasury Department announced that it was seizing control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. While Sarah Palin doesn’t understand what that means, you should.

 
 
 

More than half of Americans currently hold an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party. They are angry about conservative politicians’ abuse of power, their mismanagement of the economy, and the impact conservative failures have had on their everyday lives. Progressives can’t allow conservatives to continue downplaying their mistakes and attempting to cover them up with promises of reform. Making Sense has assembled a top ten list of the worst conservative failures of the Bush years; now it’s time to hold them accountable for each and every one.