Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The little red hen

There is a nursery story about a little red hen who wanted to bake some bread. Whenever the little red hen would ask if anyone would help in doing a task, such as grinding the wheat, all the barnyard animals would say “not I.” Once the bread was baked and the little red hen asked “Who will help me eat this bread?” all the barnyard animals said “I will.” Of course, the little red hen refused them because they didn’t help. She fed the bread to her chicks.

Think of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus bill) as the bread. Every Congressional Republican, except for three, kicked, screamed, and shouted against the bill. They threw tantrums because the bill was not written exactly they way they thought it should be.

But now that it’s passed and signed into law, some Republicans are taking credit for items in the bill, and all are lining up to get as much money as they can for their states, while they have put out ads saying how proud they are of clinging to their principles and voting against the bill.

Hypocrisy to the nth* degree!

Of course, when the stimulus begins to work in a year or so, the Republicans will say that the economy would have righted itself anyway. And if our economy is still in dire straights, they will blame President Obama instead of putting the blame where it rightly belongs – on years of Republican deregulated, laissez-faire economics (often called Reaganomics). If it does work, every Republican and the nine Democrats who voted against it should be throw out of office in 2010!

I cannot help but wish that any state whose Republican senators voted against the bill not get a share of the money. Let’s use those states as test subjects to see if doing nothing, as many Republicans said, will work and if their state economies will find equilibrium without any help from the federal government and without hitting bottom.

Maybe the Congressional Republicans should go back to nursery school and read the Little Red Hen.

*(pronounced inth)