Obama Should Be Asking for the White House and a Filibuster Proof Congress

Barack Obama needs to ask the electorate for a filibuster proof Congress as well as the White House. Changing how business is done in Washington has been a primary theme of his campaign and a stronger Democratic majority on the Hill, backing his presidency, would fortify the prospects of that happening.

Suddenly, John McCain is running with a similar mantra claiming to be the true agent of change needed in the Oval Office. He has the audacity to say he and Palin are the maverick personalities needed to shake things up in Washington. Both their records speak more clearly than their rhetoric. They are militant, conservative, de-regulation, trickle down Republicans whose ideology has at last been debunked beyond doubt.

McCain’s many votes and public comments in favor of deregulation clearly align him with the very policies that now have our economy collapsing. There should be no more doubts that Ronald Reagan’s theory of trickle down economics was nothing more than an illusory scam used by neo-conservative corporate pirates to loot the Treasury while robbing everyone beneath them. Reagan, Bush and Bush have thoroughly proven that government regulation is needed in the flow of finance and commerce or exploitation and disaster comes.

The President and the Treasury Secretary are now asking the citizens of America to once again blindly trust his administration to do the right thing with billions of dollars on behalf of the nation. The Iraq war was entered into under similar pretext and has been bleeding our nation’s resources for years with no end in sight. Now we’re on the verge of letting George W. Bush hand a blank check to Wall Street that will probably exceed the cost of the war. God forbid.

This crisis has caused Team Bush to foolishly contrive a half-baked, open ended proposal in a single weekend for a complex problem that was decades in the making. Now, he asks for Congress and the nation to quickly and blindly say yes with little study or consideration for alternative solutions.

Barack Obama needs to seek to forge an agreement within his Party to develop a Democratic proposal on this issue and others for the nation to consider. Then he should pointedly and relentlessly begin to proclaim, “Give me a filibuster proof Congress and we will achieve the changes America needs to prosper in peace and stability.”

Couple the new theme with some solid proposals for changes in foreign and domestic policy. Highlight the proposals with a promise to deliver certain land mark legislation in the first six months of an Obama presidency. I believe America is ready for this deal and it should be brought to the table immediately.