Half the nation wants to bleed it dry

Last week, on my way to Ames, Iowa, to pick up my kids from college, I was struck by a revelation. In December 2008, a month after Barack Obama’s election, the price of gasoline hovered at $1.90 a gallon. In DuPage County, where I began my trip, gas was selling for $4.39 a gallon.

School was out at Iowa State University, where my daughter and son are getting their education. This last year, that education cost $2,000 more for each of them than it would have in 2008. And as my son and daughter acquire the skills they’ll need to earn a livelihood, they must deal with the prospect of a weak job market when they graduate.

Officially unemployment in the country stands at 9 percent. When Obama was inaugurated, it was a shade below 8 percent, and at that level was pronounced by the media to be scandalous and unconscionable — reason enough, they said, to keep a Republican from the White House. Today, trillions of dollars in so-called stimulus spending later, unemployment is actually higher than when Bush left office.

I used to wonder why it is that if the election were held today, Obama would have a decent chance of winning, despite his mishandling of the nation’s finances. After all, wouldn’t the election be about “the economy, stupid”? The answer to this mystery, as I said, was revealed to me on the road — not to Damascus — but to Ames. In America 2011, half the people are desperate to stop the fiscal hemorrhaging of the country, while the other half just wants to continue sucking the nation’s lifeblood. That’s the explanation.

Alexander Lee

West Chicago