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After the Vote

Same topic, opposing views

By Joe Carbonari and Tim Baldwin

By Joe Carbonari

How are we going to get the economy moving? In Montana we will likely make it easier to get our oil, gas, and coal out of the ground and turned into money. Hopefully, we will give appropriate consideration to human and environmental safety. Hopefully, also, we will enhance and preserve those natural blessings that build tourism and showcase our state. If the economy doesn’t work, nothing works.

Strengthening economies mean greater opportunities and hope for the future. Our national economy, and the world’s, has been growing much too slowly, fitfully, anemically – and the benefits of its growth are moving disproportionately from the struggling to the already comfortable.

More households have incomes today that are below what they had in 2009 than there are those that are higher. The Great Recession is over, yes, but we have been extraordinarily slow in relieving the pain and in spreading the salve.

We need an economic policy that will employ more and put more money into the middle class. That will support the consumer spending that drives about 70 percent of our economy. We primarily sell to ourselves. The housing bust took money away from us, we lost jobs and income. We need to restore that buying power, that demand.

Spending on energy, infrastructure, and education is basic to all. Let’s do it. Let’s invest in ourselves and in our future now.


 By Tim Baldwin

Candidates running as Republicans won majorly last week. But in truth, voting can be as much a vote against someone as it is a vote for someone. Political analysts have described the 2014 midterm elections as a vote against Democrats more than a vote for Republicans. In fact, the Washington Post recently revealed a poll showing that 72 percent of those polled disapprove of the Republican Party.

One may surmise that the Republicans elected will be able to accomplish much from now until 2016 since they will hold a large majority in Congress. But if they were elected out of protest votes against Democrats, how likely is it that these Republicans have the same goals and principles?

True, people tend to like their own representatives more than they like Congress in general, and the nature of our constitutional system is one of diffusing responsibility among the government branches. Additionally, most people have little knowledge of how things happen in our complex political system, or why. So, holding any one politician responsible is difficult at best, and “fixing” the problem will, to most people, mean simply voting for candidates of the other political party at the next election.

Despite the major win, Republicans know they are in trouble with the people, so they better use this opportunity to connect with the people better.