Those Who Do Not Remember Their Past...

After reading about Obama's belief that he can achieve a "grand bargain" with Republicans within the first year of a second term (a goal which, of course, goes against the will of much of the public), I began to take a nice stroll down history lane.  (History lane, of course, is a few blocks over from memory lane.)....

In the wake of an economic downturn that resulted from over a decade of financial recklessness, a Democratic President, promising a brighter future, is elected.  In his first term, he manages to pass moderate banking regulations and moderate economic stimulus as well as historic social legislation, despite having to weaken it in order to appeal to conservative members in his own party.  Despite the attempts of conservative forces to claim the populist rhetoric which the president had embraced, he manages to get re-elected because of a growing party coalition rooted in the new demographics of the big cities.  Upon re-election, in accord with his own centrist leanings and on the advice of his more conservative economic advisors, he decides to shift his efforts away from helping the suffering economy reach full employment and instead to balancing the budget and reducing the deficit.  The previously recovering economy then suffers another downturn.  Let’s hope the last two sentences here don’t happen again as they did 75 years ago.