Here are a few reasons why President Obama is not viewed
as an effective leader:
First, his failure
to make good on his campaign promise to âchange Washington.â Moderates
and independents thought it meant overcoming
the partisan bickering and petty gamesmanship in Washington; those on
the left hoped it meant a return to liberalism.
In either case, Obama didnât or couldnât bring it off
and people are disappointed.
Second is
the halting recovery. Everyone
has a family member or friend that is out of work. Despite some encouraging
signs, there are still 5.2
million Americans unemployed for longer than 27 weeks.
While this is down from 6.7 million in April 2010, there
were only 1.2 million long term
unemployed in January 2002.
Third,
the corrosive impact of the battle with the Republican party: Obama was fought every step of the way by a unified
opposition forged on the night night
of his inauguration.
We need to remember what Obama was up against. Republicans say that Obama had a 60 seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate
for almost 2 years. Not true. By the
time Franken was sworn in and Kennedy got sick, passed away and the Dems ultimately lost his seat
to the GOP, Obama had about 7 months
of a super majority, (depending on whether you think Kennedy was
available to vote while he was sick). The filibuster has stopped much of the
Obama economic program.
Of all the Senate filibusters in the last 90 years,
almost 20% have been used by Republicans against Obama.
Fourth, âGovernment-Runâ Healthcare: The problem with the Affordable Care Act is not that
the opposition has hung the tag âObamacareâ on it, that tag has finally been
embraced by the President as well as its detractors.
The real problem is that despite the fact that it is a
privately operated/publicly funded system, it is perceived as bringing socialismâs nose under our tent
of freedoms. Obama has been unable to change this perception.
Most of the healthcare bill takes effect in 2014 and has had limited
effect upon the economy.
Fifth,
Obamaâs spending spree: The
average person is deathly afraid of the national deficit. The truth is that the
deficit is both large, growing and needs to be contained. Obama is tagged with making âGovernmentâ
much too large by growing federal spending. This is a myth. As a percentage of
total federal spending, discretionary spending, that is the portion Obama
controls, was lower in 2011 than in
any year in US history. (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34424.âŚ)
The deficit is due to the two unfunded wars, the
Economic Meltdown and imploding tax revenues due in part to the Bush tax cuts,
and the recession.
Obama needs to show how he will grow jobs AND deal with the deficit in a way that is understandable by the average voter.
Why You Should Vote for Obama:
At the
Republican convention this week, Republicans have continually refused to
discuss the past. George W. Bushâs record is off limits.
They say
that Mitt Romney, as a Republican businessman/CEO is what we need to get the
country back on track. He can do better.
They want
us to ignore that George W. Bush was also a Republican businessman. Bush won
election saying he would be a CEO as President. They want you to ignore that Bush deployed exactly the same domestic and international policies now put forward by Romney. We know how that worked out.
The country can’t afford another Republican
government steering the ship of state back on to those rocks.
And there
are two other reasons to vote Obama in November, even if you feel Obama doesn’t measure up to your best hopes.
First: Three Supreme Court Justices turn 80 in the next 4 years. The
next president will appoint their replacements. This will either set the corporatist
agenda in cement, or it could fight it.
Do you really want to look back on Citizens United and
Sheldon Adelson as a high point in participatory democracy and judicial restraint?
Second: Based on his behavior so far, President Romney will be entirely
in the grip of the neocons with regard to foreign policy and in the grip of extreme elements of the right wing regarding social policy. He
will double down on the Bush agenda that’s brought America to the current pass. He’s
told you so.
An extremist social agenda. More soldiers in more Middle
East countries. More money spent on a bloated defense industry. Less tax
revenues to cover current government needs.
According
to the Republicans, cutting taxes makes life better for everybody. However,
since 2009, Americans have been paying
the smallest share of their income as taxes in 60 years, and yet, more people than ever are struggling.
That suggests lower taxes don’t equal general prosperity
and that honest people might want to change their minds about how great low
taxes have been for America.
What has brought
the ordinary American’s life to its current state has been 30 years of Republican ideas about government,
taxes, society, and trickle-down economics.
The facts
are in:
Between
1980 and 2008, the median American family’s income barely budged, but their buying power fell by more than half. In 2008
dollars, family income was $44,059 in 1980 and $50,303 in 2008.
Meanwhile,
the Consumer Price Index went from 86.9 in 1980, to 215.2 in 2010. So beginning
with Ronald Reagan, the typical
American family got a pay cut of 59.63%.
In the
same period, US GDP per capita in 2010 Dollars grew from $12,180 in 1980 to $48,442 in 2011. This should be
viewed in the context that the American population in
1980 was 227.2 million, but 311.6
million in 2010.
Somebody got that money, and it wasn’t the typical
American family.
There
were 80.7 million households in the US in 1980 and 114.2 million households in the United States in 2010. In that same period, the percent of households below
the poverty level grew from 13.3% of all households in 1980 to 15.1% of all households in 2010, while according to the
arithmetic, the number of
those households grew from 10.7 million in 1980 to 17.2 million in 2010.
In other
words, beginning with Ronald Reagan, and in the 31 years in which Republicans
and their right wing allies had, at a minimum, a strong influence on America,
the economy grew, but so did poverty.
No, trickle down did not benefit the typical American
family, or poor folks either.
You would
think that any person, (including Republicans) looking honestly at
figures like those above and wanting the best for the whole country, would suspect there might be some
connection between those facts and tax policy.
But
that’s not where Mr. Romney and his party are intellectually.
He says he will cut taxes another 20%, but won’t tell us how he’ll make up the additional deficit those cuts would create.
Elections
matter: You know what to do and you know how to do it.
It could
still be your country, if you want it.
