I'm lucky tonight, sitting at home in Wisconsin, watching the terrible, terrible aftermath of the enormous storm that has wreaked havoc on the Eastern seaboard from North Carolina up through Connecticut. Literally millions of people on the East Coast--and people as far inland as Pittsburgh, and Youngstown, Ohio (and elsewhere, as far south as West Virginia, as far north as upstate New York in the Adirondacks) are not nearly so lucky.
I work for a company that is headquartered in Manhattan. I've been working as I usually do, from my office in Wisconsin. Normally I would be on the phone and emailing with people in the New York headquarters. But nobody has been able to work in our headquarters, because of the flooding in Manhattan, the loss of electrical power to the building, and who knows what else they have had to deal with. It is difficult to encompass the scale of the destruction in New York, New Jersey, and everywhere else affected by the storm.
But even as the mind reels from the vast scope of this monster storm's effects, which even now continue to be felt as the floodwaters still cover large tracts of land, I also see and hear people in the affected areas talking about the recovery efforts, and how determined they and the tens of thousands of people working to get the water back where it should be and repair what has been destroyed or damaged are to get this fixed. Some of them are even talking about making this disaster into an opportunity to improve the infrastructure of affected areas so that the next time a huge storm hits, the country will be better able to deal with something like this.
Someone--I believe it was Connecticut's Governor Dannel P. Malloy--said that in the past year, more or less, his state has had to deal with not one but three major natural disasters in the form of storms. He, or someone else who was interviewed tonight, said that we are now seeing storms that we would have thought of as once-in-a-lifetime storms are becoming a once-every-couple-of-years storms. "The new normal," one said. The reason for such storms can be debated, though one meteorological scientist said that it really is connected to global warming. i don't doubt that, because for several decades it has been apparent to climate scientists who aren't in the pay of the fossil-fuel industry that carbon emissions have vastly increased the "greenhouse effect" that retains heat in the atmosphere, raising the overall temperature of the planet. The rising temperature of the planet extends to the temperature of the oceans as well as the rest of the world, and as snow and ice melt--exposing previously snowbound mountains, greatly reducing the size of the world's glaciers, shrinking the arctic icecap and visibly melting large chunks of antarctic ice and snow that were solid for at least ten thousand years if not longer. And this liberates more water and water vapor, as well as providing storms with more energy when they are over warmer ocean waters. Extreme weather events have long been predicted by climatologists who have studied weather patterns and the logical results of global warming.
But for right now, whether we can somehow manage to persuade congress that dealing with the problem of global warming is a clear and present necessity that will before very long save the country an enormous amount of money in smaller disaster-relief costs, we are faced with dealing with the current crisis. And that is something that is done by many local and state agencies, and by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency that failed so terribly during Hurricane Katrina, but which before the George W. Bush administration, and during the current administration, has been extremely effective in helping communities all over the country deal with disasters of all sorts.
There has been some discussion about the need for an agency like FEMA. At one point during the long series of Republican Presidential debates Mitt Romney stated that what FEMA did would be better done by the states--and even better if it was done by the private sector.
I understand that Mr. Romney feels that business is better suited to deal with a lot of what the federal government does. And he spoke of the federal deficit as a reason for taking money spent on something like FEMA and instead having private business deal with what FEMA does.
He misses the point completely. First of all, the federal deficit is driven not by services like FEMA, but by the tax policy under which we have struggled since George W. Bush cut the tax rate for the wealthiest people in the country, and led us into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time. Back in 2003 when we went into Iraq it was noted by some news media, most particularly Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, that never in the history of the United States had an administration reduced taxes while the country was engaged in a war. But putting aside the question of deficits and their cause there is a bigger issue.
The issue I refer to is a very basic one. What is government for, after all? Thom Hartmann talks about the purpose of government on his daily show. He talks about the basic mandate set forth in the constitution, in the words, in the very first sentence of the Preamble: . . . provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . .
Those goals: promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity--not our personal welfare, not the welfare of various individuals, but the general welfare--they are all about the social contract between the government and the individual. As citizens we give up certain things so that we can get the benefits of things the government can do, which would be literally impossible for any single business or individual to accomplish.
This is where the progressive idea comes from. Living in Wisconsin, it was striking to me in the past two years to see how literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people came together when Governor Scott Walker began his assault on rights that the people of Wisconsin had fought to gain, rights that were inspired by the progressive movement that saw its birth in this stat and gave us: the forty-hour work week; the right to belong to a labor union; the right of fee assembly --guaranteed by the Bill of Rights but often challenged by those who would discourage protest when the government over-reaches--and protections that the progressive movement has encouraged or sponsored, such as protection of people in the workplace from hazardous conditions, and other governmental oversight that protects the people against exploitation or worse by private commercial interests.
Mr. Romney is supported by the vast contributions of businesses that stand to benefit hugely if he is elected President. His big backers seem to care not one whit about the general welfare, whenever it threatens the welfare of their business's bottom line profits. James Inhofe, senator from Oklahoma, can deny global warming until he is blue in the face, but his patently false argument against global warming are simply nothing more than that: lies. He says these things in the service of the oil interests in Oklahoma that provide huge contributions to his re-election campaigns (and doubtless, large amounts of money to advertising by Super-PACS in opposition to his opponents and Democratic candidates in general.
The general welfare is something that Rachel Maddow talks about when she does promotional spots for MSBC, and also when she discusses such issues on her nightly show. And she is exactly correct: when she stands in front of what I believe is the Hoover Dam, and talks about how such massive public-works projects are the sort of thing that only the federal government can accomplish, that is a conversation about the common welfare. It is one of the things government is supposed to do. The idea that we should stop maintaining the nation's infrastructure, or outsource FEMA's job to the private sector to reduce the deficit is simply wrong. It is a wrong-headed argument.
In fact, if we did hire some for-profit company to manage disaster relief, it would cost the cocuntry far more than it costs to have the federal government's non-profit agency do the job.
Instead of advocating privatizing disaster relief--and other federal agencies-- people who already benefit from what the government can offer all its citizens--the people who currently benefit the most should contribute a more reasonable, fair share toward supporting the general welfare. As many progressives have pointed out, as President Obama has said many times in the course of the current election campaign. those who earn a hugely disproportionate amount of money and yet contribute a smaller percentage of their income to the general welfare than those at the top of the income scale have contributed in more than fifty years, are simply not contributing their fair share. They, like everyone else, benefit from the services of the government. And yet, the percentage of their contributions in the form of income tax has shrunk because of the George W. Bush tax cuts. No matter the rationale for this: call them "job creators"--they have not been creating jobs since their taxes went down. And their corporate profits have soared . . . while income for most people in the country has actually declined.
The tax cuts for the wealthy have been absorbed by the middle class and poor people, who pay a higher percentage of their income on taxes. Not just income tax, but also sales tax and gasoline tax and other taxes they can't avoid. So let's not kid ourselves about who pays taxes. When Mr. Romney says that forty-seven percent of the people in the country don't pay tax, he was utterly wrong. Even if someone doesn't earn enough money to pay income tax, he or she still pays all those other taxes, and payroll and social security and medicare taxes.
But my point is that the common welfare is really what government is al about. And FEMA is an agency that benefits everyone who needs it. Not just businesses; not just the wealthy, but everyone, the wealthy and the poor; the healthy and the ill; the able and the disabled. It is the epitome of the promise government implicitly makes to its citizens when we agree to be citizens. Give up your autonomy to dot things that benefit you but might adversely affect others . . . in return for the benefits the government provides for all.
I fear that Mitt Romney, and his fellows on the Conservative Republican side of the aisle, especially his running-mate Paul Ryan, whose role model, Ayn Rand's "Objectivism" preaches that we should do first for ourselves, and that a government that in any way inhibits the free enterprise of individual entrepreneurs is evil, simply don't get it. Ayn Rand, born and raised in the repressive, totalitarian Soviet Russia after its revolution, understandably was leery of any government that threatened individual rights. But the federal government of the U.S., when it acts to restrain the unbridled greed of businesses that exploit their workers by trying to prevent them from bargaining through unions or by imposing unsafe working conditions . . . or when it acts to limit the power of Wall Street by keeping investment banks separate from consumer banks . . . is merely fulfilling its mandate to promote the general welfare of the people.
Romney, Ryan and others on the far right seem to have forgotten what government is supposed to do, and have confused corporate welfare with the general welfare of the nation's people.
Big projects, like those achieved by FEMA when it deals with disaster relieve, and other governmental agencies that enable the country to build and maintain infrastructure, or to provide education, fire-protection and police protection that affect all of us, are very properly the province of government, and to suggest that for-profit business should instead deal with such matters is simply a disingenuous claim designed to steer resources to the private sector because they would benefit some business. And whether or not Mitt Romney has a direct interest in a potential disaster-relief company (as Dick Cheney had in Halliburton when he, as Vice-President, recommended that company as the "perfect fit" to perform the kind of support services the army needed in Iraq and Afghanistan), it has been shown time and again that the government can manage such matters just as well if not better than private agencies.
I don't know for sure what Mitt Romney really believes. What I do know is that his rhetoric about the federal deficit simply won't hold water as long as he refuses to acknowledge that the tax policy that he espouses is one of the biggest causes of the growing deficit. But more importantly, he does not seem to understand that when he talks about leadership, the real question for Mr. Romney remains: when he says we need leadership, does he mean the kind of leadership that shows its colors by being selfless and acting in the interests of all the people, or does he mean the kind of leadership that really seeks to benefit the few at the expense of the many? Until I see Mr. Romney clearly advocate policies that don't merely claim to benefit the whole country but demonstrably actually would do that, I cannot have any faith in his blithely optimistic claims about creating millions of new jobs and lowering middle-class taxes.
And when he--the man who was a pioneer in out-sourcing, and who, having said that you can tell where a man's heart is by where he puts his money, turns out to put tens of millions of dollars of his money in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland--approves an ad that claims Chrysler is sending all their manufacturing to China, when in fact they are increasing their workforce in Ohio and merely manufacturing cars for China in China . . . I don't see why anyone should trust his charmingly endearing but fact-free ads.
His actions do not bespeak someone seriously invested in promoting the general welfare.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
Voodoo Economics Returns:The Reality of Mitt Romney's Economic Plan
When George H. W. Bush was contending for the Republican nomination for president against Ronald Reagan in 1980, he referred to Reagan's economic plan, which Reagan referred to as "supply side economics" as "Voodoo Economics."
He was right. The only way Reagan's economic policies could have worked was in a fantasy world where magic works.
This is all too relevant today, as Mitt Romney has managed, by clever ads, the bullying tactics he used in the first presidential debate, and by making vague promises based on utterly specious arguments, to make the current election for President much closer than it should be.
It is fascinating in a rather appalling way, to see (according to polls) millions of Americans who were underwhelmed by Mitt Romney for at least a year while he was campaigning for the Republican nomination and even after he won the nomination now being swayed by his feel-good ads and speeches, and by his fact-free attacks on President Obama's performance.
The facts are this: Mitt Romney has always promised, no matter how he dresses it up, to bring back voodoo economics. Call it supply-side economics, or call it what many people have called it for decades: trickle-down economics. It is the same thing. And it doesn't work. It has never worked. It didn't work for Ronald Reagan; it didn't work for Herbert Hoover; it didn't work for George W. Bush. And when I say "bring back voodoo economics" that isn't really true. Because as long as the Bush tax cuts continue in force, we are still operating on a voodoo economics system, thanks to our Republicans in Congress.
Voodoo economics works for the people who are already wealthy. Which suits Mr. Romney and his base--the very wealthy--just fine.
Recently, he has decided, in a brilliant campaign strategy, to claim that he represents "Change." Not just change, but big change. Which might be humorous if it wasn't so utterly false and self-serving.
In fact, what he proposes is not change at all. He proposes more of what has gotten us into the economic doldrums since the Bush tax cuts. He wants more tax cuts. For everyone. And he makes it sound as if his plan would benefit the middle class. Whereas in fact, the way he has structured his tax cut, the people who would benefit the most are the people who have already been benefitting from the George W. Bush tax cuts: the very wealthy, and it would actually end up costing middle-class people because the loopholes that would be closed and the deductions that would be eliminated would cost middle-class people more than they would save from his announced across-the-board 20% tax cut.
His tax cut would decrease the amount of money that would be available for essential government programs, while giving yet bigger tax breaks for the very wealthy.
Moreover, part of his plan calls for eliminating deductions and loopholes. He would eliminate tax deductions that would hurt the middle class more than they hurt anyone else. I'm referring to deductions like the deduction for interest payments people make for their mortgage. Also, deductions for college tuition payments would be eliminated. And deductions for charitable contributions. I haven't seen any more specifics about deductions he would eliminate, but one thing that is clear is that Romney's tax plan would still benefit the very wealthy.
I'm writing this blog partly because I saw Bill Clinton's video about Romney's $5 trillion tax cut plan --which is the core of his economic plan. I recommend that video. It is a cogent and clear explanation of the problem with Romney's plan. If you have seen my facebook post last night about that video, you know something about this already. But it is important to put his plan in historical perspective, in perspective relative to his campaign for the Republican nomination, but most importantly, in perspective relative to the George W. Bush administration's economic policies.
What is so unnerving about hearing Mr. Romney saying that he is for Big Change is that his change, as noted above, is to, as Rachel Maddow would say, to simply double-down on the same basic economic policy as George W. Bush. Bush's mantra was that we needed to cut taxes for the very wealthy people at the top of the income scale, the "job creators." And they in turn would use that tax cut to hire more people for their businesses. Republicans continue to this day to use the "job creator" mantra when referring to the people with vast wealth in the country.
There is only one problem with this logic. As stated before, it doesn't work. If it did work, we would not have had the Great Depression; if it did work, Reagan would not have gotten us out of the recession in his administration by raising taxes (and raising taxes did help the economy.) If it did work, we would not have had such a low rate of job creation during George W. Bush's administration, and--because the Republicans, by their extreme intransigence in legislative matters--during the present administration. Luckily, President Obama has been able to pass some legislation, despite the Republicans' attempts to block everything he proposes. There was a stimulus in 2009--which Republicans reviled, and which they have unfailingly taken credit for when they go home to their constituencies. The stimulus, which Republicans in Washington always refer to as the "failed stimulus," was not nearly as much stimulus as Obama and the Democrats would have liked. In a desperate attempt to get Republicans to vote for it, the Democrats cut the amount of money actually going to stimulus and instead included tax cuts as part of the legislation.
When Romney talks about change, he gets a certain amount of traction with people who want to believe that voting for him will make things better for them. And lots of people would like things to get better--I think we would all like things to improve. Let's face it: it is taking a long time to recover from Bush's tax policies. But while Mitt Romney blames the slow economic growth on President Obama and his policies, it is not President Obama's fault. It is the fault of the Republican Congress that has blocked almost all of the President's proposed legislative initiatives that are intended to create jobs: transportation bills; farm bills; job-training bills; infrastructure bills . . . there are others, but I'm not trying to list every one, just a few examples.
I apologize in advance for repeating the following, but it is extremely relevant: Republican Senator and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said publicly in 2009 that his most important goal during President Obama's presidency was to insure that the President would be a one-term president. What I didn't say the last time I wrote those words was that there was also a meeting of key Republican congressional leaders after the 2008 election, in which those leaders --as reported by Sam Stein, based on Robert Draper's book Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives--met on the night of Obama's inauguration to set a direction for their legislative agenda during his presidency.
According to Draper, the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). The non-lawmakers present included Newt Gingrich, several years removed from his presidential campaign, and Frank Luntz, the long-time Republican wordsmith. Notably absent were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) -- who, Draper writes, had an acrimonious relationship with Luntz.
Thus was born the policy that led to the filibusters and threats of filibusters; the challenging of every legislative initiative; the attempts to discredit or otherwise diminish the legislative clout of various Democratic members of congress. As noted by Stein in his article and Draper in his book, some opposition to the Democratic agenda was undoubtedly genuine idealogical disagreement. But the now-tiresome proclamation of "legislative gridlock" since the election of President Obama is undeniable evidence of the determination of the Republican leadership to keep Obama from succeeding. In Draper's book he asserts that the Republicans at that inauguration-night meeting was to do everything possible to make Obama fail, specifically so that they could defeat his re-election bid in 2012.
And that is where we are right now. But that will only happen if all the independents who have to decide whether they can believe Romney's claim that he will improve the lot of most Americans are swayed by the virtual avalanche of advertising that paints him as a benevolent, effective leader, despite the reality--that his tax and economic policy are simply an extension of George W. Bush's tax and economic policy.
A few brief facts that also apply here:
Another part of Mr. Romney's tax plan entails eliminating the Estate Tax. That is the tax on money left by someone who dies to his or her heirs. Currently, there is an exemption on the first $250,000 that someone might inherit. I don't know about you, but most middle-class people are not seriously affected by this tax. And George W. Bush tried repeatedly to eliminate this tax. It is a tax on the very wealthy.
Yet another part of Mr. Romney's tax plan calls for eliminating the Capital Gains tax. In a speech he has given recently, and in one of the debates as well, Mr. Romney mentioned very briefly that his tax plan would ease the burden on the middle class, partly by eliminating the tax on their capital gains. I am sure Mr. Romney must think of himself as the typical American. Certainly for him, eliminating Capital Gains tax would be very helpful to his fortune. But how many middle-class families really have to worry about tax on their capital gains. On their investments. He's not talking about the middle class. He's talking about the wealthy--those who already have enough money so that they can afford to invest money that can grow from capital gains, that is an increase in the value of stocks and bonds that they already hold. Once again, as is true of so many of his proposed policies, he is thinking of what he would benefit from, but not what will benefit most Americans. It is all part of his Conservative philosophy, and Paul Ryan's philosophy, which is informed by the writings of Ayn Rand--the greatest influence over Ryan's political philosophy, as he stated on more than one occasion, until the Catholic Church criticized him for espousing policies that were not at all Christian in their effects on those who most need help in the world. Ryan then renounced Ayn Rand, denying he had ever espoused her "godless," "atheistic" philosophy. But he has not really renounced it. He still requires all his legislative aides to read her works. Her philosophy, "objectivism" basically says that one must think first of oneself in order to to the most good in the world. This is not a precept that agrees with the concept of the United States which has enabled people to rise from poverty into the middle class and become productive members of society. It is a philosophy that is beneficial to those who already have what they need. For all others, this philosophy says, effectively, "Sorry. I got mine. If you would just try harder, you'd get yours, too." It's a philosophy that is appealing to the haves of the world. Like Mitt Romney, who famously, when talking about his cars, spoke blithely of his cars, and his wife Ann's cars. She only has a couple Cadillacs.
In what world do most couples have at least four cars, two of them Caddys?
Romney also has claimed that he would save Medicare, and that President is destroying Medicare. For the record, Obamacare calls for savings to Medicare that come from increased efficiency, not from reduced benefits to patients, while Romney's plan--really Paul Ryan's plan, but one must assume that if they win, it will be Romney's too--would change Medicare by introducing vouchers that would be given to seniors annually, approximately $8000, with which the seniors then would have to purchase private health insurance from insurance companies.
This policy would essentially, for everyone who is currently younger than 55 years old, end Medicare as we have known it for the past decades. No matter what Romney says, that is what his plan means.
The differences between Romney and Obama are so huge it is terrifying to me that so many people have been so ensorcelled by his propaganda that they no longer can see how destructive his policies would be to their lives. I am reminded of the very funny, very sad Onion headline from just after Election Day, 2004: "Millions re-elect Bush, Voting Against Their Own Best Interest." That may not be an exact quotation, but that was the gist. It would be tragic if the same happened this year, if Mitt Romney wins. Millions tricked into believing he is for them would rue the day as soon as he was able to get any legislation passed.
And lastly: Not only did Ronald Reagan abandon his "supply-side" economics in favor of tax increases to stimulate the economy and to attempt to balance the budget. His budget director, David Stockman, repudiated the policy years after the Reagan administration.
It just doesn't work.
He was right. The only way Reagan's economic policies could have worked was in a fantasy world where magic works.
This is all too relevant today, as Mitt Romney has managed, by clever ads, the bullying tactics he used in the first presidential debate, and by making vague promises based on utterly specious arguments, to make the current election for President much closer than it should be.
It is fascinating in a rather appalling way, to see (according to polls) millions of Americans who were underwhelmed by Mitt Romney for at least a year while he was campaigning for the Republican nomination and even after he won the nomination now being swayed by his feel-good ads and speeches, and by his fact-free attacks on President Obama's performance.
The facts are this: Mitt Romney has always promised, no matter how he dresses it up, to bring back voodoo economics. Call it supply-side economics, or call it what many people have called it for decades: trickle-down economics. It is the same thing. And it doesn't work. It has never worked. It didn't work for Ronald Reagan; it didn't work for Herbert Hoover; it didn't work for George W. Bush. And when I say "bring back voodoo economics" that isn't really true. Because as long as the Bush tax cuts continue in force, we are still operating on a voodoo economics system, thanks to our Republicans in Congress.
Voodoo economics works for the people who are already wealthy. Which suits Mr. Romney and his base--the very wealthy--just fine.
Recently, he has decided, in a brilliant campaign strategy, to claim that he represents "Change." Not just change, but big change. Which might be humorous if it wasn't so utterly false and self-serving.
In fact, what he proposes is not change at all. He proposes more of what has gotten us into the economic doldrums since the Bush tax cuts. He wants more tax cuts. For everyone. And he makes it sound as if his plan would benefit the middle class. Whereas in fact, the way he has structured his tax cut, the people who would benefit the most are the people who have already been benefitting from the George W. Bush tax cuts: the very wealthy, and it would actually end up costing middle-class people because the loopholes that would be closed and the deductions that would be eliminated would cost middle-class people more than they would save from his announced across-the-board 20% tax cut.
His tax cut would decrease the amount of money that would be available for essential government programs, while giving yet bigger tax breaks for the very wealthy.
Moreover, part of his plan calls for eliminating deductions and loopholes. He would eliminate tax deductions that would hurt the middle class more than they hurt anyone else. I'm referring to deductions like the deduction for interest payments people make for their mortgage. Also, deductions for college tuition payments would be eliminated. And deductions for charitable contributions. I haven't seen any more specifics about deductions he would eliminate, but one thing that is clear is that Romney's tax plan would still benefit the very wealthy.
I'm writing this blog partly because I saw Bill Clinton's video about Romney's $5 trillion tax cut plan --which is the core of his economic plan. I recommend that video. It is a cogent and clear explanation of the problem with Romney's plan. If you have seen my facebook post last night about that video, you know something about this already. But it is important to put his plan in historical perspective, in perspective relative to his campaign for the Republican nomination, but most importantly, in perspective relative to the George W. Bush administration's economic policies.
What is so unnerving about hearing Mr. Romney saying that he is for Big Change is that his change, as noted above, is to, as Rachel Maddow would say, to simply double-down on the same basic economic policy as George W. Bush. Bush's mantra was that we needed to cut taxes for the very wealthy people at the top of the income scale, the "job creators." And they in turn would use that tax cut to hire more people for their businesses. Republicans continue to this day to use the "job creator" mantra when referring to the people with vast wealth in the country.
There is only one problem with this logic. As stated before, it doesn't work. If it did work, we would not have had the Great Depression; if it did work, Reagan would not have gotten us out of the recession in his administration by raising taxes (and raising taxes did help the economy.) If it did work, we would not have had such a low rate of job creation during George W. Bush's administration, and--because the Republicans, by their extreme intransigence in legislative matters--during the present administration. Luckily, President Obama has been able to pass some legislation, despite the Republicans' attempts to block everything he proposes. There was a stimulus in 2009--which Republicans reviled, and which they have unfailingly taken credit for when they go home to their constituencies. The stimulus, which Republicans in Washington always refer to as the "failed stimulus," was not nearly as much stimulus as Obama and the Democrats would have liked. In a desperate attempt to get Republicans to vote for it, the Democrats cut the amount of money actually going to stimulus and instead included tax cuts as part of the legislation.
When Romney talks about change, he gets a certain amount of traction with people who want to believe that voting for him will make things better for them. And lots of people would like things to get better--I think we would all like things to improve. Let's face it: it is taking a long time to recover from Bush's tax policies. But while Mitt Romney blames the slow economic growth on President Obama and his policies, it is not President Obama's fault. It is the fault of the Republican Congress that has blocked almost all of the President's proposed legislative initiatives that are intended to create jobs: transportation bills; farm bills; job-training bills; infrastructure bills . . . there are others, but I'm not trying to list every one, just a few examples.
I apologize in advance for repeating the following, but it is extremely relevant: Republican Senator and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said publicly in 2009 that his most important goal during President Obama's presidency was to insure that the President would be a one-term president. What I didn't say the last time I wrote those words was that there was also a meeting of key Republican congressional leaders after the 2008 election, in which those leaders --as reported by Sam Stein, based on Robert Draper's book Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives--met on the night of Obama's inauguration to set a direction for their legislative agenda during his presidency.
According to Draper, the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). The non-lawmakers present included Newt Gingrich, several years removed from his presidential campaign, and Frank Luntz, the long-time Republican wordsmith. Notably absent were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) -- who, Draper writes, had an acrimonious relationship with Luntz.
Thus was born the policy that led to the filibusters and threats of filibusters; the challenging of every legislative initiative; the attempts to discredit or otherwise diminish the legislative clout of various Democratic members of congress. As noted by Stein in his article and Draper in his book, some opposition to the Democratic agenda was undoubtedly genuine idealogical disagreement. But the now-tiresome proclamation of "legislative gridlock" since the election of President Obama is undeniable evidence of the determination of the Republican leadership to keep Obama from succeeding. In Draper's book he asserts that the Republicans at that inauguration-night meeting was to do everything possible to make Obama fail, specifically so that they could defeat his re-election bid in 2012.
And that is where we are right now. But that will only happen if all the independents who have to decide whether they can believe Romney's claim that he will improve the lot of most Americans are swayed by the virtual avalanche of advertising that paints him as a benevolent, effective leader, despite the reality--that his tax and economic policy are simply an extension of George W. Bush's tax and economic policy.
A few brief facts that also apply here:
Another part of Mr. Romney's tax plan entails eliminating the Estate Tax. That is the tax on money left by someone who dies to his or her heirs. Currently, there is an exemption on the first $250,000 that someone might inherit. I don't know about you, but most middle-class people are not seriously affected by this tax. And George W. Bush tried repeatedly to eliminate this tax. It is a tax on the very wealthy.
Yet another part of Mr. Romney's tax plan calls for eliminating the Capital Gains tax. In a speech he has given recently, and in one of the debates as well, Mr. Romney mentioned very briefly that his tax plan would ease the burden on the middle class, partly by eliminating the tax on their capital gains. I am sure Mr. Romney must think of himself as the typical American. Certainly for him, eliminating Capital Gains tax would be very helpful to his fortune. But how many middle-class families really have to worry about tax on their capital gains. On their investments. He's not talking about the middle class. He's talking about the wealthy--those who already have enough money so that they can afford to invest money that can grow from capital gains, that is an increase in the value of stocks and bonds that they already hold. Once again, as is true of so many of his proposed policies, he is thinking of what he would benefit from, but not what will benefit most Americans. It is all part of his Conservative philosophy, and Paul Ryan's philosophy, which is informed by the writings of Ayn Rand--the greatest influence over Ryan's political philosophy, as he stated on more than one occasion, until the Catholic Church criticized him for espousing policies that were not at all Christian in their effects on those who most need help in the world. Ryan then renounced Ayn Rand, denying he had ever espoused her "godless," "atheistic" philosophy. But he has not really renounced it. He still requires all his legislative aides to read her works. Her philosophy, "objectivism" basically says that one must think first of oneself in order to to the most good in the world. This is not a precept that agrees with the concept of the United States which has enabled people to rise from poverty into the middle class and become productive members of society. It is a philosophy that is beneficial to those who already have what they need. For all others, this philosophy says, effectively, "Sorry. I got mine. If you would just try harder, you'd get yours, too." It's a philosophy that is appealing to the haves of the world. Like Mitt Romney, who famously, when talking about his cars, spoke blithely of his cars, and his wife Ann's cars. She only has a couple Cadillacs.
In what world do most couples have at least four cars, two of them Caddys?
Romney also has claimed that he would save Medicare, and that President is destroying Medicare. For the record, Obamacare calls for savings to Medicare that come from increased efficiency, not from reduced benefits to patients, while Romney's plan--really Paul Ryan's plan, but one must assume that if they win, it will be Romney's too--would change Medicare by introducing vouchers that would be given to seniors annually, approximately $8000, with which the seniors then would have to purchase private health insurance from insurance companies.
This policy would essentially, for everyone who is currently younger than 55 years old, end Medicare as we have known it for the past decades. No matter what Romney says, that is what his plan means.
The differences between Romney and Obama are so huge it is terrifying to me that so many people have been so ensorcelled by his propaganda that they no longer can see how destructive his policies would be to their lives. I am reminded of the very funny, very sad Onion headline from just after Election Day, 2004: "Millions re-elect Bush, Voting Against Their Own Best Interest." That may not be an exact quotation, but that was the gist. It would be tragic if the same happened this year, if Mitt Romney wins. Millions tricked into believing he is for them would rue the day as soon as he was able to get any legislation passed.
And lastly: Not only did Ronald Reagan abandon his "supply-side" economics in favor of tax increases to stimulate the economy and to attempt to balance the budget. His budget director, David Stockman, repudiated the policy years after the Reagan administration.
It just doesn't work.
Friday, October 26, 2012
What Romney and his friends don't tell you
I've was away more than I was home for the past month, and have only been back since last Sunday night. I have seen a lot of political ads on television, though, in Ohio, and when I've been home, in Wisconsin. There are differences in the regional ads: in Ohio, Sherrod Brown gets trashed a lot by various Republican ads; here in Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin gets trashed by the same Republican organizations, in eerily similar ads. And of course, in both places, President Obama gets trashed as well.
The local ads are worth discussing, but for now I want to concentrate on the Republicans' national messaging, and how people who don't know the full background of the people sponsoring the messaging can understand what is really going on.
For people who don't understand where these ads are coming from, i can only think they must wonder how the world has not yet come to an end. If one is to believe all these incredibly negative ads, they pound certain themes:
The economy has gone into terrible decline on President Obama's watch.
His administration is the "status quo" and he has no plan for the next four years to make things better.
Mitt Romney will make things better for everyone. He will bring the "big change" we need to turn the economy around.
The messages above, and the many variations on these themes suggest that President Obama has utterly failed as a President. But every one of these messages is false, for several reasons.
First of all, let's just look at who actually pays for these messages, and what possible reasons they could have for spending the hundreds of millons of dollars they have spent to create and air them:
Some of the ads are run by the Romney campaign, or the National Republican Party. O.K. They are understandably partisan for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. I'll come back to them.
Other ads are run by various patriotic sounding or forward-sounding organizations:
Crossroads GPS, Restore our Future and Americans for Prosperity are two of the bigger sponsors of ads that criticize the President for being either ineffective, clueless or simply unable to deliver on promises because of some intrinsic personality flaw.
Why are these ads being run? Both organizations, and others with a similar agenda, have disclaimers that run with each ad stating that they are not authorized by any political party or candidate. Yet with utter consistency they advocate against a single candidate: President Barack Obama.
One of these, Crossroads GPS is run by Karl Rove. If you don't think he is a political parisan, you haven't been paying attention. He was known, during the George W. Bush administration, as Bush's Brain, and he has been a key Republican political operative for more than a decade on the national stage, and longer than that in Texas. He is a commentator for Fox News, but I would not say this qualifies him as non-partisan. When I think of a news organization, I think of reporters who investigate stories, and don't rush to spread specious, barely possible rumors from partisan, extremist bloggers or other internet sites. Yet Fox News has repeatedly picked up and run with stories that accuse one or another Democrat of one crime or misdeed or another, only to have it subsequently be proven that the story was either utterly false, or seriously flawed by half-truths or cleverly edited video clips that created a deliberately false impression.
But even if one can excuse sloppy journalism, what is inexcusable about a news organization that propagates such true-fact-free news is that they never, ever correct their false stories. They never issue apologies or admit that they made a mistake. I'm sorry. That is simply not what a news organization should do. And for an organization with the word "News" in their name, that is not a good sign.
So Mr. Rove, who is an acknowledged booster of all things Republican, is in charge of Crossroads, and Crossroads GPS. And all their ads are basically "anti-Democratic-party" ads. But they say that these ads are not authorized by any political party or candidate. They can say that, and technically it is true, but only technically. In reality, his agenda is to help the Republican party defeat the Democratic Party. That's his prerogative, but for the ads to say that Crossroads, GPS or not, is not affiliated with a political party is only true in that technical sense. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but has a label that says, "not a duck" . . . draw your own conclusions.
Then there is Americans for Prosperity. Who are these patriotic sounding people? Well, the prime movers behind this "non-partisan" organization is the Koch brothers, whose father was one of the founders of the John Birch Society, and who own their own very large Oil company, as well as the Union Pacific Railroad and other corporate interests. When an ad run by Americans for Prosperity talks about creating jobs, or about the failure of President Obama's economic program, they are not non-partisan. When here in Wisconsin Governor Walker came into office and with a Republican majority in both houses of the State Legislature began to reshape Wisconsin's agenda by such measures as rejecting the $800 million the federal government had given to Wisconsin for a high-speed rail line from Madison to Milwaukee, mandating an abstinence-only sex education regime for our schools, an making it illegal for public-employee unions to negotiate with the government, Americans for Prosperity was behind the governor, running ads in support of his programs, and more to the point, paying for tens of millions of dollars of ads against the democratic candidates running in recall elections against Walker and various Republican State Senators. Americans for Prosperity claims to be in favor of jobs for Americans, but what they really support are candidates who support their own causes--tax breaks for big corporations and tax cuts for the very wealthy. They are strenuously anti-union, and when they talk about "tax breaks for the middle class" what they really mean is tax breaks for everyone . . . including the wealthiest--the very wealthiest--people in the country, who have done very well the past ten years or so, since the Bush tax cuts were passed into law.
Restore Our Future was started by Charles Spies, a Mitt Romney aide, in 2010, and has raised more than $50 million dollars in the past two years to advocate against Romney's political rivals, including at least #20 million from Sheldon Adelson, the casino owner and operator, as well as tens of millions of dollars from Wall Street investment funds.
The subject of this post was What Romney and his friends don't tell you. And while I've dealt with the identities of some of the many organizations that are running ads for Mr. Romney or against the President, I haven't really said what they don't tell you. Here's some of what they don't tell you:
When their ads talk about the state of the economy, they always fail to mention exactly why the economy is not as vigorous as any of us would like. They never mention simple, large contributing factors such as the fact that the congress has been locked in stalemate since Obama was elected. Why has there been legislative stalemate? Well, in 2009, Mitch O'Connell, the Republican Minority Leader in the Senate stated publicly that his single biggest goal during the Obama administration was to ensure that Barack Obama would be a one-term president. And to try to achieve that goal, the Republicans in the Senate have engaged in many filibusters to prevent legislation from being passed.
Now, there have been filibusters in the Senate for many years. But never in such numbers. If you look at a chart at the number of filibusters by year, you'll find that in the past few years the number of filibusters or threatened filibusters to block legislation has skyrocketed. Some of these actions have been to block judicial or other administration appointments, such as the appointment of the first head of the new Consumer Protection Agency. But many of them blocked jobs bills, tax bills, transportation bills, infrastructure bills, farm aid bills . . . the list goes on and on. So when the ads that accuse President Obama of not being able to improve the economy or cut unemployment, they are being entirely disingenuous by omitting the fact that the congress has made it almost impossible for the President to pass the vast majority of the economy-helpful measures he quite reasonably expected to see enacted during his first term in office.
Exactly why the Republican Party has been so rigorously obstructionist is a matter one can debate. But considering McConnell's avowed goal in 2009, it is not difficult to see a simple motivation: A sluggish economy is the single biggest reason for voters to reject a second term by a sitting president. And with the enormous deficit rolled up during the George W. Bush administration by a combination of two wars, the cost of which Bush literally simply left out of his budgets, and the tax cuts he initiated which cut revenues, coupled with the terrible financial crisis and $700 million Wall Street bailout and mortgage market collapse in late 2008, President Obama was faced with not a bad economy, but a really terrible economy, giving the Republicans a clear opportunity to take advantage of poor economic conditions to retake the White House.
Their strategy worked in 2010 in the House of Representatives, when the Tea Party, another disingenuously concocted organization funded largely by Dick Armey, a former Republican congressman via his FreedomWorks organization. Claiming to be a grassroots organization, in fact, FreedomWorks received more than a million dollars via Armey's lobbying firm DLA Piper from pharmaceutical and health insurance companies. In 2009, when the administration was trying to pass healthcare reform, Rachel Maddow accused FreedomWorks of inciting Tea Party members and others to disrupt the town hall meetings being held by Democratic members of Congress, for the purpose of distracting the electorate from the real issues and instead focusing attention on a series of specious, anti-administration issues, with signs such as those that equated the President with Adolph Hitler, or with loudly shouted protests, like the bizarre plea: "Keep your hands off my Medicare" from someone who clearly didn't understand that Medicare was a program run by the government . . . the same government from which he wanted to protect his Medicare.
My point is simply that the Republicans have been using a wide range of tactics, executed by a number of different organizations, only a few of which I've mentioned here. I won't say that there are no organizations working for the Democrats. However, the campaign ads that I have seen from the left, while some of them have questioned the character of Mitt Romney, have not been the same kind of utterly disingenuous ads the Republicans and their allies have employed against the President.
But what Romney does not tell you, which to my mind is worse than the ads that are shown for the benefit of his campaign, is that when he talks, whether it is during a debate, in a stump speech, or in his own ads (though I have noted that he seldom if ever speaks in his ads), a lot of what he says is either extremely vague:
"We need big change to get the country moving forward again," for example, is one of his big lines lately. What is fascinating and somewhat horrifying about this particular line is that it seems clearly to be an attempt to co-opt one of President Obama's biggest buzzwords from 2008, Change" and also a basic progressive buzzword, "Forward," Wisconsin's motto, which Governor Walker also co-opted in his successful defense against the recall effort this past summer.
More troubling, though, are his utterly baseless attacks on the President, always spoken with an air of great certainty and confidence. These include the accusation that unemployment is increasing under President Obama, which is not true. In fact, the unemployment rate is under 8% for the first time since before the President took office, and more than five million jobs have been created in the past four years; also, In fact, if the Republican obstructionists in Congress had not been so effective in blocking legislation (and also in changing the stimulus of 2009 from one of primarily one which gave money to the states for various projects to one which had a large tax-cut as a component) there would have been a significantly greater number of people in government jobs than there are now, which in turn would have reduced the unemployment rate and stimulated the economy to a significantly greater extent than has been possible in the absence of the blocked legislation.
These are just two assertions by Romney or his campaign that are verifiably untrue. But most people don't have the combination of resources, time, and desire to look into the claims of negative ads or campaign rhetoric.
So, for example, when Romney ads criticize the President for the "status quo" they neglect to mention that the "status quo" --of economic underperformance and high unemployment--was a product of the Bush administration's policies, and has been perpetuated by Republican obstruction of legislative initiatives in Congress. Nor do Romney or his ads acknowledge that the economy has been waking up, slowly, but steadily, despite the deliberate obstruction of measures in congress that would hasten a bigger recovery.
These are just the tip of the iceberg of what Romney and his friends aren't telling you. But he and those friends have amassed, thanks to the unshackling of huge, anonymous donations by corporations, an enormous amount of money for ads in these last eleven days before the election. so there will be lots more of the vicious attacks.
But maybe if we all tell everyone we know about how false these ads and Romney's stump speeches are, how fact-free are his blithe assertions; how full of guile and subtle but false emotional appeals are the ads . . . maybe we can allow the truth of the situation to be what people understand when they go to the polls.
The local ads are worth discussing, but for now I want to concentrate on the Republicans' national messaging, and how people who don't know the full background of the people sponsoring the messaging can understand what is really going on.
For people who don't understand where these ads are coming from, i can only think they must wonder how the world has not yet come to an end. If one is to believe all these incredibly negative ads, they pound certain themes:
The economy has gone into terrible decline on President Obama's watch.
His administration is the "status quo" and he has no plan for the next four years to make things better.
Mitt Romney will make things better for everyone. He will bring the "big change" we need to turn the economy around.
The messages above, and the many variations on these themes suggest that President Obama has utterly failed as a President. But every one of these messages is false, for several reasons.
First of all, let's just look at who actually pays for these messages, and what possible reasons they could have for spending the hundreds of millons of dollars they have spent to create and air them:
Some of the ads are run by the Romney campaign, or the National Republican Party. O.K. They are understandably partisan for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. I'll come back to them.
Other ads are run by various patriotic sounding or forward-sounding organizations:
Crossroads GPS, Restore our Future and Americans for Prosperity are two of the bigger sponsors of ads that criticize the President for being either ineffective, clueless or simply unable to deliver on promises because of some intrinsic personality flaw.
Why are these ads being run? Both organizations, and others with a similar agenda, have disclaimers that run with each ad stating that they are not authorized by any political party or candidate. Yet with utter consistency they advocate against a single candidate: President Barack Obama.
One of these, Crossroads GPS is run by Karl Rove. If you don't think he is a political parisan, you haven't been paying attention. He was known, during the George W. Bush administration, as Bush's Brain, and he has been a key Republican political operative for more than a decade on the national stage, and longer than that in Texas. He is a commentator for Fox News, but I would not say this qualifies him as non-partisan. When I think of a news organization, I think of reporters who investigate stories, and don't rush to spread specious, barely possible rumors from partisan, extremist bloggers or other internet sites. Yet Fox News has repeatedly picked up and run with stories that accuse one or another Democrat of one crime or misdeed or another, only to have it subsequently be proven that the story was either utterly false, or seriously flawed by half-truths or cleverly edited video clips that created a deliberately false impression.
But even if one can excuse sloppy journalism, what is inexcusable about a news organization that propagates such true-fact-free news is that they never, ever correct their false stories. They never issue apologies or admit that they made a mistake. I'm sorry. That is simply not what a news organization should do. And for an organization with the word "News" in their name, that is not a good sign.
So Mr. Rove, who is an acknowledged booster of all things Republican, is in charge of Crossroads, and Crossroads GPS. And all their ads are basically "anti-Democratic-party" ads. But they say that these ads are not authorized by any political party or candidate. They can say that, and technically it is true, but only technically. In reality, his agenda is to help the Republican party defeat the Democratic Party. That's his prerogative, but for the ads to say that Crossroads, GPS or not, is not affiliated with a political party is only true in that technical sense. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but has a label that says, "not a duck" . . . draw your own conclusions.
Then there is Americans for Prosperity. Who are these patriotic sounding people? Well, the prime movers behind this "non-partisan" organization is the Koch brothers, whose father was one of the founders of the John Birch Society, and who own their own very large Oil company, as well as the Union Pacific Railroad and other corporate interests. When an ad run by Americans for Prosperity talks about creating jobs, or about the failure of President Obama's economic program, they are not non-partisan. When here in Wisconsin Governor Walker came into office and with a Republican majority in both houses of the State Legislature began to reshape Wisconsin's agenda by such measures as rejecting the $800 million the federal government had given to Wisconsin for a high-speed rail line from Madison to Milwaukee, mandating an abstinence-only sex education regime for our schools, an making it illegal for public-employee unions to negotiate with the government, Americans for Prosperity was behind the governor, running ads in support of his programs, and more to the point, paying for tens of millions of dollars of ads against the democratic candidates running in recall elections against Walker and various Republican State Senators. Americans for Prosperity claims to be in favor of jobs for Americans, but what they really support are candidates who support their own causes--tax breaks for big corporations and tax cuts for the very wealthy. They are strenuously anti-union, and when they talk about "tax breaks for the middle class" what they really mean is tax breaks for everyone . . . including the wealthiest--the very wealthiest--people in the country, who have done very well the past ten years or so, since the Bush tax cuts were passed into law.
Restore Our Future was started by Charles Spies, a Mitt Romney aide, in 2010, and has raised more than $50 million dollars in the past two years to advocate against Romney's political rivals, including at least #20 million from Sheldon Adelson, the casino owner and operator, as well as tens of millions of dollars from Wall Street investment funds.
The subject of this post was What Romney and his friends don't tell you. And while I've dealt with the identities of some of the many organizations that are running ads for Mr. Romney or against the President, I haven't really said what they don't tell you. Here's some of what they don't tell you:
When their ads talk about the state of the economy, they always fail to mention exactly why the economy is not as vigorous as any of us would like. They never mention simple, large contributing factors such as the fact that the congress has been locked in stalemate since Obama was elected. Why has there been legislative stalemate? Well, in 2009, Mitch O'Connell, the Republican Minority Leader in the Senate stated publicly that his single biggest goal during the Obama administration was to ensure that Barack Obama would be a one-term president. And to try to achieve that goal, the Republicans in the Senate have engaged in many filibusters to prevent legislation from being passed.
Now, there have been filibusters in the Senate for many years. But never in such numbers. If you look at a chart at the number of filibusters by year, you'll find that in the past few years the number of filibusters or threatened filibusters to block legislation has skyrocketed. Some of these actions have been to block judicial or other administration appointments, such as the appointment of the first head of the new Consumer Protection Agency. But many of them blocked jobs bills, tax bills, transportation bills, infrastructure bills, farm aid bills . . . the list goes on and on. So when the ads that accuse President Obama of not being able to improve the economy or cut unemployment, they are being entirely disingenuous by omitting the fact that the congress has made it almost impossible for the President to pass the vast majority of the economy-helpful measures he quite reasonably expected to see enacted during his first term in office.
Exactly why the Republican Party has been so rigorously obstructionist is a matter one can debate. But considering McConnell's avowed goal in 2009, it is not difficult to see a simple motivation: A sluggish economy is the single biggest reason for voters to reject a second term by a sitting president. And with the enormous deficit rolled up during the George W. Bush administration by a combination of two wars, the cost of which Bush literally simply left out of his budgets, and the tax cuts he initiated which cut revenues, coupled with the terrible financial crisis and $700 million Wall Street bailout and mortgage market collapse in late 2008, President Obama was faced with not a bad economy, but a really terrible economy, giving the Republicans a clear opportunity to take advantage of poor economic conditions to retake the White House.
Their strategy worked in 2010 in the House of Representatives, when the Tea Party, another disingenuously concocted organization funded largely by Dick Armey, a former Republican congressman via his FreedomWorks organization. Claiming to be a grassroots organization, in fact, FreedomWorks received more than a million dollars via Armey's lobbying firm DLA Piper from pharmaceutical and health insurance companies. In 2009, when the administration was trying to pass healthcare reform, Rachel Maddow accused FreedomWorks of inciting Tea Party members and others to disrupt the town hall meetings being held by Democratic members of Congress, for the purpose of distracting the electorate from the real issues and instead focusing attention on a series of specious, anti-administration issues, with signs such as those that equated the President with Adolph Hitler, or with loudly shouted protests, like the bizarre plea: "Keep your hands off my Medicare" from someone who clearly didn't understand that Medicare was a program run by the government . . . the same government from which he wanted to protect his Medicare.
My point is simply that the Republicans have been using a wide range of tactics, executed by a number of different organizations, only a few of which I've mentioned here. I won't say that there are no organizations working for the Democrats. However, the campaign ads that I have seen from the left, while some of them have questioned the character of Mitt Romney, have not been the same kind of utterly disingenuous ads the Republicans and their allies have employed against the President.
But what Romney does not tell you, which to my mind is worse than the ads that are shown for the benefit of his campaign, is that when he talks, whether it is during a debate, in a stump speech, or in his own ads (though I have noted that he seldom if ever speaks in his ads), a lot of what he says is either extremely vague:
"We need big change to get the country moving forward again," for example, is one of his big lines lately. What is fascinating and somewhat horrifying about this particular line is that it seems clearly to be an attempt to co-opt one of President Obama's biggest buzzwords from 2008, Change" and also a basic progressive buzzword, "Forward," Wisconsin's motto, which Governor Walker also co-opted in his successful defense against the recall effort this past summer.
More troubling, though, are his utterly baseless attacks on the President, always spoken with an air of great certainty and confidence. These include the accusation that unemployment is increasing under President Obama, which is not true. In fact, the unemployment rate is under 8% for the first time since before the President took office, and more than five million jobs have been created in the past four years; also, In fact, if the Republican obstructionists in Congress had not been so effective in blocking legislation (and also in changing the stimulus of 2009 from one of primarily one which gave money to the states for various projects to one which had a large tax-cut as a component) there would have been a significantly greater number of people in government jobs than there are now, which in turn would have reduced the unemployment rate and stimulated the economy to a significantly greater extent than has been possible in the absence of the blocked legislation.
These are just two assertions by Romney or his campaign that are verifiably untrue. But most people don't have the combination of resources, time, and desire to look into the claims of negative ads or campaign rhetoric.
So, for example, when Romney ads criticize the President for the "status quo" they neglect to mention that the "status quo" --of economic underperformance and high unemployment--was a product of the Bush administration's policies, and has been perpetuated by Republican obstruction of legislative initiatives in Congress. Nor do Romney or his ads acknowledge that the economy has been waking up, slowly, but steadily, despite the deliberate obstruction of measures in congress that would hasten a bigger recovery.
These are just the tip of the iceberg of what Romney and his friends aren't telling you. But he and those friends have amassed, thanks to the unshackling of huge, anonymous donations by corporations, an enormous amount of money for ads in these last eleven days before the election. so there will be lots more of the vicious attacks.
But maybe if we all tell everyone we know about how false these ads and Romney's stump speeches are, how fact-free are his blithe assertions; how full of guile and subtle but false emotional appeals are the ads . . . maybe we can allow the truth of the situation to be what people understand when they go to the polls.
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