Plenty of Progressives, Greens and other Democrats don't much like President Obama, partly because when they pulled the lever in 2008, they'd thought he was more their kind of guy. It's not hard to find some who say there's really no difference between him and Mitt Romney -- that they're both corporatists taking this country to the same place.
Stuff and nonsense, I say. This country can't afford any more Republican governments steering the ship of state on the rocks. That goes double if they refuse to discuss the past -- as if ignoring the past didn't condemn us to repeat it.
So here are two great reasons to vote the straight Democratic ticket in November, whether or not you feel Obama's problem is that he 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. They'll either set the right wing agenda in cement, or fight it. Do you really want to look back on Citizens United and Sheldon Adelson as the golden age of participatory democracy and judicial restraint?
Second: Based on his behavior so far, President Mitt Romney will be entirely in the grip of the most extreme elements of the right wing, and will double down on the agenda that's brought America to the current pass. He's said so. To paraphrase Antony in Julius Caesar, Romney is an honorable man -- so are they all, all honorable men.
And while right wingers always change the subject or deny it when it's raised, the truth is that what's brought the ordinary American's life to its current state has been 30 years of Republican-sponsored, right wing ideas about government, taxes, society, and what's good enough for the average American. They don't have to like it. But the facts remain.
The question isn't the facts. They're what they are. The question is how any patriotic American could keep endorsing the policies that created them.
Here they are. Between 1980 and 2008, the median American family's income barely budged, but their buying power fell by more than half. In 2008 dollars, that 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, your typical American family got a pay cut of 59.63%.
In the same period, US gross domestic product per capita in 2010 Dollars grew from $12,180 in 1980 to $48,442 in 2011. This was made better -- or worse, depending -- by the fact 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.
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. There were 80.7 million households in the US in 1980 and 114.2 million households in the United States 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 -- some would say decisive--influence on America, the economy grew, but so did poverty. No trickle down benefit for typical American families, or poor folks either.
You would think that an honest man, looking honestly at figures like that and wanting the best for the whole country, would suspect there might be some connection between those facts and tax policy.
After all, cutting taxes was supposed to make life better for everybody, since 2009 Americans have been paying the smallest share of their income for taxes in 60 years, and more people than ever are struggling. That suggests lower taxes don't mean general prosperity, and that honest people might want to change their minds about how great low taxes have been for America.
But that's not where Mr. Romney and his friends come out. He says he'll cut taxes another 20%, and won't tell us how he'll make up the deficits that would create. That is, he won't just keep the Bush tax cuts, but double down on them.
Well. According to a recent study released by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities -- admittedly, a group not backed by the Koch Brothers -- just keeping the current tax policies in place would create $1 trillion annual deficits for the next decade.
."...in fact," says the study. "the economic downturn (which began under President Bush ed.), President Bush's tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years... (and) the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will account for almost half of the $20 trillion in debt that, under current policies, the nation will owe by 2019."
That's under current policies -- not cutting taxes another 20%.
The prospect of President Romney offers other reasons to vote for Obama, of course -- foreign and domestic policies writ large are only some of them.
You have to ask yourself, for instance, what sort of encouragement a Romney Administration would give to the plans of states like Louisiana, which, under the aegis of Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, wants to allow its charter schools to teach children that slavery wasn't that bad, ditto the Great Depression, dragons were real, and that they don't need to learn modern mathematics.
It's still your country. If you can keep it.
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
-Stop off shore drilling the Gulf because it is harmful to the environment.. But, I am gonna build one of the coast of Brazil because it is less harmful to the environment?
Obama has fooled everyone and if he wins again, you will see the "fundamental transformation of the United States" he promised, meaning u won't recognize anything the fore fathers set forth.
-George Washington warned that Bi-partisanship would ruin this country,
Listen to the policies of the individual, not the collective of his party.. Gay marriage and abortion are not gonna change with any president, they will constantly be issues, what we need to look at who is best to turn around this country, A MAN WHO SIGNS THE BACK OF CHECKS OBAMA
OR MAN WHO HAS SIGNED THE FRONT OF CHECKS ROMNEY, and knows business, competition, hard work that turn this economic down turn.
OBAMA IS ATTACK THE COUNTRIES PRINCIPLES AND TRYING TO TURN US OVER TO THE UN FOR ALL ANSWERS AND PROBLEMS
Get the man out of office he has done nothing, and will continue this attack on the rights and obligations of all citizens to make a country great, and continue requiring mediocrity and standardization of it..
Straight Democratic Ticket.
Dems ran deficits in 59 of those 65 years (91% of the time vs 35% of the time that reps ran deficits over the last 91 years) yet reps are responsible for the national debt?
BO wins, expect:
Unemployment rate to stay high
Poverty rates continue to climb
Economic pain and suffering continues to grow
The economy stays stuck in the crapper.
National debt will reach 20 trillion before BO's 2nd term expires.
Pretty depressing future if you ask me.
- an Obama supporter
"And while right wingers always change the subject or deny it when it's raised, the truth is that what's brought the ordinary American's life to its current state has been 30 years of Republican-sponsored, right wing ideas about government, taxes, society, and what's good enough for the average American. They don't have to like it. But the facts remain."
I have been Conservative for most of my life, but like you, I have taken a vow with myself that I will NEVER vote for the Right Wing again in my life.
Most of my family, all generations have come to the same conclusion.
Never, their actions are nothing less then treasonous and sick.
Never again.
I will be voting the party line November, hating the Democratic Party's record to date re: drones, banksters, indefinite detentions, marijuana and the coming Grand Bargain our elites have insisted upon, to the collective ruin of ordinary citizens...
But I'm not liking it much.
What about the fact that since the 79th Congress in 1945, the Democratic party has been the majority (House and Senate) in 22 of those 33 congressional election cycles. Focusing on 1979 until the 2009 inauguration of President Obama, the Democrats have had control of the House and Senate through 7 elections (5 Republican majority, 4 split House and Senate). You seem to have left this out of your entire article, and it begs the question of whether the Democrats are really at fault for the state of our country.
The mindset of some sort of "economic equality" has spent this country to the ground, not one administration. If you don't make $250k plus per year, you don't get to live that lifestyle, regardless of what some politician or bureaucratic agency says.
I very rarely ever beleave anything that is someone says when they use statistical construct the goes against common sence and leaves out things that I know to be true. Political Statistic now-a-days is just cherry picking the good things that work for your argument while leaving out the parts that don't. Obama is no leader, he has proven that over and over again. Sorry, no sale, I'm not buying it.