With the departure of Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney is sure to win the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination. His campaign has turned its focus to President Obama. The first week of April, both Obama and Romney spoke to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Their speeches previewed what we're likely to hear from their two candidates over the next seven months: very different perspectives on economic fairness.
Obama's central theme was inequality: "Can we succeed as a country where a shrinking number of people do exceedingly well while a growing number struggle to get by or are we better off when everyone gets a fair shot?" Declaring, "this is a make or break moment for the middle class." The president observed that the Democratic and Republican positions are extraordinarily different. He defends the 99 percent, while Romney favors the 1 percent.
In contrast, Romney's central theme was President Obama. "He did not cause the economic crisis but he made it worse." "President Obama's answer to the our economic crisis was more spending, more debt, and larger government."
According to a recent Pew Research Poll 61 percent of American's believe the U.S. economic system "unfairly favors the wealthy." Romney won't acknowledge this. When questioned on the Today Show about growing concern regarding economic inequality, Romney responded: "I think [this concern is] about envy. I think it's about class warfare." In his ASNE speech, the closest Romney came to responding to Obama's comments about inequality was to accuse the president of "setting up straw men to distract from his record."
Obama observed:
"What drags down our entire economy is when there's an ever-widening chasm between the ultra rich and everybody else. In this country broad-based prosperity has never trickled down from the success of a wealthy few. It has always come from the success of a strong and growing middle class."
Romney sees it differently:
"We're struggling because our government is too big. As President... I will cut marginal tax rates across the board for individuals and corporations, and limit deductions and exclusions. I will repeal burdensome regulations, and prevent the bureaucracy from writing new ones... Instead of growing the federal government, I will shrink it."
Romney's solution to America's economic malaise is a reprise of the discredited maxims of Reaganomics: government is the problem; helping the rich get richer will inevitably help everyone else; and markets are inherently self-correcting and therefore there's no need for government regulation -- whether the problem is bank fraud or polluted water.
Obama anticipated Romney's perspective:
"For much of the last century, we have been having the same argument with folks who keep peddling some version of trickle-down economics. They keep telling us that if we convert more of our investments in education and research and health care into tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, our economy will grow stronger. They keep telling us that if we just strip away more regulations, and let businesses pollute more and treat workers and consumers with impunity, that somehow we'd all be better off. We're told that when the wealthy become even wealthier and corporations are allowed to maximize their profits by whatever means necessary, it's good for America and that their success will automatically translate into more jobs and prosperity for everybody else. That's the theory... the problem for advocates of this theory is that we've tried their approach. The income of the top 1 percent has grown by more than 275 percent over the last few decades to an average of $1.3 million a year. But prosperity sure didn't trickle down. Instead, during the last decade, we had the slowest job growth in half a century. And the typical American family actually saw their incomes fall by about 6 percent, even as the economy was growing."
The 2012 Presidential election will center on economic fairness. Obama is a Democrat defending the rights of the 99 percent. Romney is a plutocrat defending the rights of the 1 percent. Obama wants to use government as an instrument to ensure a fairer economy, to revitalize American democracy. Romney wants to eviscerate government. He wants a reprise of Reaganomics, a return to the economic philosophy that produced 2008's economic meltdown and the current recession.
Understanding Romney's perspective helps crack his campaign code. When Romney says Obama made the economic crisis worse, he means Obama did not follow Republican advice and do nothing; Obama did not stand by and let the economy crater. When Romney says Obama has no economic plan, he means Obama does not have a plan that Republicans agree with, a plan that relies upon the magic of Reaganomics.
In his ASNE speech, President Obama said, "I can't remember a time when the choice between competing visions of our future has been so unambiguously clear." That's correct. Obama's challenge is to make sure that American voters understand this. In the 2012 presidential election the central issue must be economic fairness.
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 |
 |
|
| 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 |
http://napoleonlive.info/economics/the-rich-get-richer/
Inequality is mis-measured in the States, overstated, and not even a problem. It is the byproduct of a functioning economy.
No amount of greed and envy will make America better.
Kai
ANSWER: When it is predicated on someone else giving up their right to liberty, their right to property, and their right to equality under the law. Taking away people’s rights to use their property and income that they have honestly earned as they see fit or treating them ‘unequally’ by making them pay a higher rate in their income than others just because some people want more free stuff….is simply envy and greed.
You speak of equal opportunity, but what you really mean is making people equal….you cannot do that with abrogating the rights of some…and by unjustly taking what is not fair.
There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means, as De Tocqueville described it, “a new form of servitude.”—Friedrich August von Hayek
"To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, 'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.'"--Thomas Jefferson
No one has a natural right to take from others to fund what they subjectively consider is a ‘living wage’ or a natural right to welfare (that is paid for with other people’s money).
You are simply advocating slavery.
Kai
Romney - I know you are, but what am I???
Obama 2012 - Because it isn't 1950 anymore.
If 61% of the people understood anything about the economy Ron Paul would be president. If even 10% of the people had even a half-decent understanding of economics, that would be an impressive percentage. I'm sure over 90% of the poor think the economic system fairly favors the wealthy, but of that 90% those who have even a rudimentary understanding of economics would be in the low single digits. In other words, the poll is preaching to the choir. I bet if these same people came into money, their opinions on who the economic system favors would drastically change.
Obama has done nothing to help the struggling poor and middle class of our nation. Under Obama income inequality is skyrocketing. His 2013 budget spends 3.8 trillion dollars and is essentially a giveaway to the richest 1%.
Romney is terrible, no doubt about that, but it is intellectually dishonest to portray Obama as a champion of the 99%.
How many fell for Hope and Change? Do you want to fall for "Fairness"?
As for the Pew Study, more than half of all Americans have always felt the system favors the wealthy,(the rich get richer and the poor get children..) the outrage was worse during the Vietnam era when the poor sent their kid to fight while well of kids went to college. Of course back then at the height of the war the country was being run by the Democrats..so no one pointed fingers at them.
The disparity in wealth is caused mostly by living in an age of an International Economy, more than at any other time in history. The rich do get a lions share as they can earn money in those markets and the average Joe cannot...so he falls behind.
Yes they should fix the income tax mess, but pointing fingers at rich people and blaming them for the Nations Ills belies a lack of understanding about economics.
If one looks at the actual policies that have driven up the deficits and debt over the last 10 years you will discover that Bush and Republican fiscal policies are the cause. I will take it one step further and state that Bush fiscal policies are the root cause for the worst recession this nation has seen in 60 years. What is most alarming is that Romney and the Republican base want to double down on this failed policy. They will destroy the futures of a large portion of the American population in the process.
At some point both sides have to stop pointing fingers..Dems and Republicans all contributed to the mess...they voted for the war, they suported bank loans that should have never been made, they all bebfitted from the Bush tax breaks...
The Policy you talk about, was also suported by the Democrats across the board...starting with Tip O'Neil making deals with Reagan to Glass Steagle and forward from there..
If you read my comment you will see my comment is more to do with the Republicans blaming the President for our financial problems when it was Washington policy from previous administrations that brought us to the brink. The policy ideas being pushed by Republicans today are the very policies that caused our fiscal problems. You can't cut taxes and maintain spending at pre recession levels and hope something magically happens to bring in more revenue. There is no way cutting spending alone or raising taxes on only the wealthy will solve our problems. Unless both parties can get on the same page and work together America is in for a rough ride. Sadly I don't think it will happen for several years if at all.
Whatever Washington does to solve our problems it has to be fair and reduce the divide between the 1% and the 99%. Anything else will not put this nation back on a path to prosperity.
My biggest fear is that nothing has really been done to prevent another economic collapse and in my opinion this is where we are headed.
GRAMM-LEACH-BLILEY!
Three solid republicans who did not care what the effect of their bill would be.
so once again,
FAILWHALE