"It's the economy, stupid!" That was the rallying cry for the Clinton campaign in the 1992 presidential election. It's even more true today. With the U.S. suffering from the effects of a long and painful recession (I know, I know -- it's technically over) -- the economy is the number one issue for women and men alike going into the 2012 elections.
But women arguably have a bigger stake. They lost more jobs as the downturn continued (men lost more in the beginning), and have gained far fewer back as employment slowly and painfully inches up. On top of that, women earn less in the first place, hold more forced part-time or temporary jobs, and have fewer benefits. All of that adds up to a compelling reason to understand and pay attention to the economy. And we're not stupid -- we're just mad as hell -- and who can blame us?
The temptation is just to vote 'em all out of office. Women are the majority of the population, of registered voters, and of those who actually go to the polls -- meaning women can control any election. But voting doesn't help (and can actually hurt) if you can't cut through the mumbo-jumbo of political rhetoric to get to reality. That's where being "well informed and well armed" comes in. When you know what to ask of candidates, and which answers mean something and which are just bumper-sticker reasoning, you'll know where your vote belongs -- and where it doesn't. Go ahead and be partisan -- not for a political party, but for your own interests.
The Deep Divide -- What Can Government Do? What Should Government Do?
When the economy slips into a recession or near-recession as it did in early 2008, both political parties get nervous, and propose various "fixes" to get more money into circulation and stop the downward spiral. (It's unclear whether they're feeling the people's pain, or feeling the pain of trying to get elected in a downturn).
Debate over how to produce a healthy economy goes to the very heart of the liberal/conservative philosophical divide. Conservatives put their faith in the business sector and the wealthy, while liberals and progressives believe government has a more direct role.
From the day he took office in 2001, President George W. Bush had one solution to virtually every economic problem -- tax cuts primarily benefiting the wealthy. His philosophy was a simple-minded version of conservative arguments in general: If corporations and the wealthy individuals who fund them through investments pay lower taxes, they will invest those tax savings in ways that will create jobs, such as building new plants, acquiring new subsidiaries, or expanding product lines. Businesses will direct money to suppliers, contractors and employees to accomplish these goals. Everyone will have more money to spend and the economy will grow.
Trickle Down, or Trickle Up?
This theory has been generally referred to as "trickle down," or "supply side economics," meaning change made at the top of the wealth pile eventually makes its way to workers at the bottom. Corollaries are that private enterprise is always better than government spending, and the less government interferes in the "free market" through regulation, the better.
Liberals and progressives believe that putting money in the hands of those that actually need it to live on is a better plan to keep the economy going -- because they spend more of what they have instead of just adding it to investment accounts. Low and moderate income people have to spend it all, every month, just to buy the basics. They hold the principle that in a recession, money should be injected into the economy as fast as possible.
Progressives also believe that the government can have a positive influence on economic growth through spending tax dollars. They would create some jobs by repairing infrastructure such as roads and bridges, funding green energy research and development, hiring more teachers, police, and firefighters, and restoring government services that have been cut.
Fallout for Women
One big factor in both the rise of the Tea Party and the debate over the debt ceiling that almost shut down the government in 2011 was an attack on public sector jobs and public sector unions. In addition, federal budget cuts and the lack of tax revenue in the states has contributed to the shrinking of public sector jobs. Because firefighters and police are often exempted from these layoffs, the axe has fallen mostly on women, who make up the majority of teachers, health workers, child care workers, and public welfare workers. An analysis by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), in Washington, D.C. found that women employees lost 81 percent (473,000) of the 581,000 jobs lost in the public sector from December 2008 through July, 2011.
Though job growth for everyone is recovering very slowly, it is slower for women than for men. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women have regained only one out of five (536,000 or 19.7 percent) of the total jobs they lost as a result of the recession, while men have gained almost one out of three (1.95 million or 32.3 percent). In the last year, from November 2010 to November 2011, of the 1.6 million jobs added to payrolls, 474,000 or 30 percent were filled by women and 1,126,000 or 70 percent were filled by men.
The Big Argument for 2012
The economy promises to be the most contested issue in the 2012 elections, from the race for the White House to down-ticket congressional, gubernatorial, and even local races. The fundamental differences between the parties, and liberal/conservative ideology, remain as entrenched as ever.
Because the "super committee" created by the 2011 Budget Control Act failed to come up with additional cuts in the name of deficit reduction, the law provides for automatic spending cuts (called "sequestration") of $1.2 trillion to kick in in January 2013, divided equally between defense and non-defense programs.
Some believe the committee never intended to come to agreement, because members on both sides believed the threat of automatic spending cuts would be politically advantageous. Regardless of whether this is true, the issue is likely to dominate the 2012 political debate -- and women have the most to gain. Or to lose.
This post was adapted from "No More Bull: What Women Need to Know About the Economy and Why It Matters in 2012."
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Generally women leave the work force more often than men to have children.
The problem is several decades ago someone could support a family with just a single parent working and pumping gas. A second working parent was not needed.
Then, the Republicans are making birth control a central issue, as well as war with Iran to further distract the American public.
I think that this would be a good time for the President to reintroduce his Jobs Bill, or at least the Infrastructure part of it. Obama needs to take advantage of the current economic conditions and once again bring his proposal to the America public in order to get them to pressure their Representatives.
Macroeconomic Advisers, a nonpartisan economic forecasting shop, projected the President's Job Bill to grow the GDP by an additional 1.5% by the end of 2013 and increase non-farm employment numbers by 2.1 million. Just the infrastructure part of the bill alone, which only carries a price tag of $100 billion (a fraction of DOD's budget) would create 1 million jobs. With this bill Obama would be entering the election with the employment rate hovering at just above 7% which would make him a shoe-in to be re-elected.
Why would the extremist religious right have particularly more power this time around? Possibly because the Tea-Party is comprised mostly of far right religious folks,and we all know how fearful any republican is of anything with the "tea-Party" name attached.
So anyway,regardless of who invented this whole social distraction first,the repubs would have no problem with embracing it,as it serves their purposes to have the ears eyes and minds of the people off of their true intentions....
Still though, is there really any difference between the Tea Party and GOP Establishment among politicians? I know that the voting base is different between the two. The Tea Party getting most of it's support from middle-class white families/males and the GOP getting most of it's support from wealthy businessmen and seniors. But, among the politicians it seems that the only difference is that Tea Party members are the ones who actually say the crazy things they think meanwhile the GOP establishment mostly keeps the crazy things they think to themselves.
more spending and debt is not a solution to a spending and debt problem.
You would be correct if that were indeed the problem, but it isn't. With historically low taxes, is it any surprise that we have a revenue problem?
If a company kept lowering the price of their products, below the level of cost, they would go out of business eventually and might borrow money to stay afloat a little longer. But since that would be a really stupid business model, chances are that, instead, they would raise their prices.
The price of Government services is at an historic low right now and all we hear is how we need to cut the popular services, those that most people don't mind paying for, in order to subsidize big corporations and billionaires. This is a very bad deal, especially for women, as it is the programs that are run mostly by women that are being cut (as was said in the article.) The solution is to raise taxes and reorganize our priorities in a way that benefits all of us, men and women alike.
(Federal Deficits = Net Private Savings+ net imports), applies to USA and other nations that have their own currencies. This implies
(national govt_debt) = (national private wealth), because net imports also adds to wealth. A numerical verification of this is given in
http://pshakkottai.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/national-debt-and-national-wealth-compared/
My estimate is that deficits should be increased by 50% of GDP to take up the slack in the economy and end the austerity.
You might want to save the cost of a plumbing bill to address a small problem which ends up saving you that immediate bill - but you are paying high prices for wasted water, as well as being wasteful with a precious resource -water.
You can save a lot of money by refusing to incarcerate any criminals, heck why even spend the money on costly trials--but at what price are you paying for what happens in the community?
You can save money by firing half of the teachers, by not replacing old text books, by not having computers in schools - but what is the price to society when its people are uneducated?
You can budget on the cheap and feed your family little packages of noodles, your budget may see a temporary improvement - but when health issues development due to malnourishment, you will be paying out more for your temporary savings.
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/want-to-stimulate-the-economy-then-increase-federal-debt-here%E2%80%99s-the-evidence/
But women arguably have a bigger stake."
The easiest way to spot a sexist is they see an issue that affects everyone, but only notice or care about one gender, rather than both.
Two years ago, would you have written "but men arguably have a bigger stake?
Not a chance.
I don't know why people who post here even bother to read the article written before they comment. Frankly, most of the articles are lopsided garbage, but it doesn't matter anyway. Extremists (left and right) have already made up their minds and positions in advance. When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
None of them care to look in it.
Before reading Mosler, I like 99.9% of Americans thought we paid taxes to fund government expenditures like defense, health care, etc. Prof Mosler writes in non-technical language that Federal taxes don't pay for anything. He shows how the Fed issues all the currency because there is no other institution with the legal authority to do so. Then he looks at just how the Fed actually uses its computers to make entries into spreadsheets without ever having to refer to tax receipts.
Mosler explains, " We are taxed to keep us from spending too much which if we did would likely cause inflation." We are not taxed to raise revenue, per se, because the Fed doesn't need revenue, it creates all the money in the first place.
Two sites for women to puruse, www.modernmoney.wordpress.com/index and http://moslereconomics.com/2009/12/10/7-deadly-innocent-frauds/
Keep in mind that power and wealth are interchangeable.
So,in their quest for power and wealth,they climb in bed with the corporate and the wealthy,who help buy their initial seat in government in the first place.Once in,they of course return the gift by legislating for their benefactors.
Any big mystery,how a congressman of moderate salary (140-170 thousand/year),can in short time claim a personal wealth of many many millions? A position of power that allows them access to insider trade knowledge..even drafting the very laws that effect stock value.Or outrageous speaking fees? Or other Off the book gifts,stock options or favors from their wealthy handlers?
And then of course there is the knowledge for their role in serving their corporate masters,they will obtain cushy boardroom salaries on their exit from Congress.
Alongside their quest for power and money,the repubs have also been on a decades long agenda to eliminate all the social gains of the New-Deal,to create a two caste system that ensures the monopoly on wealth and power.
Of course,there are also Dems that hunger with greed,but at least for the most part they attempt to create legislation that actually benefits those who are not the 1%.The larger picture is that we need to eliminate the corrupting influence of money in our system of legislative bribery.But achieving this with the repubs in power is a guaranteed impossibility.