If the health of the economy is the major election issue, and it is, then electing Republicans to office is the last thing we should do.
Republicans are doing their level best to pin our economic woes on President Obama. They behave as if they are completely innocent. They would have us believe that it is his fault alone. How ludicrous!
As I recall, the Great Recession began in 2008 as a result of runaway Wall Street hijinks that nearly caused a complete economic meltdown, not just in America, throughout the world. President Obama did not take office until January 2009. George Bush was president at the time the debacle was brewing.
President Obama has been dealing with the resulting problems in the face of a very hostile Congress ever since. He surely is not responsible for what happened during the Bush administration, or before.
The truth is that he, and his administration, have done a pretty good job of returning stability to the economy and creating jobs. But the job is far from finished. We have a lukewarm recovery. There are not enough good paying jobs to go around and we still have persistent income inequality. The rich continue to get richer and the poor get poorer. Many workers don’t even make a living wage; they have to watch the “billionaire class” get more and more. This just isn’t right.
The collapse of the economy and the resulting recession belongs to previous administrations going all the way back to the Richard Nixon era. Our political and business leaders as well as many ordinary Americans swallowed hook, line and sinker the erroneous ideas generated by a bunch of academics, like Alfred Kahn, from prestigious universities around the country that advocated “deregulation” of the economy.
The “hands-off” policies that emerged opened the doors to a class of unscrupulous “entrepreneurs” who proceeded to wreak havoc in practically every industry in America. The result is well known. The sad thing is that the “working class” Americans, who lost so much, had to bail out the very corporations that were largely responsible for the ensuing economic debacle.
Capitalism is our economic system and it works despite its obvious shortcomings. However, it must be carefully monitored and regulated to prevent future economic upheaval. That, my friends, is exactly what Republicans don’t want.
They want an environment where they have the freedom to enrich themselves even as the less fortunate among us do without. Is it possible to get along and support a family on minimum wages? Not hardly. More money must go to low income workers. They spend everything they earn and that is good for the economy.
Stop corporations from exporting jobs and bring back the goods to sell for the high dollar. Stop these insane overseas wars. Do not build a wall. Get the money out of politics. Get the banks under control. Require credit card companies to charge fair interest. Stop cops from murdering people in the streets. Do not let lobbyists write laws.
Republican solutions never change. They think what is good for them is good for all. Their idea of fixing things is to raise taxes on workers and reduce them for the wealthy. The idea of tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, is totally repugnant. Everyone should pay some taxes, and they do. But the wealthy must step up to the plate and pay more, not less. To those who have much, much is expected. “Trickle down” economics is as dead as communism. It does not work, it has not worked and it will never work.
Republicans are conservatives and conservatives advocate the return to yesteryear when things were better and WASPs ruled. Is that what we need? I don’t think so.
What we need is to move forward with a progressive agenda to change and improve our country and make it a better place for all Americans, not just the wealthy.
One last thing. It does no good to elect a progressive president and a conservative congress. That’s what we have now and look where we are.
David Browning
Peachtree City, Ga.
