There are those that would challenge the accuracy of West pronouncements. He has burned bridges with almost everyone expect his Tea Party core with his wild rhetoric, recently urging Nancy Pelosi and President Obama to leave the country. But to me--with a little googling-- the numbers appear to be essentially accurate. Though it is always tempting to blast the messenger, especially a yahoo like West, but there is basic truth in the numbers, so perhaps there is something else to see here. What the President has done for his country? Well let's see...
I don't have all the specifics, but West’s Chart fits well
within the Republican refrain and mostly this does look to be an accurate
reporting of essentials facts. As always the suggestions are that employment,
home values, and the debt were all under control until Obama took office.
People who accept that premise will find it easy to overlook the fact that 4.5
million jobs were lost in the last year of the Bush presidency and vote for whatever
Republican wins the nomination. West notes that the net job loss under Obama is
an additional 1.2 million.
On the debt, it is true that Under Obama it has grown from $10.6
trillion to $15.2 trillion. Tax revenues have plunged as a result of the
deteriorating economic circumstances, and this has been exacerbated by the
extension of the Bush tax cuts, which the Republicans insisted on in the run-up
to the crisis they created over their newfound urgency over managing the debt. The cost of maintaining the social safety net has also had a dramatic effect on the debt. Yes, expenditures for food stamps are way up as would be expected in an economy with high structural unemployment, that is a very large number of long term unemployed, as well as decimated savings accounts and home values caused by the calamity on Wall Street. One of the things West does not address is the number of Americans that have been foreclosed. That number is more than 10 million since 2008. People thrown out of their homes, in a jobless economy are going to need support. When the crisis came this time, there simply was no place for many Americans to go. By the end of 2008 Americans were leveraged to the hilt with too much debt and too little savings.
Of course we can make the old argument that this entire mess
was the Republicans fault, with misguided policies, and poor oversight of a financial
industry run amok with cheap cash and little regulation. But, I think it’s far more illuminating to talk
about what the Republicans would do now. On the basic stuff, there is not a hair’s
difference between the Libertarian Ron Paul, the Big Business “moderate” Romney
and the two conservatives Santorum and Gingrich.
All propose deep cuts in discretionary spending. Ron Paul
the most aggressive budget cutter proposes a trillion in cuts next year that
everyone knows will go nowhere. Romney proposes
a more moderate path, but one that the Wall Street Journals has branded as too
timid. Romney couples his cuts with pandering and absurd increases in defense
spending and a moronic hands off Medicare pledge that even Obama is not
airtight on, especially at we look to the future demographic changes. Romney’s moderate plan would require a 21%
cut on the discretionary spending by the end of his first term.
A lot of things would have to go. This is why you saw what
appeared to be heartless discussions at the debates. Something’s gotta go. One
in six Americans on food stamps? Make that one in four or five, that’ll get
people off the couch and back to work. The cost of college loans are too high
and anyhow Obama edged the banks out of the profit picture. Easy solution for
that. Go back to the policies in place during the Bush administration. Let the
free market determine who does and does not get to go to college and for gosh sakes
let the banks get their cut.
Programs to help 20 million people with underwater mortgages
are not reaching enough people so the housing market continues to struggle. The
Republican plan? Step back. They argue that 10 million homeowners losing their
homes was not an adequate correction. The free market should be allowed to run
its course. Let another 10 million lose their homes through foreclosure. That
housing stock would then be thrown on the market, causing another steep drop in
home prices that West notes have dropped 13% since Obama was elected. I’m surprised
it’s only 13%. Structural unemployment deepens and worsens leading logically to
lower tax revenues, and higher government expenditures and deepening deficits.
Sounds pretty concerning. But the Republicans have a one
size fits all plan that solves the challenge of how you get the economy rolling
even as you dramatically reduce government support for middle and working class
people and the poor. They propose revving up the economy with deeper tax cuts
than Bush even proposed. Bush tax cuts were linked to expansive government spending.
The tax cuts, two wars, and an unfunded Medicare drug plan caused the deficit
under Bush to nearly double from about $5 trillion to about $10 trillion. Most
Republicans now argue that the tax cuts were not deep enough and that the
budget cuts need to be deeper. And real. They would argue that Romney at 14% of
his millions pays too little in taxes. Romney himself has argued for zero tax
on manufacturing, and zero tax on the repatriation of the hundreds of billions
in corporate profits now sheltered overseas. Of course when Bush got
legislation to do just that in 2004, and American business brought home $300
billion in overseas profits, it did not create job growth as promised. Even
before the recession at the end of his second term, and even with the unprecedented
tax cuts passed in his first term Bush presided over the worst record of job growth
of any president since 1945. The Republican plan is to double down on those policies.
Somewhere in here most Americans know that painful budget cuts
are coming. No one wants to replicate the experience in Greece. Support for a
wide swath of government initiatives will have to be reduced. While I don’t believe that those policy proposals
will be pass easily of r be easily implemented I think most Americans know they
are overdue. In time, Social Security and Medicare will need to be reformed.
Retirement ages will rise, and benefits for the very well to do may have to be
curtailed. Since both are largely funded from taxpayer contributions this will
NOT go down easily. However, compromise will be possible when reality sets in. Part
of that reality is that cuts will have to be coupled with increases on tax
rates for the wealthy. The country simply cannot afford to weaken the safety
net for the poor, increases expenses for college and other programs for the middle
class, and protect at all costs the wealthy who have seen their income sky
rocket.
I am sure Mr. West is sincere in his belief that the country
has gone to hell in a hand basket since Mr. Obama was elected. I have heard many
conservatives talk in near apocalyptic terms about a second Obama term. I continue
to be amazed at the partisanship that does not see fault or failure in Iraq or with
the economic catastrophe in 2008, but predicts the end of the world as he know
it if Obama wins reelection. But it is
time to move on. Blame has been apportioned on partisan terms and so be it. It is time to weigh the future.
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