Why I’m voting for Barack Obama
It’s easy to point out Mitt Romney’s flaws as a candidate and potential President, too easy. When it was revealed that the man said:
“There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it… 47 percent of Americans pay no income tax. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
I mean, really, that should have been it, right? Such obvious disdain for essentially half of America should have killed the Romney Candidacy, and while I hate saying shit like this as it makes me sound old, I think this would have doomed a candidate in earlier, less selfish, years.
But it probably would not have.
However, it remains a fact that Barack Obama, and his supporters must stand on his own record. He can’t just be seen as the “anti-Mitt”, he has to remind America what he’s done and what he’s planning to do, and in my humble opinion, Barack Obama has been an excellent President, especially considering where we were:
Economy (Overview)
Does anybody remember that General Electric was days away from going broke? I know “everybody” knows about the financial crisis and the automotive industry “bailout” and the Wall Street “bailout”, but is there anybody reading this who can honestly remember reading during the crises that GE was in major straits (straights?) because they were having difficulty with their finance division – and so was every other corporation in America who had a finance division (which pretty much includes all retailers, phone companies, auto manufacturers, etc)?
Y’all remember that? Because I sure do. Or maybe not – I have read over 40 books on the Great Recession, subscribe to a number of economics blogs about the GR and its causes, and the problem at GE was mentioned in a number of them.
Here’s the point: 2008 was a LOT scarier than 1929, and the effects would have been far more immediate and catastrophic. There were literally millions of Americans who went to work during October 2008 and their bosses didn’t know if anybody in the company would be able to draw a paycheck because of the problems in the financial markets meant that their means of financing payroll was SCREWED. It took four years for the full effects of the GD to impact America – in 2008, we were days away from complete collapse.
So what happened? Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke pretty much saved the country, and they did so knowing that not only did they have approval of the current President but the future one as well. They were able to do what needed doing (and yes, TARP needed doing) because they were spared the cost of election-year politics (but not Congressional politics, that’s for sure!)
And the newly-elected Barack Obama kept his word and supported TARP, even though it wasn’t “his” program. And it was this decision, along with the auto “bailout” and Quantative Easing, that kept the country afloat, giving US households time to shed their debt in one of the largest managed deleveragings in history.
I put together the following handy chart to show what a difference decisive Keynesian economics makes. This chart shows where America was/is in the four-year period following the stock market crash in 1929 and compares them to where we are four years after the vastly more catastrophic failure of the financial markets of 2008:
of banks to close in year:
1933: All (100%!) banks closed for 4-days by order of FDR. 4,000 banks closed for good in '33 alone.
2012: 46 bank closings (less than 1/2 of 1% of total # of banks in US). No bank holidays.
Amount of money lost by depositors because of bank failures:
1933: $140 billion was lost by depositors from 1929-1933. All that money just vanished.
2012: $0 because of the FDIC.
GDP Decline:
1933: In 1933 GDP was 45.5% lower than in 1929.
2012: At lowest point (2009), GDP was down 2.9%. However, in 2012 GDP is 8.57% higher than 2008.
Jobless Rate:
1933: 25% of active workforce.
2012: 7.8% of active workforce.
Underemployed Rate:
1933: 25% of active workforce.
2012: 16.2% of active workforce.
Growth of Public Debt in four-year period:
1933: 24%
2012: 53%
Automotive companies shut down:
1933: 7, at latest count.
2012: 0
“Keynesian economics” simply states that if people stop spending, then government had better start, regardless of deficits, so that businesses can stay afloat until the consumer gets back on their feet again. From October 2008 to presently, the government started spending – they bought toxic debt, bought AIG, bought GM and Chrysler, made sure that the economic engine that is America only sputtered and did not die. And the above chart shows that it was money well spent: instead of 50% of American adults under- and un-employed, currently it’s 23% (usually in good times the number ranges between 10-12%). Instead of losing $140 billion of consumer’s money in bank failures, no money was lost, the number of bank failures was kept to a minimum and the process has been working for 4 years with little fuss. GDP is actually higher today than 2008, by 8.5% whereas it was 45% lower in 1933 compared to 1929.
Were all the decisions good ones? Of course not. Too much was wasted on solar energy projects, especially in light of the shale oil boom. Cash for clunkers was a middlin’ success at best. With the benefit of hindsight, not everything was done correctly in 2009-2012.
In short: even pre-election, Obama made the decision to support Bernanke and Paulson, saving them from election politics. He made the decision to bail out the auto companies. He made the decisions that resulted in a 7.8% unemployment rate, not a 25% one, and he did it by not being a deficit hawk. If he were in a time machine and went back to 2008 he’d be able to make better decisions, but again, if I were able to go back to being 14, so would I.
Health Care
I support Obamacare. I support the health mandate. A candidate who wants to take away health care from women, the poor, and the commonly disenfranchised so he can give tax cuts to his wealthy friends is morally repugnant, ladies and gentlemen, and you cannot convince me otherwise.
And as a Catholic, I do not find the Church needing to offer birth control in their health plans to be a violation of the First Amendment. As we used to say in the ‘80s, puh-leeze.
Social Issues
The Republican’s war on women is sickening. Who would have thought that in 2012, idiot white-guy politicians would even use the phrase “legitimate rape”, much less believe that a woman can magically will away a pregnancy because the conception was forced? Who would have thought that a candidate for President would have to say “I’m not interested in changing the laws regarding contraception” in 2012?
A woman who votes for Romney doesn’t deserve what’s going to happen to her if he wins – but she can’t say she wasn’t warned, either.
Obama, on the other hand, has expanded medical and contraceptive access to women. Obama, unlike Romney, believes that reproductive control belongs to the gender who both biologically and socially will be responsible for the offspring, and not to the gender who is gaining a reputation for systematically raping children (Savile, Sandusky, Boy Scouts, Catholic Church… the list goes on and on.)
LGBT issues will be supported by the Obama administration. Romney will just exult in having yet another group to discriminate against.
Abortion
Though I said this wasn’t about Romney, the fact is that Mitt Romney has stated, multiple times, that he wasn’t going to modify existing contraceptive laws, and he has stated that abortion is not an issue his administration will be addressing (and you don’t get elected governor of Massachusetts by being actively pro-life.) So a vote for Mitt will not change the current abortion laws, other than a possible Supreme Court nominee or two.
So pro-lifers really don’t have a candidate to choose from as their position has been largely abandoned by both candidates.
In short
A vote for Obama is a vote for the economy, in appreciation that 2012 isn’t 1933 all over again.
A vote for Obama is a vote for rights and freedoms for all (not just rich white guys)
A vote for Obama is a vote for birth control and a vote against the idea of “legitimate rape”.
A vote for Obama is a vote against the pervasive selfishness which has engulfed this country since the 1980’s, a cult of “I, Me, Mine” that is so strong that Tony Soprano is seen as a role model among various people.
A vote for Obama is a vote for communities, a vote for Romney is a vote for gated neighborhoods with security booths in the front entrance.
A vote for Obama is a vote for the Middle Class, a vote for Romney is a vote against the “47%”.
So vote Obama.