Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Where would unemployment figures be today if the GOP had been in power

My column today in the Sky Hi Daily News
While last week's report showing jobs are still being added to the economy, the number was not as good as predicted. While a weak performance, if averaged with earlier robust job growth, it was hardly the total failure the GOP claimed. The President was more of a victim of rising expectations than that far off the mark. The Romney campaign could barely conceal their glee and used the opportunity to encourage us to vote for anyone but the guy in charge. If we repeal Obama, Mitt Romney's challenge is to convince more voters he is the guy to replace him.

Those GOP economic plans Romney promotes failed us before. Both are a doubling down on George W. Bush policies of unfunded tax cuts to the rich and de-facto deregulation of Wall Street. In short, the policies supported by the GOP of cutting taxes to the “job creators” and turning the financial sector loose to be irresponsible lost us 8.3 million jobs and caused the worst economic crash since the Great Depression. Economists believe that it takes at least eight years to recover from a severe financial crisis and we are half way there, with trend lines still moving up in starts and fits, and the creation of over four million private sector jobs.,

But that is wonky thinking . Facts, figures, statistics and history rarely make for great political rhetoric, so it is more effective strategy to gin up fear by speculation, listing every faintly possible or plausible failure in the future, and to disrespect independent expert messengers who disagree. No wonder business expansion and consumer demand are paralyzed by the fog of uncertainty about the future. The GOP at every opportunity has fueled more angst by promoting a gloom and doom future and asking voters to delay any Congressional action until they control Washington so they can repeal anything smacking of Obama.

Currently, GOP's anti Obamacare scare is that it will cost us trillions and be a job killer, but such projections are not backed up by the Congressional Budget Office. The grossest exaggeration by the GOP is that Obamacare's mandate penalty/tax would “ raise taxes on us all”, but in reality, it would affect only 1 to 2 percent.

Does Mitt Romney offer a plan to boost jobs on Day 1?. Hardly. The fuzzily detailed plans he has proposed take time to trickle down. His goal, to bring down unemployment to 6 percent sometime in the distant future, is in keeping with the CBO projections to happen anyway. Romney's plan: even more tax cuts to the rich paid for by cuts to the poor's safety net and repealing Obamacare with no plans to cover most of the 30 million uninsured or a method to pay for even provisions treasured by the already insured.

Obama's “day one” jobs bill this year, stonewalled by the GOP, would have put over one million laid off teachers, firefighters, building contractors, and highway and road workers to work. If the GOP had been in control of the House in Obama's first two years in office, the stimulus bill would have never been passed, yet it did create nearly 3 million jobs as planned. Had Mitt Romney been president, the auto bailout would not have happened, and even more would have been part of the unemployment statistics. . 8.2 unemployment today would have looked like a desirable goal instead of a disappointment if the GOP had blocked both the stimulus and the auto bailout. The GOP has even thwarted long term solutions proposed by Obama that are similar to the bi-partisan Bowles-Simpson plan that provides a workable long term solution to the debt problem because their party has been hijacked by anti tax zealots.

For more, visit www.mufticforum.com or www.mufticforumespanol.blogspot.com

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