General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe president needs to assert more forcefully EVERYTHING the GOP has done to slow down the recovery.
They have said there goal from day one was to make Obama a one term president and the president needs to assert forcefully what he has tried to do and what the GOP in congress has done to deliberately sabotage the recovery. He needs to go after 'the do-nothing GOP congress' and I'd suggest he spend a good deal of his campaigning doing this and his acceptance speech both summarizing the GOP sabotage and what he has accomplished despite it and why we need a Democratic congress to assure a stronger recovery:
After winning the House of Representatives in 2010, the GOP brokered a deal to keep the Bush tax cuts in place, which has reduced the tax burden as a percentage of GDP to its lowest point since Harry Truman sat in the White House. At the insistence of the White House, Congress also agreed to extend unemployment benefits and enact a payroll tax cut measures that provided a small but important stimulus to the economy, but above all, maintained the key GOP position that taxes must never go up.
But as Congress giveth, Congress also taketh. The GOP's zealotry on tax cuts is only matched by its zealotry in pursuing austerity policies. In the spring of 2011, federal spending cuts forced by Republican legislators took much-needed money out of the economy: combined with the 2012 budget, it has largely counteracted the positive benefits provided by the 2009 stimulus.
Subsequently, the GOP's refusal to countenance legislation that would help states with their own fiscal crises (largely, the result of declining tax revenue) has led to massive public sector layoffs at the state and local level. In fact, since Obama took office, state and local governments have shed 611,000 jobs; and by some measures, if not for these jobs, cuts the unemployment rate today would be closer to 7%, not its current 8.2%. In 2010 and 2011, 457,00 public sector jobs were excised; not coincidentally, at the same time, much of the federal stimulus aid from 2009 ran out. And Republicans took over control of Congress.
These cuts have a larger societal impact. When teachers are laid off, for example (and nearly 200,000 have lost their jobs), it means larger class sizes, other teachers being overworked and after-school classes being canceled. So, ironically, a policy that is intended to save "our children and grandchildren" from "crushing debt" is leaving them worse-prepared for the actual economic and social challenges they will face in the future. In addition, with states operating under tighter fiscal budgets and getting no hope relief from Washington it means less money for essential government services, like help for the elderly, the poor and the disabled.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/09/did-republicans-deliberately-crash-us-economy
russspeakeasy
(6,539 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Why?
Why does/should that fall on the President, rather than the Democrats in the House and the Senate. They are the ones that witnessed the gop's obstruction first hand. They are the ones that refused to counter-act the gop lock-step votes with lock-step votes of their own. They are the ones that, to this point, have refused to re-introduce and re-introduce President Obama's jobs bills on a weekly basis, as has the gop with repealing ACA.
President Obama has been out there, just about as forcefully as he can, and still be "statesman-like"; whereas, the Democratic Caucuses (with a few exceptions) have hid under the porch, barking when it is safe.
Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)With the House Republicans under a death warrant if they didn't do the party's bidding, the House Democrats, united or not, would never have prevailed on any bill that the Republicans saw as critical to their political purity.
The Senate Democrats, while not always united, had no chance with the Republican minority filibuster game. The Democrats could only progress legislation that was viewed as "do no harm" in the eyes of Mitch "the chipmunk" McConnell and his evil cronies.
So obstructionism has been a Republican mantra. Regardless of what the Democrats in the House or Senate had done, the evil-doers were going to oppose, fight, and obstruct anything the President or the Democrats proposed UNLESS doing so was deemed to be politically unacceptable.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)and the reason the forceful exposure would have more effect coming from the Democratic Caucus than from President Obama.
msongs
(67,443 posts)Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)Skidmore
(37,364 posts)incessantly handwringing and yelping about "leadership" at every twist and turn while refusing to recognize the role that congress has played. This has been going on all along.