Early voting has already started in many states for this year’s elections. In the rest, Election Day is now only two weeks away. The number of undecided voters is dwindling as most have already decided on which presidential candidate to vote for. This column is directed toward these undecided voters as well those who lean toward President Obama.
The most obvious reason not to vote for President Obama’s reelection is the economy. Even though the economy has officially been recovering for the recession for more than three years, most Americans still do not feel the recovery. Unemployment remains high. The poverty level is higher than it was when President Obama took office. Despite an increase in the U.S. population, fewer Americans are working today than when President Obama was inaugurated. In August, twice as many Americans went on food stamps as found jobs according to Forbes.
A common theme heard in the wake of Mitt Romney’s primary victories is that the former Massachusetts governor’s platform is almost indistinguishable from President Obama. Even a cursory examination of the two men shows that the charge is manifestly untrue.
Perhaps the most obvious area of apparent similarity is health care reform. While governor of Massachusetts, Romney presided over the enactment of an individual mandate to purchase health insurance that President Obama has claimed as the inspiration for his own landmark legislation.
There are important key differences between the Romney and Obama laws.
A Facebook friend recently objected to my criticisms of President Obama and the Democrat’s handling of the economy. Over the past years and months I have written about many possible solutions to the economic and debt crises that threaten to send the United States into a second recession or worse, a depression.
In a memorable episode of “Seinfeld,” George Costanza decides that since his every instinct is wrong, he should do the opposite of what he would normally do. As Jerry put it, “If every instinct that you have is wrong, then opposite would have to be right.” President Obama has had similar bad instincts on the economy and should adopt a similar strategy. Since President Obama’s fiscal policies have hastened the crisis and dramatically increased the federal debt while at the same time slowing the normal recovery cycle, a good start would be to do the opposite of what he has been doing for the past three years. The opposite of Obama’s past policies would be policies that have worked previously in U.S. history, notably under Presidents Harding, Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush.
Georgians by now realize that the fancy, technical names given by politicians to laws and policies are often misleading. The Democrats seem especially guilty of this tactic since so many of their ideas would be unpopular if the people knew their details. After all, if the people of Georgia and America knew that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would actually drive up prices and lead to shortages of health insurance, it would have been even more unpopular than it already was.
Such is the case with net neutrality. If Georgians knew that it was going to result in more government regulation of the internet and higher costs to access the web, while at the same time discouraging investment and stifling innovation, they would have strongly opposed the policy. Instead, almost nobody noticed the bland-sounding policy.
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The third common myth being spread by Democrats this election season is that Republicans want to send American jobs to other countries. This is an obvious exaggeration. No politician of either party would want to send his or her constituents’ jobs out of their district and to another country. You don’t get re-elected that way and, above all else, most politicians want to get re-elected.
The question then becomes how best to preserve American jobs. President Obama and the Democrats believe that companies who move jobs to other countries should be punished through higher taxes or the elimination of tax breaks. A bill currently stalled in the senate purports to do just that.
David W. Thornton
CaptainKudzu 