However,
the economy didn’t just fall off the cliff.
It was driven off by the reckless actions of big Wall Street financiers
who, with their fraudulent fancy financial tricks, had overinflated the U.S.
housing market and created paper securities that were worthless in real value.
The
catastrophic collapse that ensued pulled down most of the developed economies
of world. Obama was faced with an
economy at home that was hemorrhaging 750,000 jobs a month, two wars – paid for
on a credit card — and the imminent bankruptcy of the American auto industry. It might have been 1932 all over again.
Obama
acted. He pushed through Congress a
stimulus plan to stave off complete collapse.
He forced Congress to budget the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and
forced through a bailout of the American auto industry. Further, Obama pushed Congress to accept a
salvage plan for the financial system.
None of this was glamorous or popular, especially helping the same
financial fat cats that had brought the system to its knees. Nevertheless, we all know that it had to be
done – and his bold and decisive decisions prevented a new 21st
century Great Depression II.
Obama used
a lot of political capital and good will.
However, he didn’t stop there.
After failing to enact universal health care in the US since 1932, Obama
— against huge resistance from vested interests — got Congress to pass the
Affordable Health Care Act, ending America’s status as the only developed
industrialized country in the world without universal care.
The result
is that 37 million more Americas will have health care for the first time in
their lives, and for the first time, health care growth costs have stabilized.
Additionally,
over the last four years, Obama’s leadership has extracted America from the
disastrous war in Iraq. He is also winding down our 11 year war in
Afghanistan. And let us not forget that Osama
bin Laden is dead and the Al Qaida leadership is decimated and their
organizational structure crippled. But
the job of restoring American greatness is far from finished. Much is left to be accomplished, but not, of
course, if the Republican opposition led by autocrat Mitt Romney gets their
way.
The economy
is growing again, not as fast as we all want, but it is picking up speed. The housing market, the driver of the
economic collapse, is starting to revive. Companies are hiring again. Educational
improvements are happening. And women’s workplace and health rights are being
protected. The American auto industry is
back on its feet. The financial bailout
and auto bailout money has been repaid. Progress is being made.
What would
Romney and the Paul Ryan-led Republican ideology do if we give them back the
keys to the car?
Well, they
say they would do exactly what the George W. Bush-led Republican Party did for eight
years: irresponsibly cut taxes, mostly
for the wealthy, to the tune of $5 trillion, raise defense spending $2
trillion, start to drill for more oil on protected federal lands and offshore,
and most importantly, “restructure” Social Security and Medicare (as well as
Medicaid) in order to “save them.” What
they mean is they want to privatize Social Security, something they have tried
and failed to do several times, and turn Medicare into a voucher system. In such a manner the Republicans can reward
their rich, powerful, oligarchic backers by injecting the Social Security trust
fund money into the stock market. If
that had happened four years ago, how would that trust fund be doing now?
Poorly.
Romney
speaks out both sides of his mouth. As governor
of Massachusetts, he was in favor of women’s reproductive rights, now he’s
against them – or something in the middle.
He was against coal-fired power plants, and now he’s for Big Coal. He’s going to declare China a currency
manipulator and trade cheat, while his own Bain Capital has huge investments in
low-wage Chinese industries that outsourced their jobs from the states to
China. He even bragged once: “They (Chinese workers) were working,
working, working, as hard as they could at rates roughly 50 cents an hour.”
Who do you
trust? Do we want to continue the
progress of the last four years? Or do
we want to return to the policies of Bush-Romney-Ryan that drove us over the
cliff. Modern Republicans are always for Big Oil and the defense spending war
machine. They want to destroy Social Security and Medicare, since their rich
backers don’t need the programs.
That’s why,
behind closed doors, Romney says that 47 percent of Americans are useless
victims and irresponsible. To the
contrary, the irresponsible party is Romney and his 1 percent of friends.
Reno Domenico is president and CEO of Sterling
Business SchooI in Kyiv and is chairman of Democrats Abroad Ukraine. He can be reached at www.sbs-ua.com and [email protected].
