Aielyn said:
Actually, American politics have swung FAR to the right relative to where they were just 30 years ago. If Reagan were in politics today, he'd be a democrat. Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, was more left-wing than most Democrats today (many of his speeches wouldn't be out of place in the Occupy Wall Street movement). JFK, one of America's most well-regarded presidents, would be straight-out called a "commie" by all Republicans today, if here were around today. Nixon's policies are quite comparable to those of the Democrats today. Even as America itself has become significantly more progressive in terms of things like gay marriage, civil rights, etc, your politics have moved so far to the right it's not funny. Meanwhile, your bolded text demonstrates how much the Democrats failed to emphasise the facts. "Obamacare", or the Affordable Care Act, has resulted in somewhere near 9 million people having coverage who otherwise wouldn't have (and that's the 18-64 age bracket - it doesn't count all of the children who now have coverage). While health care costs have continued to increase for the government, that increase has been slower than in the past, and the ACA is one of the contributing factors to that slower growth (it's not the only factor). And based on statistics collected regarding popular opinion on the ACA's provisions and personal impacts of the various provisions shows that the vast majority of Americans have benefited from it (and yet, when asked for their opinion on "Obamacare", popular opinion is far more negative - "Obamacare" is seen much more negatively than any of its provisions, and much more negatively than "the Affordable Care Act"). When Obama came to power, the Dow Jones was below 8000, at a 14 year low. It's now at about 17,500, so that average growth has been about 14% per year (compare with Bush's first 6 years, prior to the recession, during the housing bubble and related booms - it went from about 11,000 to about 12,500). Per-capita GDP under Obama has increased by more than 1% per annum, despite the fact that he inherited a recession (it dropped by 5% between July 2008 and June 2009 alone). In terms of absolute number of jobs, there are more than 5 million more jobs in the US today than when Obama took office (and that's despite the fact that, in the first 6 months, the recession caused 3 million jobs to be lost, so his net impact is more like 8 million). There is certainly a problem with long-term unemployment (which is up somewhere around 1.5 million), but that's more about other factors (like companies not wanting to hire people who are long-term unemployed, for various reasons). 5 million more jobs isn't a misleading statistic at all. And while you certainly do have more people not working than you should, when I referred to the "jobless rate", I wasn't talking about the "unemployment rate", which refers to people who are actively seeking work and receiving social security, I was referring to total number of people without jobs. For comparison, Bush's total for eight years was just over 1 million). Also note that about 3.5 million out of that 5 million happened in his second term... a year and a half of it, so far (working with data from June). Keep in mind that "deficit" is different from "debt". Deficit refers to the difference between government spending and government revenue. Deficit in Financial Year 2009 (which is the end of the Bush presidency, and the first few months of the Obama presidency, and thus considered a Bush year for finance purposes) was $1.413 trillion, meaning that debt increased by roughly that amount in that year. In each subsequent year (except between 2010 and 2011, when it remained steady), the value has decreased, and in FY 2014, it was down to $483 billion, meaning the deficit is about one third of what it was when Obama took office. What this means is that debt is growing at a slower rate than it was when Obama took office. These are actual facts. But if you listen to Republicans (and Democrats aren't doing enough to challenge the narrative the Republicans are creating), then you're forgiven for thinking that jobs are worse, economy is worse, healthcare is worse, etc. It is very much like what happened in Australia, as I said. Labor kept Australia out of recession, protected the country, etc... and they lost when the Liberals (conservative party) ran a "debt and deficit" storyline that made out as though Labor had trashed the country's finances, rather than spending in times of trouble. Any responsible person will spend their savings in times of trouble, and save up in the good times. But right-wing politicians have been getting their talking points from people like Murdoch and the Koch brothers, and spend all of their time talking about how the world needs austerity (the countries that practiced austerity the strongest, like Greece, Italy, and Ireland, all ended up being hit far harder than the rest, while those that practiced stimulus, like Australia, were hit least). |
Pretty much this. Our income tax rate is about the lowest it has ever been. http://qz.com/74271/income-tax-rates-since-1913/
The problem with our economy is that most of the increase in income is going to the highest ten percent earners in our country while everyone else is pretty much stagnant. Anyone who calls attention to this issue is labeled a socialist or claims of class warfare start to begin. I don't see the current republicans/tea party resolving this issue, in fact I see the opposite.
