Day: January 13, 2012

Republican Talking Points On Taxes, Regulation, Growth Of Government, Unemployment Rate, And Fighting Terrorism All Total Lies!

The Republican Party has been attacking the Obama Administration for three years, using “talking points” about taxes, regulation, growth of government, the high unemployment rate, and fighting terrorism.

According to Republican propaganda, Obama has raised taxes, when in actual fact, he has lowered payroll taxes and small business taxes multiple times.

According to Republican propaganda, Obama has increased regulations of all kinds, while in fact he has worked to get rid of unnecessary, unproductive regulation, while increasing it where needed.

According to Republican propaganda, Obama has increased the growth of government, when in actual fact, he has called for and now is initiating streamlining and unification of government agencies on trade and commerce, to save money and cut bureaucracy and unnecessary “red tape”.

According to Republican propaganda, the Obama Administration has failed to lower unemployment and create jobs, while the facts are that 3.2 million jobs have been created, restoring two thirds of the numbers unemployed due to the economic collapse in the last months of the Bush Administration and the first months of the Obama Administration. At the rate of job creation now, the entire loss of 4.7 million jobs since January 2009, mostly in the first six months of the administration as a carryover from the Bush Adminstration, will be recovered by the end of the term of office. And the high point of 9.8 percent unemployment is now down to 8.5 percent, and may go below the magic number of 8 percent that Obama pledged was his goal in the first term, with further improvement later on.

According to Republican propaganda, the Obama Administration has failed in the fight against terrorism, while in reality, our government has used the drone weapon very effectively against terrorists, both Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and has been successful in killing Osama Bin Laden, Anwar Al Awlaki, and helped NATO eliminate Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi.

EVERYTHING utilized as Republican propaganda for the past three years is based on lies, deceit, mythology, and manipulation of public opinion! Never has an administration been so wronged with all of its accomplishments, of which the above are only a selected few!

But the American people will get the message during the upcoming campaign about what REALLY happened, and who is responsible for the lack of FURTHER improvement, the Republican Party, which only cares about the one percent, and utilizes social issues to draw support from others NOT rich!

The sham is soon to be over, and Mitt Romney will not know what hit him when the campaign is in full swing! And if by some miracle, Rick Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul or Rick Santorum magically becomes the nominee, the attack will be only the stronger!

Too Much Government On All Levels? The Truth Is Quite Different!

Conservatives LOVE to tell the American people that government at all levels is too large, too overwhelming, and that we do not need as much government as we have had, despite the constantly growing population of the United States, now at about 313 million and counting!

The argument is that government has multiplied at all levels, but that is absolutely NOT the truth!

On the federal level, we have about 4.4 million government workers, only slightly up from 4.3 million a few years earlier.

On the state and local level, there are about 14 million people who work for governments, down slightly from a few years earlier.

Realize that if you add the total number of federal employees to the number of state and local employees, it is about 19 million, which is about SIX percent of the total population, actually slightly less!

Also realize that federal employees are only about 1.5 percent of the population, and only one fourth of the total number of government workers.

Also realize that the majority of state and local government employees are in education, health care, police protection and corrections, with many others in firefighting and sanitation services.

Also, not all government employees at any level are full time, so the part timers do not gain the kind of health care and pension coverage of full time workers.

Also, about 2 million people are in the federal government civilian work force, with an additional almost 600,00 in the postal service, and a little less than 2 million in the military and security fields.

Are we willing to cut our military, or not get the mail delivered, or believe that two thirds of one percent of the population is too much for civilian federal government services?

Are we willing to cut in large numbers our teachers, health care personnel, police officers and prison guards, firefighters, sanitation workers, and the numerous other classifications of state and local workers who make our lives better in so many ways?

In other words, it is time to stop acting as if there is too much bureaucracy on the federal, state and local levels, as the number of government workers is TOO FEW, not too many, for a society of 313 million people, and continuing to grow rapidly!

This is the 21st century, not the 18th or 19th century, when populations were small. We cannot go back to the “good old days”, which were not, by the way, all that good!

Mitt Romney’s Running Mate: Who Could End Up As Vice President Next Year?

It may seem premature to ponder who could be Mitt Romney’s running mate for Vice President, after only two contests, the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary, but speculation is already beginning.

It is not an unimportant issue, as one must remember that a Vice President is one heartbeat away from the Presidency, and we have had nine Vice Presidents succeed to the office of President, mostly recently Gerald Ford, after Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

We have now had a longer period of no Vice Presidential succession than ever since the first time the Vice President (John Tyler) replaced a President who had died after one month in office in 1841 (William Henry Harrison).

We have had Vice Presidential choices that have been nightmares, such as Sarah Palin in 2008, Dan Quayle in 1988 and Spiro Agnew in 1968, with the latter two making even opponents of George H. W. Bush and Richard Nixon wish for their continued good health!

Many individuals are being speculated about who would not be good choices in one way or another.

Among these are:

Florida Senator Marco Rubio
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

All of the above are highly controversial in different ways, and would not draw moderates or independents, crucial in an election more than a nomination battle. And all, except Santorum, have been in high office too briefly, so the lack of experience would be harmful, as each has only finished one year in his or her position in government on a national level, with the exception of Christie with two years in office. Santorum lost reelection by a wider margin than just about any incumbent senator in history, when he lost his seat in 2006.

So, a better list would be the following, all adding to Romney, rather than subtracting:

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell
Tennessee Senator Bob Corker
Ohio Senator Rob Portman
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal
Missouri Senator Roy Blunt
South Dakota Senator John Thune
Illinois Senator Mark Kirk

All of these nine, four governors and five senators, have had experience and come across as less controversial, and all would be qualified to take over in an emergency, if that were to happen.

Of course, all would have to be vetted, but on first look, they all seem to be capable of serving as President if need be, and far better than Palin, Quayle or Agnew!