From The Progress Report -- November 4, 2010:
How We Got Here
President Obama took office facing more challenges than any president in three generations. In the midst of two stalemated wars, the worst economy since the Great Depression and a hemorrhaging job market, the American people desperately needed a government that could take the bold action needed to halt foreclosures, end the recession, and get employers hiring again. Yet, while the new president buckled down to solve these catastrophic challenges, the GOP embraced a simple four word mantra: "I hope Obama fails." Two years later, unemployment remains tragically high, the President's signature accomplishment is widely misunderstood by voters, and Republicans rode a wave of discontent back into power. Simply put, this did not happen by accident; it was part of a concerted strategy to undermine the President's agenda and blame him for its failure.
A CAMPAIGN OF OBSTRUCTION: When the economy was spiraling out of control, Republicans filibustered the recovery. When out-of-control health premiums threatened to sink the entire federal budget, Republicans conspired to make health reform Obama's "Waterloo ." When persistent unemployment cried out for a more aggressive Federal Reserve, Republicans blocked Obama's Nobel Prize winning Fed nominee . Even something as basic as regulating the same Wall Street banks that nearly destroyed the American economy nearly fell before a GOP filibuster. This campaign of obstruction was not limited to big ticket items. As of last August, fully 372 bills had passed the House -- many of them unanimously -- but few of them are likely to every receive a vote in the obstructionist-laden Senate. Meanwhile, Obama's judges are being confirmed at only half the rate of President Bush's, and Republicans even stalled key economic policy makers in the midst of a recession. As this campaign of obstruction began to undercut the economic recovery, the GOP doubled down. Republicans repeatedly blocked job-creating and small business-promoting legislation, often killing essential measures or requiring ambitious plans to be pared down into nearly nothing. And this obstructionism helped keep in the economy in the doldrums, the obstructionists' standing in the polls steadily grew.
FLOODING THE AIRWAVES: Republicans did far more than simply blocking Obama's agenda, they also waged a multi-billion dollar disinformation campaign to poison the electorate on this agenda. Emboldened by the Supreme Court's egregious Citizens United decision , the right-wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce waged a $32 million campaign to defeat the President's allies in Congress, and this campaign was just the tip of a massive iceberg of disinformation. Right-wing front groups like 60 Plus and future Florida Gov. Rick Scott's (R) Conservatives for Patients' Rights waged a multi-million dollar campaign to tarnish health reform -- often making outlandish claims that the Affordable Care Act would slash Medicare benefits or outlaw private coverage or euthanize grandma. This disinformation campaign was not limited to health reform. Republicans blanketed the airwaves with attacks on President Obama's successful program to save the auto industry -- a program which saved more than one million jobs . The Recovery Act saved approximately 1.2 million jobs and even right-wing economists believe that it boosted the economy by 4 percent , but Republicans have done everything in their power to ensure that no one knows about these successes. Republicans have manufactured economists who deny the effectiveness of the stimulus. They falsely claim that it has not created a single job, and they repeatedly label it a "failed stimulus" -- even if they also have no compunctions about stealing credit for the law's success whenever it benefits them politically to do so. Two years of disinformation has taken its toll. Although only one-quarter of voters oppose the actual provisions of the Affordable Care Act , pluralities have been so convinced that the law is poison that they now embrace repeal. Likewise, two-thirds of voters share the false belief that the Recovery Act either hurt or did not affect the economy.
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2 comments:
I wholly agree with the article!!
Massive brain washing for the past 2 years. The egoistical naive gullible who call themselves "Americans/patriots" took it all in: hook, line and sinker.
Too bad that the whole of the USA will suffer the consequences of these manipulated, gullible voters. In addition these so-called citizens who voted for a devastating return of the Bush years or worse, have a memory of a fruit fly. They wouldn't even know what or why even when it hits them in their wallets.
They're out to destroy their own country and dare to call themselves "Americans". DUH!!
Excellent article!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html?_r=1
Excerpt:
Our Banana Republic
"In my reporting, I regularly travel to banana republics notorious for their inequality. In some of these plutocracies, the richest 1 percent of the population gobbles up 20 percent of the national pie.
But guess what? You no longer need to travel to distant and dangerous countries to observe such rapacious inequality. We now have it right here at home — and in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, it may get worse.
The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.
C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.
That’s the backdrop for one of the first big postelection fights in Washington — how far to extend the Bush tax cuts to the most affluent 2 percent of Americans. Both parties agree on extending tax cuts on the first $250,000 of incomes, even for billionaires. Republicans would also cut taxes above that.
The richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers would get a tax cut of $61,000 from President Obama. They would get $370,000 from Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. And that provides only a modest economic stimulus, because the rich are less likely to spend their tax savings."
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