politics

Americans still blame Bush for the economy. For good reason.

Yahoo news published an article this morning showing Americans still blame Bush for the economic situation. This is hope for the Obama re-election. It shows the American voters are more sophisticated than Romney or the Republican’s give them credit for. Click here for the article. The American people happen to be right on this one.

The state of the current economy is due to a financial panic. The first since the great depression. The American people mostly went to school, took history and economic classes and understand the systemic damage from that crisis and the real estate price collapse that we are still suffering from.

Barak Obama probably should have focused more on the economy than health care, but the stimulus program, even with its poor execution helped the United States avoid a depression. In fact this spending stopped a spiral that could have led to a Global Depression.

Americans are not happy with the pace of the recovery, but they have bought the basic argument that the trouble we are in started in the Bush Administration and that Administration which had ample warning to avoid the crisis is responsible for where we are.

The Obama argument that Romney is pedaling the same policies that got us into this mess has resonated. The tax proposals of the Romeny administration benefit the upper income groups greatly and are fiscally irresponsible.

The expected damage to the military readiness of sequestration cuts are a direct result of the tax policies of the Bush Administration. The Romney plan would require cuts that would gut the military and take away benefits that our senior citizens have earned.

One area where the Obama Administration could learn from the Clinton era is growth of government. One of the key factors in creating the late 1990’s surplus besides the 1992 Bush and 1993 Clinton tax increases was the Gore commission smarter government initiative. Growth of government payrolls was curtailed through out the 1990’2 by this initiative and Republican pressure to keep payrolls down.

A key component in any balanced budget process would be to set a goal of using technology to deliver better government service and over a 10 year span, cut the government work force through attrition and consolidation by 10%. This would save hundreds of billions of dollars per year by the end of the next decade and should be the part of any Democratic campaign plan. It would help to blunt the charges the Republicans make that government is growing too fast.

Government spending is growing at the slowest rate since the Eisenhower Administration. That does not mean the argument can not be countered. We as taxpayers need the government made smarter and more efficient. We deserve it.

Overall the survey results show the Republicans are not going to fool the American people. They should perhaps try being more reasonable in their proposals and less polarizing.

About the author: Steven “Shmuel” Proter is a Computer Consultant who hopes to start a new business this year. He is a former precinct Captain and political activist in Chicago’s 50th ward. He is an observant Jew, a natural born US Citizen as well as an Israeli citizen and resident of Rosh Tzurim Israel. He currently works in Seattle Washington.

Tags: Americans blame bush more than obama, bush to blame for economy, election 2012, prsidential election