I’ve been noticing a trend in the past week: Whenever anyone brings up the “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” question, Democrats sidestep instead of confronting it. They say the question isn’t fair, and say how much worse things would have been without the stimulus. Their responses have the effect of being accurate – without exactly being true. Because while the economic numbers that politicians like to use – things like the GDP, new employment, etc. – are an accurate reflection of the things the investor class likes to know, they don’t begin to express the real economic pain and the resulting class chasm. You can’t tell people they’re better off when they’re not.
And that attitude ignores stories like this:
While a majority of jobs lost during the downturn were in the middle range of wages, a majority of those added during the recovery have been low paying, according to a new report from the National Employment Law Project.
Or stories like this:
According to the Economic Policy Institute, almost 30% of American workers are expected to hold low-wage jobs – defined as earnings at or below the poverty line to support a family of four – in 2020. This number will remain virtually unchanged from 2010. Given that roughly 50% of recent college grads are unemployed or underemployed and those who do work are much more likely to hold these types of jobs, this is a particular grim prospect for young workers hoping to leave these positions behind for greener career pastures.
And how about all those people who lost the value of their homes, lost that equity, lost their jobs and are floundering in the wake of the mortgage foreclosure crisis? Here’s Neal Barofsky:
[…] Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, using the same justifications now offered by DeMarco, consistently blocked efforts to use TARP funds already designated for homeowner relief through a principal reduction program that could have a meaningful impact on the overall economy.
For example, in 2009, $50 billion in TARP funds had been committed to help homeowners through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), a program that the president announced was intended to help up to 4 million struggling families stay in their homes through sustainable mortgage modifications. Hundreds of billions more were still available and could have been used by the White House and the Treasury Department to help support a massive reduction in mortgage debt. But Geithner avoided this path to a housing recovery, explaining that he believed it would be “dramatically more expensive for the American taxpayer, harder to justify, [and] create much greater risk of unfairness.” Treasury amplified that argument in 2010, after it reluctantly instituted a weak principal reduction program in response to overwhelming congressional pressure. That program incongruously left it to the largely bank-owned mortgage servicers (and to Fannie and Freddie) to determine if such relief would be implemented. In response to our criticism that the conflicts of interest baked into the program would render it ineffective unless principal reduction was made mandatory (when in the best interests of the holder of the loan), Treasury reinforced Geithner’s early statements, refusing to do so primarily because of fears of a lurking danger: the ”moral hazard of strategic default.” The message was clear: No way, no how would Treasury require principal reduction, even when Treasury’s analysis indicated it would be in the best interest of the owner, investor or guarantor of the mortgage.
How do we turn out the vote until the Obama administration openly acknowledges these conditions, those mistakes? If an ER doctor ordered the wrong dosage of antibiotics, and your child’s infection grew life-threatening as a result, wouldn’t you want, at the very least, an apology? Because that’s what the administration did. They pushed an inadequate stimulus, they put bankers before voters, and they made things worse than they have to be. And we’re still dealing with effects of long-term unemployment without help.
Instead, we get lofty lectures about the deficit. “Skin in the game”. “Shared sacrifice.”
In my home state, Pennsylvania, Republican Governor Tom Corbett is cutting off general assistance funds, which normally help the mentally handicapped survive. He’s cutting the monthly food stamp allotment for a single person from about $190 to $33. Imagine. And the food banks are already spread too thin.
In my neighborhood, bars are holding “unemployment happy hours” — at 8 a.m.
The streets are cleaner than ever, because people are fighting each other to pick up the scrap metal and aluminum cans to sell.
And then we’re lectured about having “skin in the game”?
There is pain out here, and fear. They’re skeptical. If President Obama wants to get these people out there to vote for him in November, he needs to tell people what he did wrong — and how he’s going to fix it.
He needs to be a populist Democrat who’s on the side of working people. And if he doesn’t do those things, he may as well resign himself to being a one-term president.
Your last link goes to Act Blue — to several different Dems’ posts. Which are you referring to? Or is this the right link?
This is a nonsense question. It’s like asking, “When did you stop beating your spouse?” The answer depends on whom you ask. Question: What did Obama do wrong? Answer: Not too much. A nonsense answer to a nonsense question. Who’s to blame for what’s ‘still’ wrong should be the question. That’s an easy one. The Republican Party (1%) and the Blue Dog Democrats (1% wanna be’s). Obstruction, obstruction, obstruction. “Our goal is to make Obama a one term president.” That has been the goal of the 1% since the day Obama took office. And they have spent a billion dollars over the past four yaers trying to convience people that all of their problems are Obama’s fault.
Oh, please, Imhotep. The Republicans did not appoint Geithner. And if Obama is too weak to fight off those mean, nasty Republicans, as you seem to suggest, then what the hell is he doing running the country? Let him go back to being a faux professor of constitutional law, something else he knows absolutely nothing about. I suppose the Republicans made him a war criminal too. (I despise the Republicans, but that doesn’t mean Obama gets a pass from me. He outright flunked all on his own.)
Even if Obama apologized and introduced a new populist plan, who would believe him? After he blew off Wisconsin, I’m not even listening.
The other thing wrong with the Obstruction Theory is that for his first two years in office, Obama had his party in both Houses and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
He could have done anything he wanted to.
Face it. That’s what he did.
and he spent those two years getting Bob Dole’s Health care plan and an inadequate stimulus passed.
And got the GOP riled up (as he should have expected) in the process. He could have just copied Clinton’s game plan and at least got some balls rolling on the debt, but nooooooo (and taken away a little excess money from the 0.1 %, which might have made a considerable effect), rebuilding infrastructure (needed) getting high speed rail and high speed internet (needed) getting rural solar re-electrification going (needed). Nobody wants to do what worked before, they all want to do the ‘opposite’.
Really well formulated, Susie! Thanks
After considering the present-day manifestation of the senate filibuster, the ability of the Speaker of the House to set the agenda, the capacity of the Federal Reserve to control monetary policy, the arch-conservative and pro-business decisions of the SCOTUS, and the inherited global financial meltdown of 2008 and subsequent massive unemployment rate, Obama should be re-elected for not only being able to maneuver through the minefield of all the above with a deftness and skill that has saved the economy and lowered unemployment, he should be applauded for keeping his cool and wits through the maelstrom of hate coming from the conservative echo chamber.
Dedicated to no one in particular here:
This isn’t the Democratic Convention?”
Opus: ”No. That’s across the street behind you. We’re the Meadow Party.”
Mondale supporter: ”Yeah? So who have you guys got to go up against Reagan in the fall.”
Opus: ”A dead cat.”
The Mondale supporter looks behind him, thinks, then enters the Meadow party convention saying, “Oh, what the hell.”
The entire idea of “Better Off” is defined really well by Heather over at ‘Crooks and Liers’. She maintains the lazyness of reporters who’d even venture to ask the question, or of lyin Ryan trying to compare Carter to Obama. Go read it: she outlines the analogy of a house on fire and burning to the ground. After the firemen get there, put out the fire before the house is entirely decimated, (I’m paraphrasing)the owner is asked is his house “better off” now, or before the firemen put out the fire. Go read her piece to get a more reasonable perspective on the entire issue.
You forgot this part:
A serious reporter asks the fire chief if he had brought a large enough crew, if they had enough hoses, if the water pressure was sufficient. That might require some minimal knowledge of how to put out fires.
Similarly, serious reporters would ask whether the stimulus was large enough, was it well-designed, and were there other measures that could have been taken like promoting shorter workweeks, as Germany has done. That would of course require some knowledge of economics, but it sure makes more sense than asking if a house is better off after it was nearly burnt to the ground.
Thanks for the corrections, Suze, but I was simply trying to message the analogy Heather was making. To me, the comments on this subject here were more or less missing the point.
Oh, and the other obvious points I believe Heather is making are that, while the stimulus should have been larger and designed properly, among other issues, the president found himself in deep shit (a house on fire) on day one, and perhaps he poured as much water on the flames as he could get at the time.
Actually we were financially better off under GWB. We got Medicare Part D, which has been a lifesaver. My Mom got a check for $250 in a year when there was no Social Security COLA. (For two years under Obama, COLA and no mention of any compensation. For two years under Bush I got “economic stimulus” check for $450. (Obama decided to give an invisible cut to tax withholding because he didn’t think I could deal properly with cash. And last year he gave a cut in FICA withholding which had the ‘virtue’ of undermining the solvency of Social Security.)
Also there is no chance for a state expansion of Medicare in West Virginia, so the ACA is absolutely no help and never will be. If they raise the eligibility of Medicare to 66 in the “Grand Bargain” I will surely be dead before then.
I am in a worse place than I was four years ago, and I have been hurt by Mr. Obama’s deliberate decisions. He can go suck an egg.
BTW, when a few people did volunteer to campaign for Obama in West Virginia, they were told to go and campaign in Pennsylvania and Ohio, since those were swing states and because there was to be no campaign for Obama in West Virginia. He considers my vote to be a pointless waste of his effort, and I return his attitude 100%.
“under Obama NO COLA.”
@ pragmatic realist
I live in a swing state and can tell you that it’s no picnic. The candidate visits are a pain in the traffic, the ads are omnipresent, the political talk show chatter is annoying, and the polling phone calls are incessant.
beck b and Realist: Please, please, both of y’all, go find a chair to talk to…………………………..:)
mjames, yeah you’re right it’s all Obama’s fault. Good for you for buying into the propaganda of the 1%. —-Quixote, look up Blue Dog Democrat and then look up obstructionist. You’ll find Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and other’s listed. —-polyblog, so you believe that it matters who votes and not who counts the vote? Careful. —–Pragmatic Realist, sorry to tell you, but West Virginia like Texas is a giant black hole when it comes to rationale political thought. Keep on handling those snakes and talking in tongues though.