I can’t understand why Ohio is supposedly one of the swing States in this election. They have gone from 48th in Job creations in 2008 to 4th in 2012. That is the most dramatic change of any State in the Union. Of course this is the result of President Obama giving loans to the auto industry which is a large employer in Ohio. I could really say the same thing about my home State of Indiana. It has gained much from those same loans but of course it is usually a solidly “red” State so sadly to say it is not on the fence.
Why aren’t the Buckeyes thanking the President for rescuing their State’s economy? Even more confusing is why are they even considering voting for Mr. Romney as he proudly announces that he would have just let Ford and GM go into liquidation! That would have meant millions of lost jobs in Ohio, Indiana, and especially Michigan. It seems that most folks have very short memories or are just ungrateful for the help. Of course liquidation is what Mr. Romney knows the most about so maybe he had figured a way to sell off all the parts for a big Bain Capital profit.
There is another very big group who seem to be ungrateful and that is the bankers. They were deep in the toilet when President Obama came into office and now just 3+ years later they are again getting their big multi-million dollar bonus checks at Christmas. Why aren’t investment bankers thanking President Obama?
I know our unemployment index is above 8% and that obviously trouble many but it was higher than that when Mr. Reagan easily got his second term. What has changed since then? I know my Republican friends will say it is the deficit but the rise in the deficit at least relative to GDP was greater and longer under President Reagan than it has been under President Obama. So why has the unemployment index and the deficit got so many self-proclaimed Reaganites so upset now? Why weren’t they upset when President Reagan was doing worse than President Obama in those two regards?
The other thing that gets me as being extremely ungrateful is that when all these States take the billions of dollars for infrastructure in their State and then complain about the TARP spending where it comes from. It is widely acknowledged that for every one dollar spent on infrastructure returns $1.60 in GDP. That seems like a pretty good investment. Why are all the Republicans screaming about infrastructure spending? Without this spending our economy would be in much more dire straits than it is now. Even the Republican governors who rant against it line up to get their share. I know that is true for my State of Indiana and I’m sure it is true for many others.
I just can’t understand why they aren’t thanking the President for keeping us out of employment problems which could have been much worse.
But what do I know…..
RJ's Corner 
Ford was never in danger- except in the market (and I made a ton of money off the market on that one!) GM was reformatted- with tax payer money. The argument is that it could have been done in bankruptcy court to stop a bad business model. The only fear was that the big wigs would have lost their jobs—and GM would have come out a slimmer, better run company.
“the unemployment rate under Reagan went from 7.6% to 9.7-9.8% in the summer after his inaugural, and remained at that level for two years, before it began to decline in the summer of 1983. In “Obama-time”, that would be the equivalent of the summer of 2011. Moreover, the economy did not begin improving until the Spring, 1983, in “Obama-time” that is Spring, 2011.” That was written by a liberal newspaper person defending Obama in 2009. “Give him time” was the mantra that I spoke.
BTW–Family income went up by $4000. under Reagan.
I understand the need to defend. The problem is that Obama did not do almost anything promised except help out the gay population- oh and keep abortion as open as possible. He did manage to get passed health care- leaving out the entire reason I voted for him- single payer option.
LikeLike
Janet, I am sorry to disagree with you. President O’Bama brought respect back to the office of the presidency that The younger bush was losing, even though his loving wife Laura Nice Bush tried endlessly to coach him. We better start showing more support and respect to our leaders in our country that have kept our nation being one of the most kind and generous nations in the world,. Janet, why in the world would I personally donate over 5000 hours of teaching and helping international people in Bloomington if I was not proud of our country and MY President!
LikeLike
Gosh Mar, I have thousands of hours of living and working overseas as well as 30 of teaching ELL students in the States. No idea how that ties to this arguement. But, I do appreciate, Mar, your service.
LikeLike
Your thousands of hours were all paid as your job. Am I correct? The point I am simply trying to make is that we live in a democratic country and we are fortunate that we can have a political system of people running for office that are given the opportunity to uphold their political beliefs. We as citizens can observe their speeches through the media and make a free decision if we want to follow the or not. I completely and without bias follow all candidates for office for president. I watched all the Republican debates and I selected Mr. Huntsman as the best Republican candidate. He spoke the best due to his great background of understanding the world , our nation and the people of our nation. Unfortunately, he dropped out of the race. ) : As an American citizen, I consider this as a wonderful privilege to live and be part of a government that gives me freedom to openly share my thoughts and values with people. But, this past year, members of my Christian Bible Study began saing terrible things about President O’bama’s such as he was a Muslim! that he was a socialist. I could not believe some of the things that they were saying! I do not think that President O’bama’s is now following the Muslim faith. He is a Christian . What I found is that these members actually hated our president. I was totally shocked that they held these beliefs!
The more I continued with the group, I realized their inability to be open to listening to other different views on topics such as poverty, homelessness, and gay people. I had to quit attending the Bible class as it was becoming more of a war zone than a spiritual growing experience. More later
LikeLike
Oh a lively conversation here. I love it. Thanks for all the comparisons to Reagan Janette but one thing you didn’t mention was the financial meltdown that was handed to Obama. Reagan had nothing like that just high unemployment and high inflation. Of course inflation is what caused the big bump in my and everyone else’s salary during the Reagan years so It really was no increased buying power.
You say that GM and Chrysler could have gone through restructured bankruptcy but there was just no financial institutions around that would have sponsored it so it would have likely resulted in liquidation and that would have been millions of new unemployed.
The more appropriate comparison would likely be FDR to Obama as the two were more similar than that of Reagan who only had to deal with inflation by drastically increasing the deficits (and no one complained then).
LikeLike
You hose Regean, I didn’t. Being a history major, I look to the facts.
LikeLike
Thanks for the comments Mary. Yes, respect for the office of the president was given to Mr. Reagan even by even his advocates and that included me. He was president so while I disagreed with his “trickle down” theory I never dissed him personally. Today dissing the president and everyone that disagrees with them on any issue seems to be the pastime of the tea party people. I hope it doesn’t have a long-term effect but I fear if it goes on much longer it definitely will.
Janette, I was like you in that I was totally disappointed in President Obama for backing off the single-payer healthcare model so early in the process. He gave in to the Republican wall of obstruction before he needed to.
Abortion is a different thing. No, president has had much of any affect on it since it was made constitutional via Row vs. Wade. That is the red herring in politics I’m afraid. Many complain but nothing is actually ever accomplished. I put guns and abortion in the same pocket. They both kill unnecessarily and we should be doing whatever we can to reduce the number of victims but both sides are so totally dug in that nothing ever gets done.
LikeLike
You forget, Obama had BOTHhouses for healthcare. It was his party that he could not lead! Dems could not agree and went with insurance companies…a bit of lining in the warchest.
LikeLike
I am sorry is this a new idiom You hose Regean. What is the meaning. to me it means you shoot water all over Reagan . Correct? This a new idiom for me.
LikeLike
Janette, I will trade one more with you. First I will quote my hero Will Rogers “I am not a member of an organized party, I am a Democrat”. Democrats, unlike their Republican counterparts seldom fall lock-step in line with their leadership. There are always those rogues who never go along. But in reality it didn’t matter as the Republicans pulled up the filibuster in the Senate and shut everything down. Surely you remember that they used it more than all the congresses for the last one hundred years.
I hope you are not inferring that you are the only one here to “look at the facts”? That would be pretty pretentious don’t you think? This was a nice spirited exchange but I am leaving it now… Thanks for the comments…..
LikeLike
Partial birth abortion was taken down under the both Republican houses. Obama forced all insurances to cover “birth control” including the abortive pill. He has been known to say that he will next require all hospitals to preform abortions, which will mean ob s who only work in non abortive hospitals ( there are more of these then you might think) will leave the profession. Did you watch the convention? Did you not see NALR had a. Center stage for speaking?
Not much of a red herring. To me- this isanagenda ready to be pushed to the next level. Where do. You really stand?
LikeLike
“Our country has lost sight of the idea that there are differing opinions on things. People are ALLOWED to come to their own conclusions.”
This is a quote from your own blog Janette .. the post on the Chik Fil A issue. You seem to have forgotten your own words.
Personally, I like to hear differing viewpoints and gain a greater perspective…but I don’t think you really do.
LikeLike
Ok, you spurred me to one more comment. I will let you know that I am pro-life all the way and in no way want to try to defend abortion. But you say “he has been known to say”. That doesn’t sound like facts to me. It sounds like a scare tactic by some partisan org.
I am pro-life and that means I value human life before it is born and after. While I am embarrassed by the Democrats before birth stands I am proud of their brother’s keeper stance for the other 98% that made it past birth. Enough said, good night Janette….
LikeLike
I think each one of us has to return to the civility of respect for all people. We cannot teach respect if we do not act respectful for all people. That is what I have noticed with my so called friends ,who are saying terrible things about our president of the United States. And ,they claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus would say that is wrong to them if he were here in person right now.According to my study of following Jesus Christ, we are to listen and to care for one another in love and peace. Now, it comes to my personal role in teaching international people about our democratic country and how we act as American citizens. I have taught through words that I share with my students that we act at all times in a respectful way. I do that with my Iranian friends, Chinese friends,
And Russian friends even though our countries may not be in agreement with policies with those countries at the present time.We must lead our world in demonstrating our desire to make this a better world.my time and efforts are worthless with internationals with American citizens that are not upholding these beliefs and actions. Mary
LikeLike
Thanks Mary for the heartfelt words. I couldn’t agree more….
LikeLike
Very well said, Mary. People are people no matter where they come from or live and they all deserve respect…even politicians or governments with whom we disagree.
LikeLike
I have been teaching 😉 racked up bout 15 volunteer hours besides my paid hours in the last four days…
Jane, I agree that we differ on ideas. I disagree that abortion is a place that I need to accept a difference- considering I consider it murder in many cases.
RJ – Obama’s demand for new bc measures includes morning after pills- which is abortion.
LikeLike
Janette, I rack up a lot of volunteer hours weekly so I understand that. On the abortion thing I just don’t follow it so don’t know anything about a morning after pill. But I don’t think he is going to force anyone to take it.
I look at the overall package when I vote; I am not a one issue voter. See my post on Thursday for more about that. As Jane said please try to understand that others have a different worldview than you might have. Let’s agree where we can and leave it at that….
LikeLike