Towards OHIO: For Steading Tumultuous Nation, Obama’s Earned Second Term

Romney is not a candidate for all Americans. Obama has earned four more years to continue the recovery his administration embarked on in January 2009.

[Black Star News Endorses Obama]
 
Fired Up For Second Term
 

Obama Rescued Economy Without Republicans’ Support
President Barack Obama inherited an economy in free-fall that was shedding 800,000 jobs a month by January 2009. At one point some observers believed unemployment would climb beyond 10% and that there could be a run on the banks sparking unstoppable nation-wide and global panic.
 
The president was cool and calm during the 2008 campaign. He was most clearly the best man for the job. His actions inspired confidence and he set to work methodically. His early actions showed what his priorities are:
 
Obama quickly signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter law ensuring equal pay for women. It’s been estimated that professional women lose as much as $400,000 in their careers due to pay discrimination.
 
Obama pushed through regulations on the financial industry called Dodd-Frank to prevent some of the Wall Street banditry that led to the economic meltdown from happening again. He also introduced a consumers’ rights protection agency and he eliminated financial middlemen to lower the cost of student loans.
 
Obama pushed through an $800 billion stimulus program that’s contributed to the creation of 5.2 million new jobs, preserved millions of jobs in the public sector, including for police officers and teachers; and the Obama administration also extended unemployment insurance coverage for millions of Americans. The trajectory of job decline was not reversed by accident or by the “invisible hands” of the private sector; policies under the Obama administration rescued the economy. As a result, unemployment has been pushed down to 7.8%. 

Had Republicans
cooperated in any of the Obama administration’s proposed jobs programs
possibly millions of more new jobs could have been created.
 
Republican lawmakers withheld their cooperation and basically decided to sit out the last four years. Before Obama was even sworn into office, a leading Republican philosopher and major talk radio host Rush Limbaugh declared “I hope he fails.”
 
The Republicans’ number one goal was to win back The White House even at the cost of promoting economic decline by vetoing any jobs programs the Obama administration proposed.
 
So desperate are the Republicans to eject president Obama that they are openly trying to deny African Americans and Latinos –especially the elderly– the right to vote with restrictive voter ID laws, many of which were overturned by the courts.
 
Romney’s Dishonest And Extremely Flawed Candidacy
Mitt Romney has misstepped during the entire election cycle. He adopted the Republicans’ sit-it-out the recovery approach early.
 
Romney opposed the administration’s $5 billion rescue program for the auto industry. He famously wrote in an Op-Ed entitled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” that the auto-industry should have been allowed to go bankrupt and to seek financing from the private sector.
 
Apart from the fact that there was no private financing available, Romney’s stance also showed a woeful lack of understanding of the importance of car manufacturing in national affairs. The automobile business is a special industry. Conceding U.S. car manufacturing to countries such as China, an emerging power in manufacturing vehicles, is simply unacceptable. It would be similar to letting a foreign country operate the American airline industry.
 
Romney was clearly among those who didn’t believe it was worth investing billions of dollars by the government injecting billions into car manufacturing; he did not think Detroit would survive.  
 
Not only has the industry survived but tens of thousands of jobs in the auto-industry are back. There’s also a multiplier effect with tens of thousands of jobs in related and inter-related jobs.
 
Romney now realizes he made a big mistake and in the third presidential debate tried to share credit with President Obama claiming the only difference between their approaches was that he advocated for private financing — at a time when there was no private money. Romney, as President Obama said, is now trying to “whitewash” history. He’s clearly pandering to blue-color workers in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
 
What’s more Romney’s actions while leading BAIN capital belies his claims that he has experience creating jobs. At BAIN, Romney and his partners had a single goal; maximizing profits, which often entailed eliminating jobs even by investing in companies that offshore jobs, including to China. So Romney’s claims that he could ever be “tough” on China rings hollow.
 
Romney’s second major failure was calling for a similar laissez faire approach to the mortgage industry even as people lost their homes. Romney declared that the housing market should be allowed to hit bottom in places like Florida.
 
President As Steady Commander In Chief
Both Romney and his running mate Ryan have also shown that they’re unprepared to conduct the nation’s foreign affairs.
 
President Obama succeeded in eliminating Osama bin Laden the United States’ chief wanted mastermind connected to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and other targets.
 
President Obama has succeeded in pulling the nation out of the war in Afghanistan and letting the newly-trained Afghan army handle it’s own affairs.  
 
Paul Ryan actually had the audacity to scold Biden during the vice presidential debate because, he said, the administration had pulled U.S. troops from the most dangerous war zones in Afghanistan. Biden rendered Ryan mute when he asked the Congressman whether he’d rather place the lives of American fighters at risk rather than have Afghan troops fight their war.
 
President Obama has also accomplished one of his biggest 2008 campaign promises, which was to end the war in Iraq and bring back U.S. troops. Romney has said he would have retained a U.S. troops presence in Iraq.
 
Romney As Candidate For The Wealthy
Romney’s economic and social policies would basically take the country back to the George W. Bush years. Romney made his inclinations very clear when he spoke to wealthy donors in a $50,000-per-plate dinner. He told his supporters that he basically would not work for the support of 47% of the electorate because they would always vote for Obama.  
 
Romney, whose personal wealth is estimated at over $300 million also maligned these millions of Americans by saying they did not want to take responsibility for their personal affairs and they didn’t pay taxes anyway — the latter include people who make too little to pay income tax, the elderly on low fixed income and U.S. servicemen and servicewomen overseas.
 
Romney has also shown a very cavalier attitude when it comes to those who are less fortunate in this country. Romney famously told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it.”
 
Only a person who is shielded by too much wealth and background of privilege could make such remarks. And in Romney’s case, his disposition would also be translated into policy.
 
Romney’s signature proposal to cut taxes across the board by 20% would actually increase the deficit by reducing revenue by about $5 trillion, according to the Obama campaign and several economists. Combined with $2 trillion in additional spending for the military and the continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy the already high deficits would balloon by $8 trillion under the Romney tax regime.,Romney wants to the rich to get richer; he believes that those in lower brackets would benefit from the magical “trickle down” effect.
 
Romney Would Gut Social Safety Nets

Romney and Ryan also propose dangerous changes to Medicare by turning it into a voucher program and Republicans have always sought to privatize social security. They would jeopardize Medicaid by turning it over to the states.
 
Romney also has promised that one of his first tasks will be to repeal Obamacare, the healthcare law which is ironically modeled after his own program in Massachusetts.
 
Millions of Americans are already benefiting from the new healthcare law that makes it illegal for insurers to refuse to cover pre-existing conditions for those under 26, an age group also allowed to continue enjoying coverage under their parent’s health insurance plans; the portion of prescription medication currently not covered for senior citizens is also now paid for under the new law. Other provisions and benefits for all kick in by 2014.
 
Ever the opportunist, during the first two presidential debates, Romney embraced parts of Obamacare as part of his devious election ploy.
 
An Assault On Women’s Rights

The Republican Party has also clearly shown that it’s hostile to women’s reproductive and healthcare rights. Romney himself has said he would ban government funding to Planned Parenthood.

Prominent Republicans have also made bigoted statements about women repeatedly. Romney’s VP running mate Paul Ryan co-sponsored with Rep. Todd Akin a bill whose original language contained the words “forcible rape.”

Several weeks ago Akin, now candidate for U.S. Senate during an interview claimed that a woman could prevent unwanted pregnancy after rape because women had ways to basically “shut that whole thing down.” Just last week, Richard Mourdock, another Republican candidate for U.S. Senate said he too opposes abortions even in cases of rape because the pregnancy would have resulted from “God’s” will. 

As President Obama has pointed out, rape is a crime; pure and simple.

Given the advanced ages of the liberal justices on the Supreme Court, Republicans would probably get to appoint a conservative justice over the next four years if they were to win The White House and Congress. The court would then move to repeal Roe vs. Wade the historic case that legalized abortions.
 
We Hope Obama Succeeds
Romney is not a candidate for all Americans as he made clear during the infamous campaign dinner. He is not suitable to be president of these diverse United States of America.
 
Barack Obama has earned four more years to continue the recovery his administration embarked on in January 2009.
 
Unlike Rush Limbaugh, we hope President Obama succeeds. Voters can do the right thing on November 6.

“Speaking Truth To Empower.”

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