As the first days of President Obama's Administration unfolded, it became clear his opposition would continue to make unsupported declarations. No matter what policy, idea, or recommendation the President made, the reaction of Republicans sowed a deep resolve to oppose them.
One of his first objectives required him to tackle a huge financial crisis. He followed the idea of bailing out several banks and corporations felt vital to the recovery process. Not only did Republicans object they claimed to have a better solution that was to let those businesses fail. It never surfaced in written form and never met the light of day.
Never has a President in recent history inherited so many problems, many of them unique. While President Obama worked hard resolving each one, he faced almost total opposition by Republicans who early on deeply dug in their heels. Making matters worse many far right citizens added to the mixture a plethora of unfounded accusations about his program. I do not recall any cogent arguments against President Obama’s policies based on sound well-reasoned research. The fiscal problems he faced were unique requiring an immediate and well-founded approach. This included all of the unpopular measures such as subsidizing the automobile industry, which now seems to be working. Even the banks are beginning to repay huge chunks of money and probably will complete repayments in short order. While the deep recession did plummet unemployment at a rate of 9.6 percent, sound fiscal actions avoided a depression that would have potentially reached up to 33 percent unemployment. As most voters have, no firsthand knowledge of how a depression would differ from a deep recession, many may not have fully appreciated what kind of devastation we avoided. Most of us have only known the prosperity of this great nation that began in the 1940s and has continued ever since.
Fact is, Trickle Down economics has never worked, we had it for eight years under GW Bush and look where it got us. We must remember a statement made by Mitt Romney that he is not worried about the poor as our welfare system will take care of them; however if he supports Paul Ryan’s economic ideology, the middle class will also suffer. Seems Republicans have pushed education to their back row of priorities when we are in perhaps the most critical stage of technological advances a lead, which we have held for years, and one we cannot afford to lose. In my opinion, every income tax form should have a block for voluntary contribution to an education fund we would award to our best and brightest high school graduates on a prorated basis. As evidence by so much ignorance shown by many of the far right, such an adjustment seems long overdue.
I am weary after almost 50 years hearing politicians spew only those chosen words they feel will get them elected. No one is perfect as are very few solutions. However, listening to all of the verbal glitter, glimmering in the spotlights, surrounded by load commotion, by the time you get to the facts, you find most of what they say never matches what they do. If all of the silver tongues of past politicians could convert their promises to reality, we would be in an almost perfect society worried only about the weather. Obviously, that is not the case so the road of broken promises is a long one and shall continue to get longer for the near future.
Finally, I do not look forward to this election year as unsupported declarations, and extreme vitriol probably will occupy center stage. Republicans should continue to assault "Obamacare" even though many of its contents originated by Republicans. I expect the far right to make unsupported claims that they could have done a better job in improving the economy, even though the financial crisis was so unique it had no historic precedence. Compared to all the Republican claims of doing it better, President Obama had to test his ideas in the fiery crucible of reality.