LGBTQ news and entertainment
It’s a popular myth for the right wing to bellow about the “extreme” number of days that President Obama has taken.
Except…
The last couple of 2-term GOP Presidents took a WHOLE lot more vacation days than Obama.
I don’t remember them complaining about that, do you?
Oh – and the stock market didn’t double under them, either.
And we have never had 53 straight months of positive job growth until Obama.
Pesky, pesky facts…
Read full details at Politifact.
Speaking in Pittsburgh yesterday, Mitt Romney said that “anything over 4% [unemployment] is not cause for celebration.”
The United States last achieved a sub-4% unemployment rate in December 2000, the end of President Clinton’s term.
On Twitter, Robert Reich, a Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, reminded Romney how America got there:
Romney, however, has a different plan. As a matter of fact, it’s exactly the opposite. His tax plan would give massive tax cuts to the rich. (The top 0.1% for example, would receive a $264,000 tax cut.)
Meanwhile, in a closed-door fundraiser, Romney revealed he planned to make massive reductions in education spending. He is also proposing cutting funding for infrastructure, including the possible elimination of the Department of Housing and Urban development.
Romney now says he wants to emulate former President Ronald Reagan. However, to follow in the footsteps of Reagan would be to not achieve his “4%” goals today. The average yearly unemployment rate exceeded 7% for most of his presidency and never dropped below 5.5%.
(via ThinkProgress)
CNN has an excellent piece up today regarding the differences between what economic pressures President Reagan had to cope with versus President Obama today. Conservatives like to herald Reagan as a super-president, but comparing his situation at this point in his first term to President Obama’s is comparing apples to oranges.
From CNN:
Reagan had an advantage over Obama: The recession of the early 1980s was caused by runaway inflation, which the Federal Reserve countered by hiking interest rates. When inflation dropped, the Fed lowered rates and a massive economic boom resulted.
The major causes of the recent recession were a banking crisis and housing bubble that exploded during President George W. Bush’s final months in office.
Another difference: With comparatively small debt loads, Reagan was able to push through a 23% across-the-board cut of individual income tax rates. Obama, meanwhile, entered the presidency with substantial budget deficits and an economy contracting at a rate of 6.7%.
Something that doesn’t come up in the CNN article but I think bears noting: politics in 1984 were not nearly as partisan as they are today. Back in the 80s “compromise” was not a dirty word. Politicians were more statesman-like and put country first.
From the beginning of the Obama administration, the GOP in DC has stated their main goal for four years was to make President Obama a one term president. And they have done all they could to stop any progress in the US knowing that, even at the pain of the lower and middle classes, if they held progress to a minimum – while cashing their $170,000+ annual salaries – they would diminish President Obama’s chances at reelection.
Read the whole article at CNN.com
Watch their statements side by side.