Obama Revises Economic History In New Ad
Election 2012: The president's re-election strategy boils down to: What I've done ain't so hot, but do we really want to go back to Republicans' disastrous policies? Actually, yes, because they weren't disastrous.
That's the big lie. And for the first time, an increasingly desperate Obama has personally delivered it in a new campaign commercial. In the ad, debuting this week in key battleground states, Obama looks directly into the camera and stresses the stakes of the election.
"You have a choice to make," he intones. "It's a choice between two very different plans for our country." Then he warns: "Gov. Romney's plan would cut taxes for the folks at the very top. Roll back regulations on big banks. And he says that if we do, our economy will grow and everyone will benefit." Obama continues: "But you know what? We tried that top-down approach. It's what caused the mess in the first place."
It's plain the president is trying to portray Romney as a continuation of Bush economic policies — which he describes as more tax cuts and deregulation — and which he contends caused the recession and stunted the recovery. Of course, this is revisionism writ large.
For starters, Republican deregulation could not have caused the recession because there was nothing of the sort in the run-up to the crisis. In fact, it was Bush who publicly called for financial regulation — namely, reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the central culprits in the crisis — no fewer than 17 times before 2008.
What brought down the economy was overregulation of the mortgage industry through the Community Reinvestment Act, which controlled bank underwriting, and HUD, which controlled the underwriting of Fannie and Freddie and primary lenders. Now what's retarding the recovery is Obama's re-regulation of that sector.
And far from triggering the recession, the Bush tax rate cuts of 2003 sparked a 46-consecutive-month boom in small-business job gains.
"In January 2003, I called on Congress to accelerate the tax cuts from 2001, which had not fully taken effect, and to pass further tax cuts that would encourage business investment and job creation," Bush said.
He was right. The final round of tax cuts took effect in May 2003, when the economy was still soft from the Clinton recession and 9/11. By September, the economy started adding jobs again. After the tax cuts, unemployment averaged 5.3%, compared with Obama's 9%.
The problem is Obama keeps threatening to end the Bush tax cuts "for the rich." As a trained agitator, Obama knows how to "rub raw the sores of social discontent," as his mentor Saul "The Red" Alinsky was fond of saying.
As a trained business leader and former governor, Romney knows how to turn companies and economies around. In this, the "choice" could not be more clear. |
