Election 2012 - The Issues

Since the start of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in the Republican primary, he has sought to make this election a 1-note campaign about the economy, jobs, and Barack Obama’s handling of our recovery from the Great Recession.  However, during the primary Rick Santorum and the other Republican candidates introduced numerous other issues also of concern to Americans.  And Obama continued to do the same after Romney sewed up the nomination.  This has been a good thing, because it has reminded us that the election is about more than just the economy.  When we elect a President, we have to select our best choice, our best hope, our best strategist and communicator over a broad range of topics about which Americans are concerned.  Let us then look at some representative examples of this broad range of issues.

1. The Economy: The question is who has the most credibility in managing the government role and portion of our economy.  The greatest cumulative growth in jobs has come under Democratic presidents.  The greatest growth in budget deficits has come from Republican presidents.  The principal cause of our Great Recession was the huge push in deregulation of business during the G.W. Bush Republican era.  It led to unbridled fraud and risk-taking that ultimately collapsed the economy and sent much of the workforce into joblessness.  It has taken this current administration its entire first term to turn around that collapse and achieve a consistent 3-year reduction in our deficit spending and unemployment rate, while also restoring the stock market and increasing total jobs.  So which policies should be more entrusted to continue this recovery?

2. Taxation: Much is being said about cutting taxes by both parties.  But I am mystified as to how cutting revenues makes much sense when you are in deficit spending.  For all the talk against the supposedly high tax rate on wealthy people and prosperous corporations, the truth is that NONE of these people / corporations is actually paying that stated high rate on their income.  If they are, they desperately need to find another tax accountant.  Mitt Romney’s @12% tax rate on his millions of income exemplifies this falsity, and confirms the hollowness of the “high taxes on the rich” argument.  Which is why reform of the boondoggle of special exemptions and tax treatment is so necessary.  But does anyone believe that either party can deliver this reform against the onslaught of lobbyist power and negative taxpayer reactions to eliminating their favored deductions?

3. Spending Cuts: As I have noted before, everyone wants to cut government spending.  But no one wants to reduce the payments going to them.  No businessperson wants government contracts reduced to his/her company; no citizen wants their support payments reduced.  Romney’s goal to eliminate the miniscule funding for Big Bird (the only cut he has been specific about) is contrasted to his goal to ADD billions for unneeded military spending.  The bloodletting over spending will likely kill the patient, but Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) is correct in protesting some ridiculous uses of our collective money.  The question remains who do we trust more to make the rights cuts needed in a smart and targeted way, versus swinging a meat ax indiscriminately across the budget?

4. Supreme Court: Our Supreme Court is as politicized and badly divided as the rest of America.  Which is why it now has its lowest public approval rating since such measurement started in the 1980s.  Appointments are for life, and several vacancies are expected over the next four years.  Considering the Supreme Court’s substantial impact on our lives, who do we trust more to nominate future justices to the court?

5. Women’s Rights: Abortion, proper health care without government interference, equal pay, opportunities for access in the workplace and government – these are all issues that have been actively on the docket for 50 years now.  Yet there are still those who push back on these topics, attempting to recreate a “Leave It To Beaver” family unit/lifestyle that disappeared long ago.  The positions of the two candidates and their Parties could not be more different on this topic.  So who do you trust to continue the march toward enlightened fairness for women versus trying to turn the clock back?

6. Safety Net: Ditto on health care for the entire population, Medicare and Medicaid support, and Social Security.  We have come so far, through so much resistance, over so many years, in establishing a basic floor for protecting and ensuring life’s most fundamental needs for all citizens.  A floor above which people can then rise to express and achieve their individual potential to the best of their abilities.  Republicans pledge to convert that safety net to the rollercoaster of the marketplace: vouchers, privatized social security, health insurance turned back to the insurance companies.  It supposedly will all be cheaper due to “business competition.”  Yet the last decade demonstrated the ridiculousness of putting your baseline programs into the stock market (versus added higher-level options).  And the failure of the insurance companies to meet consumer demand with cost-effective programs at affordable prices is what led to the need for government intervention in the first place.  So who do we trust more to lead America’s foundational safety net forward versus tossing it into the corporate board room?

7. Immigration: Republicans want to keep building a fence and send home the 10M+ illegal immigrants.  Democrats want to increase border patrols and find ways to integrate otherwise-law-abiding illegals into society.  We certainly should be penalizing employers who continue to create the illegal labor force that draws these immigrants to us in the first place.  Who is going to finally step to the plate and find the “grand compromise” needed to move us past this stalemate?

8. Civil Rights: The old issue of achieving equality that has always been a promise of America is still a battle.  Much has been accomplished over our 225 years, but we are not there yet across all kinds of race, religion, sexual and economic groups.  Given what we have seen over the last decade, and even the anti-voting maneuvers attempted in this extended election process, who do we trust more to advance that promise rather than to continue to create obstacles?

9. Foreign Affairs: America is the most powerful nation on earth.  But even with all that power we cannot control what happens across the globe.  When we overly try to dominate and interfere with other nations, we inevitably get ourselves into deep trouble.  The world is vastly different than post-World War II, the Cold War, the foreign domination of the Middle East, a new China.  Who do we trust more to have the sensitivity, expansiveness, understanding and the humility needed to work within this wholly new world, and the wisdom to know that this different mindset is what is needed?

There is no doubt that the economy and jobs are people’s great concerns.  But they are not, and should not be, our only concerns.  Despite the rhetoric, mistruths and position shifts occurring on the campaign trail, we all need to consider the full potential outcomes of this election – and at the federal, state and local levels.  When the campaign noise is shut out, it still comes down to that instinct in our gut: who do we trust more to be honest with us, to be the most thoughtful, to do the right thing, and to be the steadiest hand when all the yet unforeseen crises arise to challenge us?