2012 Tuesday: The one thing both sides agree on
There has been one consistent message from both President Obama and Mitt Romney (and, before him, the other GOP candidates) about what’s at the heart of this 2012 election. Everything else revolves around that one thing: the size and scope of government.
In a recent column, the Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib put the difference between the two men’s plans — Obama’s for Washington to spend 22.5 percent of GDP in the coming years, vs. Romney’s to reduce spending levels to 20 percent — at $6 trillion over 10 years:
In the view of Obama partisans, it’s the difference between a government that keeps its promise to senior citizens counting on Medicare and one that doesn’t, and the difference between a country that invests in the education, infrastructure and basic research needed to be competitive, and one that falls behind the Chinese and the other roaring new economic powers.
In the eyes of Romney partisans, it’s the difference between a country that trims spending close to the average of recent decades rather than one that eats up resources on government programs, and between a nation that relies on the private sector for a new wave of economic growth and one that slides toward European socialism and declining personal freedom.
Neither side shies away from such dramatic descriptions. Mr. Obama plans a speech Thursday in Cleveland that aides say will help frame the election as a choice between fundamentally different views. Mr. Romney’s economic manifesto’s conclusion is entitled simply, “A Stark Choice.”
This is why it wasn’t surprising to hear Obama last week emphasize the public sector in his remarks about the economy and what’s holding back growth. In his view, government makes choices and “investments” that direct and drive economic growth. (It hasn’t happened yet on his watch, but that apparently is still George Bush’s fault.)
And that’s why it isn’t surprising to hear Romney talk about the morality of capitalism and dispute the idea that we’ll revive the economy by borrowing (more) money to hire more teachers, firefighters and police officers.
This is the whole shooting match. Every other issue is an offshoot of, or distraction from, this fundamental disagreement.
The electorate has split sharply in each direction in recent years — toward bigger government in 2008, and toward smaller government in 2010. It’s hard to say if either side can earn such a clear victory this fall. But the key, as a recent Democratic strategy memo by James Carville’s group makes clear, will be arguing for a brighter future.
In my view, the side that better makes the case for itself, rather than against the other, wins the election. Neither side is really moving in that direction yet. There may be a first-mover advantage to the one that gets there the quickest.
– By Kyle Wingfield
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
216 comments Add your comment
fair and balanced
June 13th, 2012
7:38 am
government employment and defense spending on military purchases increased at a far greated percent during the Reagan recovery from a mild recession than did the same employment under Obama during a far greater recession. Of course if you just plain hate Obama the facts mean nothing.
D.Cline
June 13th, 2012
7:39 am
(Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s approval ratings have dipped to their lowest level since January on deep economic worries, wiping out most of his lead in the White House race over Republican rival Mitt Romney, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Tuesday.
The percentage of Americans who approve of Obama’s job performance dropped from 50 a month ago to 47, matching his mark in early January. The number who think the country is on the wrong track rose 6 percentage points in a month to 63 percent.
HadIt
June 13th, 2012
7:39 am
Did you really say the Republicians are defending against “declining personal freedom”? I suppose that’s true if you’re a heterosexual fundamentalist Christian whose drug of choice is alcohol and who believes that his “personal freedom” includes the right to force a women to bear the child of her rapist. To say the right wing fanatics currently in command of the Republican party stand for “personal freedom” is a perversion of language
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
June 13th, 2012
8:08 am
You don’t have to wonder how weak minded the dummycrat party strategy is when all of their ideas consist of “Republicans force women to (fill in the blank.”)
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
June 13th, 2012
8:34 am
“government employment and defense spending on military purchases increased at a far greated percent during the Reagan recovery from a mild recession than did the same employment under Obama during a far greater recession.”
“fair and balanced” (yeah, right), I would like to introduce you to the concept of “historical context”.
I suggest you do some research on that subject before you post such nonsense as you did above.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
June 13th, 2012
8:39 am
“To say the right wing fanatics currently in command of the Republican party stand for “personal freedom” is a perversion of language”
Let’s just say that they stand for more economic freedom, and leave it at that, shall we?
JDW
June 13th, 2012
8:49 am
@tiberius…”Let’s just say that they stand for more economic freedom, and leave it at that, shall we?”
You can say that all you…doesn’t make it true but you can say it.
Personally I think they have a lot in common with the pre-revolution French and believe in what’s best for the rich and damn the rest.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
June 13th, 2012
8:52 am
JDW, please try to inject some semblance of significance into this blog, would you? Your lame attempts to redefine Obama as something other than the unmitigated disaster he’s been are getting pretty boring.
fair and balanced
June 13th, 2012
9:10 am
Tiberius- try refuting the facts – it may be a refreshing experience.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
June 13th, 2012
9:21 am
“fair and balanced”, I do not need to refute the facts. Facts sitting by themselves, without the requisite historical context, are simply data.
Once historical context is applied, you’ll see that Reagan’s spending towards a specific purpose (that being the end of the biggest threat to the globe in the Soviet Union) was ultimately successful. However, it came with a cost to spending on social programs due to the fact that in order to get his military spending through Congress, he had to work with Tip O’Neill who extracted his own pound of flesh to give Reagan what he wanted. The historical difference is that Reagan actually WORKED with Congress and TALKED with Congressional leaders, instead of Obama’s “my-way-or-the-highway-or-I’ll-blame-you-for-everything” approach.
It should also be noted that while Reagan’s plan worked, Obama’s plan has failed. Just as was predicted by all too many on this blog and elsewhere.
fair and balanced
June 13th, 2012
9:58 am
580,000 public sector jobs lost under Obama while fighting two wars and several million private sector jobs created. Oh I forgot the historical context – Reagan invaded the mighty nation of Granada
and had all those military industrial people employed giving arms to Iran and to mujahadeen / islamic terrorists in Afghanistan- just a little historical context.Obama builds drones to kill terrorists who killed or plan to kill Americans.More context.
td
June 13th, 2012
10:02 am
fair and balanced
June 13th, 2012
9:58 am
“580,000 public sector jobs lost”.
Where were most of those jobs lost from? Could it be from public union states? How many of the Federal job lose is from the military troops?
MarkV
June 13th, 2012
10:02 am
Kyle’s continuing penchant for not increasing percentage of public spending over “historical average” defies any logic. It is as if a husband insisted that the monthly budget for food remained the same percentage of income, even if the food prices increased faster than other commodities. The cost of health care is an important case in point. Even while it is always desirable to eliminate or at least reduce unnecessary expenses, the fact of the aging population and increasing costs of medical technology make increasing health care costs inevitable. Those costs will thus consume a greater portion of GDP and will have to be paid by the people of this country one way or another. The people of other developed countries have decided that the fair way of paying those costs is through some form of universal health care that requires substantial public spending by the governments, and sooner or later the same will happen in the US.
MrLiberty
June 13th, 2012
10:07 am
Wait, a difference of only 2.5% of GDP is considered two sides of an issue? What these two clowns, and basically both parties and their leadership both agree on is that government must spend, spend, spend. The only real difference is whether its on the public welfare sector or the military/warfare welfare sector. That is the reason why Ron Paul was such a breath of fresh air for so many (and continues to be). He wanted massive cuts in military (not defense) spending and loopoles that would allow future generations to opt out of the bankrupt transfer schemes like SS and Medicare that the government has misled so many generations into believing were “insurance” programs.
Nothing has changed, nothing will change with either of these two idiots.
Until the american public decides that it wishes to have a new, smaller, less-intrusive role for government, nothing will ever change. Tweaking at the edges and believing that we can have our cake and eat it too is the recipe for disaster we have been following for the past 80 years.
JDW
June 13th, 2012
10:13 am
I think Luckovich has the Repugs pegged this morning….
http://blogs.ajc.com/mike-luckovich/?cxntlid=sldr_hm
JDW
June 13th, 2012
10:17 am
@Tiberius…”Your lame attempts to redefine Obama as something other than the unmitigated disaster he’s been are getting pretty boring.”
And yet everything relative to the economy and our world position has improved since he took office…I think you need to move away from your hatred and smell the coffee. Obama took over from the “unmitigated disaster” and has improved tremendously from that position. A vote for Romney is a vote for the same tired policies that got us to this point in the first place.
fair and balanced
June 13th, 2012
10:18 am
Mr. Liberty – if you check your facts the loss of public jobs was across the board and includes soldiers, firemen, police and teachers- all welfare cheats according to you? How many jobs will Romney provide these people?
Dusty
June 13th, 2012
10:30 am
MarkV
I cannot understand why you ;continually want the government to control almost every facet of your life. What happened to your independence? Are you afraid to be responsible for anything in your life?
We have government food stamps, government protection, government aid to elders, disabled and low income people, financial controls. Now you want the government to be the total health provider. Is there anything in your life that you want to control yourself? Or is it your conscience that demands that everyone should be cared for from cradle to grave? Not by you but the government?
This country was founded on independence. It depended on the strength of each citizen to be as independent as possible. That independence is what we value because it is freedom, the very goal of people around the world still wish they could get.
I think you need to get more practical. Being in debt is not healthy. No matter how you put it, that applies to the USA also. …
GT
June 13th, 2012
10:33 am
So easy to frame the subject and it needs to be for the right wing constituency. I am proud K left out Bible verses which has been a right’s technique to shortcut an explanation into a code.
The truth which I can never figure with the right if it is just too complicated to understand or they don’t want to hear it, is big business has made government it’s b….. This economic hardship we are in are a direct result of too big to fail business. It was another 9/11 caused by the Bush administration. There was no preventative measures as there never is when the right come to office. The country has a substitute teacher, anything goes except being a minority or any subject of a bully’s attention. It is like the cattle drive coming into Dodge City.
Why is your answer to crime more police, and prison and prison time and laws, yet you answer to big business less government. If a government agency had been looking at the mortgage markets the way we are looking into inside trading right now where we see unusual activity or guidelines that gain unearned and unethical profit to a very defined individual, this crisis would have been stopped. If the CIA and airport security had been doing their job instead of chasing ghost 9/11 would have never happen. We keep having to blame Bush because you have about a one minute memory retention. And I haven’t mentioned Bush’s balancing our budget. Too much information, I remember we have to keep this things simple for the right.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
June 13th, 2012
10:33 am
JDW: I think Luckovich has the Repugs pegged this morning….
———
The only thing missing is any basis in reality.
Note that unemployment came down once Americans, er, Republicans won control of the House.
Obozo’s unemployment rate is still higher than at any point in Our President Bush’s eight years, and higher than when he took office.
Want more jobs? Elect more Republicans and end the Democrat obstruction.
md
June 13th, 2012
10:34 am
“And yet everything relative to the economy and our world position has improved since he took office…”
And there is a big difference between “improvement” and “rate of improvement”…….with all the bogus jobs numbers, the current rate should get the unemployed back to work in about 30 years…….
Dusty
June 13th, 2012
10:39 am
JDW, 10:13
Luckovich is a public menace. I’ve known that ever since he cartoooned an American soldier being roasted on a spit and, at another time, Uncle Sam locked in prison.
I regard his cartoons with the same respect he gives to this country.
md
June 13th, 2012
10:40 am
“If the CIA and airport security had been doing their job instead of chasing ghost 9/11 would have never happen. We keep having to blame Bush because you have about a one minute memory retention.”
Just Bush?? It’s always interesting to see folks make these kind of comments evidently not aware that the hijackers first came into the country under Clinton……look it up.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
June 13th, 2012
10:46 am
Unemployment is worse thanks to Obozo.
The deficit is worse.
Government spending is worse.
The number of folks on welfare is worse.
The number of jobs is worse.
Remind us again what’s better?
GT
June 13th, 2012
10:50 am
md, mad dog?
You find me interesting that is the first step to rehabilitation. Clinton’s planes never ended up in the Trade Center. You find that interesting or have we gone back to being MD?
md
June 13th, 2012
10:55 am
“Clinton’s planes never ended up in the Trade Center”
Well, if you want to play that game…..his pilots sure did……..
MarkV
June 13th, 2012
11:02 am
Dusty @10:30 am
Dusty,
I cannot understand why you continually distort what I write. I have written about universal health care, something, as I mentioned, people in all developed countries have adopted as the fairest, most efficient way of dealing with illnesses and injuries. How has that issue morphed in your mind into controlling “almost every facet of your life?” How does universal health care develop into taking care from cradle to grave? It is this kind of exaggeration that makes a serious discussion impossible.
As one can expect, you almost cannot write a post without mentioning the debt. “Being in debt is not healthy.” Nobody argues that it is, but most people, and almost all countries are in debt. Have you been without debt throughout your life? No mortgage, for instance? If you have, you were an exception. And countries, including the US, have been” in debt” virtually all the time. To forestall, if it is even possible, an accusation from you that I am in favor of our huge national debt, I state that I am concerned about it, but not to the “sky is falling” extent. I wonder if you even know to whom the US is in debt? Does the US owe you some of that money?
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
June 13th, 2012
11:05 am
I think Republicans have luckobich pegged-
Mike Luckovich
6/13 Mike Luckovich cartoon: Economic policies
Comments Off
She’s a koward!
td
June 13th, 2012
11:13 am
MarkV
June 13th, 2012
10:02 am
I stated this to you yesterday but I will ask it as a question today. How much of our economy should the government be? I personally think 20% is to large for the Federal government. The bigger our government gets the more dependent the population becomes on the government for subsistence. The Federal government has one key role Constitutionally and it is to protect the people from other countries and to solve problems between the states. Why is the Federal government in the business of providing basic needs to the population?
Rafe Hollister, suffering through Oblamer's ineptocracy
June 13th, 2012
11:15 am
We have lost 39% of our net worth and suffered through 40 straight months of over 8% unemployment after spending a huge sum of money on the stimulus, which totally failed. JDW, says things are better. I would hate to see how awful things would have to get if this is better.
Rafe Hollister, suffering through Oblamer's ineptocracy
June 13th, 2012
11:18 am
If Oblamer was as tenacious in keeping our nations secrets secured, as he is in securing his education records, we would know a lot more about our President and he would have one less scandal on his record.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
June 13th, 2012
11:18 am
“580,000 public sector jobs lost under Obama while fighting two wars and several million private sector jobs created.”
“fair and balanced”, please tell us where the role of the Federal government is to provide funding for local teachers, police and firefighters.
And he wasn’t fighting two wars, but withdrawing from one (slower than he should have), and he didn’t create several million new jobs, either. His stimulus MAY have saved a couple of million, but it didn’t create anywhere near that many.
Historical context AND accuracy might help you in your attempts to provide some semblance of cogent commentary.
Rafe Hollister, suffering through Oblamer's ineptocracy
June 13th, 2012
11:21 am
Any gov job the stimulus saved was a temporary reprieve, which left us a Trillion dollars in debt.
MarkV
June 13th, 2012
11:23 am
Dusty @10:30 am
To be sure, you are not the only one with the predilection for silly exaggeration on this blog. Just recently, when I disputed that the private sector could exist without the public sector (a government), something that simple common sense should tell every intelligent person, I was told by some of the luminaries on this blog that a) I loathed the private sector, b) that I wanted free lunch.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
June 13th, 2012
11:23 am
“And yet everything relative to the economy and our world position has improved since he took office”
Being the tallest of the midgets does not make us qualified for the NBA, JDW. And the campaign slogan of “At least we didn’t suck as bad as we could” isn’t exactly inspiring to many people.
If this disaster of a President knew anything about how an economy worked, we wouldn’t be heading into a second recession as we are now doing.
And btw, remember what I said about retail slowing down? May was down 2% (as predicted) which is the next sign that we are heading towards a double-dip recession.
I’ll remind you again when we enter it as to who told you so, JDW, don’t worry.
MarkV
June 13th, 2012
11:24 am
td @11:13 am
Are you serious? “How much of our economy should the government be?” This is, in my view, one of the silliest parts of the discussions on this blog, that people ask such silly questions, and g such silly answers. “I personally think 20% is to large for the Federal government.” You can “personally think” that, but is there any value in that thought? Why 20%, rather than 19%, 19.5%, 20.5%, 21%, etc.? So many people here think they can decide some of these very complex issues by “personal opinion.”
td
June 13th, 2012
11:25 am
GT
June 13th, 2012
10:33 am
A little re writing history there my friend. It has been well documented that the Bush administration went to Congress in 2006 and told them about the problems in the mortgage market and asked them to change the laws before we had major problem. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd basically said they did not know what they were talking about and did nothing.
The private industry was playing within the rules written by the politicians. Private industry is going to find a way to make a profit or they are not going to do business. It was the Congress (both Democrats and Republicans) that wrote the laws and regulations that allowed them to write no down payment, no verification and no risk loans.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
June 13th, 2012
11:29 am
MaryV, td asks a very good question, one that is only dismissed by those who cherish the interference of government in the daily lives of our citizens.
And as usual, you avoid answering the tough questions while running and hiding.
JDW
June 13th, 2012
11:34 am
@Rafe…”We have lost 39% of our net worth and suffered through 40 straight months of over 8% unemployment after spending a huge sum of money on the stimulus, which totally failed.”
Indeed from 2007 to 2010 we lost 40% of our net worth due to the Duhbya debacle. Thank goodness that free fall has been at least arrested (in summer of 2009…you can thank the stimulus for most of that) and we are growing again.
My, my my you love those unemployment percentages…of course what you fail to point out is that Duhbya left an economy that was losing 700,000+ plus jobs a month. A situation that starting improving when some stimulus was applied and has now turned into average gains in the 150,000 a month range. Pssst…..that’s an improvement of 850,000+ jobs a MONTH.
As for “hating to see how awful things would be”…electing Romney to do the same things that got us here in the first place might well give you that chance. Thankfully I don’t think that will happen.
JDW
June 13th, 2012
11:43 am
@Tiberus…”And btw, remember what I said about retail slowing down? May was down 2% (as predicted) which is the next sign that we are heading towards a double-dip recession.”
Of course rational people would at this point apply stimulus to forestall that event and seek to create an environment of stability by say taking the potential of US debt default off the table. Of course as we all know Republicans aren’t rational. Which leaves us with having to rely on QE3 and a continued Republican induced haze of uncertainty.
Hopefully that will be enough and the American Voter will remove the Republican antagonists in November.
DawgDad
June 13th, 2012
11:47 am
“In the view of Obama partisans, it’s the difference between a government that keeps its promise to senior citizens counting on Medicare and one that doesn’t”
They have been CUTTING Medicare. They will ultimately breach their promises.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
June 13th, 2012
11:47 am
“Of course rational people would at this point apply stimulus to forestall that event”
You consider doing a fifth round of a failed policy “rational”?
Never mind.
You would . . .
GT
June 13th, 2012
11:54 am
td to me that shows the lack of real leadership on Bush’s part. If his children were headed towards the waterfalls do you think he would make weak comments and let happen what happens? He knew in 2007, or maybe even before? One of the problems with the Republican Party leading this country is I don’t think they are effected by this, or at least the people pulling the GOP strings are not as much as the rest of America. A weak protest on something their contributors are getting rich off of makes a lot of sense and is probably the real reason it was allowed to happen. The GOP is real good at allowing lives and money and just about everything to be sacrificed for the good of the few. The world is like a scifi movie with these guys in office, usually because they left the door open to let whatever into the house. They are very unsuccessful at what they try to accomplish, like Homeland Security, Iraq War, finding those weapons, but while chasing the nonsense the door is open for 9/11, market collapse and floods in NO. And this is what you people want, life is not exciting enough for ya?
JDW
June 13th, 2012
11:55 am
@Tiberuis…”You consider doing a fifth round of a failed policy “rational”?”
Nope, I would do a new round of what has worked so far…some us can actually use our critical thinking skills to understand that concept…others drive around in RV’s.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
June 13th, 2012
11:57 am
Floods in New Orleans, GT? Really?
You’re going to blame the corruption of Louisiana officials and their lack of preparedness in dealing with a hurricane on the Bush administration?
Really?
Are you THAT clueless?
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
June 13th, 2012
12:02 pm
“Nope, I would do a new round of what has worked so far”
Define “worked”.
Is it defined as the weakest recovery in the history of the United States? Or maybe defined as the largest increase in this nations debt in history?
Oh, right. You define “worked” as “We didn’t suck at this as bad as we might have”.
Got it.
DawgDad
June 13th, 2012
12:03 pm
JDW: “electing Romney to do the same things that got us here in the first place”
This plays right into Kyle’s point. What got us here in the first place? FDR-Johnson-Carter government expansion. Nixon’s black mark on the GOP. Backboning and funding the defense of the Western world. Reagan compromise on spending and debt. NAFTA/globilization. “Read my lips . . .”. Clinton’s predatory behavior. Bush’s wars (the cost) and failure to check spending. Bush-Obama bailouts. QE. Obamacare, Obama’s massive debt expansion and union cronyism. We may ultimately add Romney to the list, but Obama is already ON the list.
fair and balanced
June 13th, 2012
12:05 pm
Tiberius- If you were capable of doing elementary research instead of blabbering nonsense and political gibberish you would find the following just as to federal employees under Obama and Reagan: 2.65 million under Obama and 2.77 million under Reagan. The population increased nearly 25% during that time. Just some facts and historical context.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/09/how_many_federal_workers_are_t.html
GT
June 13th, 2012
12:29 pm
How much money was wasted in NO? Did I read about mobile homes being stacked up in waiting yards never being used, supplies, and on and on. NO was not this country’s and certainly not W’s finest moment.
And the blame game. Here you are again blaming someone else for your failure. I think the man that killed BL could have found a way to save NO. I think the man that got the hardest bit of legislation through the Congress in years could have stopped the mortgage disaster. Some of this is because O wants to stop something. When things go well in this country you ever notice they don’t go well for Republicans. Any bad news right now is good news for the GOP and it really is that way when they are in office. War makes their cronies money, oil prices make them rich. They have become the creator of bad outcomes like that is what their jobs are in Washington.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
June 13th, 2012
12:45 pm
fair and balanced, if you are going to spout non-related and nonsensical facts when your cherished notions are debunked, rather than to defend them, then you need to go over to Bookman’s blog. They specialize in deflection, lies and nonsense.
You’d fit right in there.
Once again, data in a vacuum is not a substitute for an intelligent argument.
Come back when you can make one.