What Would a Clinton or Trump Presidency Look Like?

With Clinton that’s easy to answer — it will very likely look a lot like the last Clinton presidency. Hillary was certainly an important advisor to Bill, and now Bill is for Hillary. Both are left of center Democrats with a love of policy detail and proven adherence to incremental progress.

While a few of Clinton’s 1990s policies had negative long term consequences, for the most part the presidency went very well. We balanced the budget, the economy did very well, there was a little progress on gay rights, and we won the only war we fought at the time, the Balkans, while suffering zero combat fatalities. Today, the Balkans are more-or-less democratic, more-or-less peaceful and are integrating into Europe, thank you very much.

Interestingly, the Clinton presidential years are the only time of my entire life when we weren’t at war. Before Clinton was the Cold War and less than a year after he left office we got Bush’s disastrous War on Terror — which might be expected from trying to go to war with a noun. It might have been better to declare war on al Qaeda.

A Trump presidency is harder to predict. Actually, impossible to predict. Figuring out what his policies really are is a little like trying to nail jello to the wall. Nothing stays put. Also, since he constantly changes his mind who knows what his policies will be come next January.

The worst case would be if he does what he usually says he’ll do: deport 11 million people, build an enormous wall thousands of miles long, buy a lot of military hardware of dubious utility fighting Daesh (the proper name for ISIS), and give enormous tax breaks to himself and his rich buddies (and smaller ones for the rest of us). This will, of course, send the deficit, which we’ve been bringing down for many years, through the roof. It will probably bankrupt us and Daesh will win.

There is one certainty: Trump is the perfect president from the Daesh perspective. The Daesh strategic goal is to ignite a war between the West and Islam. Trump’s endless anti-Muslim bombast is perfect recruitment material, driving Muslims into Daesh’s waiting arms. This will drive up US war fighting costs and contribute to what may be the last, and by far the biggest, Trump bankruptcy.

Why I think Hillary Clinton will likely make a very good President

She is wicked smart.

She works her a** off.

She knows her s*** backwards, forwards, upside down and inside out.

She is far more honest and truthful than Donal Trump (an admittedly low bar to jump over).

Her political views are very close to mine. We are both left of center liberal pragmatists.

This country, and much of the world, did very well in the 90s when she had the President's ear.

Why I think Hillary Clinton will likely make a very good President

She is wicked smart.

She works her a** off.

She knows her s*** backwards, forwards, upside down and inside out.

She is far more honest and truthful than Donal Trump (an admittedly low bar to jump over).

Her political views are very close to mine. We are both left of center liberal pragmatists.

This country, and much of the world, did very well in the 90s when she had the President's ear.

So speak out and VOTE!

Trump as a Bullshit Artist

I have watched the Donald on TV quite a bit, and the breadth and depth of his bullshit is truly astonishing. I would like to share three of my favorite Donald bullshitisms with you right now.

1. When Trump was the top dog Obama birther he said he sent investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama's birth place and they found "amazing things," truly amazing. Needless to say we never heard of this again because the Donald had nothing, and knew it. He just wanted to create the impression in your mind that Obama was not born in the U.S., and succeeded with a substantial fraction of the far right.

2. My second fav was the absolute and complete ban on Muslims entering the country. The Donald knows perfectly well that U.S. military on deployment would come home regardless of religion. He knows that Muslim U.S. citizens will come home when they please. He knows that he can't keep diplomats from North Africa, the Middle East, central Asia and other Muslim countries from coming to embassies and consulates all over the country. The Donald knows perfectly well that real terrorists trying to enter the country aren't going to advertise their religion, i.e., the whole concept is totally bullshit, but you have to admire the chutzpa.

3. I'll save my favorite for last: his secret plan to defeat ISIS. Just like Nixon's secret plan to win the Vietnam war there is no there there. Just to be clear, we lost the Vietnam war. The Donald, even though he says he gets his military expertise from watching TV shows, knows perfectly well that although the U.S. military could conquer the territory currently held by ISIS fairly easily, the real fight would start after the occupation and, as we found in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's not conquering but the aftermath that goes badly. Still, Trump got to stand in front of big crowds, thump his chest, and emit vast quantities of bullshit. How fun!

So there's a few of my favorites. Feel free to share them with your friends and add your own, I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding them. Just watch your TV.

Fear is a Losing Strategy

Around the country there is a movement to prevent any Syrian refugees from coming into the United States. The fear is that Daesh (a better, Arabic, name for ISIS, which they hate :-) may infiltrate the refugees as a way to get into the country, which could happen. Of course, the vast majority of the refugees are our natural allies. Many are, after all, fleeing Daesh.

So, in order to prevent some small number of Daesh fighters from possibly getting in, we hurt thousands of our allies. Not exactly brilliant, but it gets much worse.

What is the actual additional threat posed by the refugees?

Millions of people come through our airports, and some of them may well be Daesh fighters. It's a lot easier to get through airport security than the refugee screening process, which is pretty rigorous. After all, airports are how the 9/11 hijackers got in. Getting guns for commando attacks once in the US is certainly no problem.

Daesh also has direct access, through the internet, to almost everyone in the U.S., maybe 300 million people, and there is no question that their recruiting efforts are often successful, leading to home grown terrorists like the Boston marathon bombers.

The total additional threat posed by taking in refugees is miniscule. The vast majority of the threat comes from airports and the internet.

So, to inflict trivial problems on our enemies we hurt thousands of our friends and give Daesh yet another recruitment tool to go along with the presence of foreign forces, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

There is a fundamental military principle that is being ignored here. That principle is "Overwhelming Force at the Critical Point." The critical point in the war with Daesh and their ilk is our relationship with the people of the Arab world and the Muslim community. That is the only place the war can be won. Killing Daesh fighters is necessary, but not decisive. They can be easily replaced and even if Daesh were completely destroyed tomorrow, in a couple of years another similar organization would arise. You don't get rid of a weed by cutting it, you have to dig out the roots.

If we follow the leaders who are folding to fear of Daesh and abandoning our principles, honor, and natural allies will hurt us and lead to far more casualties than if we lived up to our national anthem and made America the "home of the brave."

Why you should vote for congressional Democrats

For the first two years of the Obama administration Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, although not with a fillibuster-proof majority. Consider just a bit of what happened in those two years:

• We turned economic free-fall into a growing economy. When Obama took office I bet that he could turn the economy around. I sold my foreign stock and bought American index funds. I have more than doubled my money. Unemployment is below 6%. We don't have everything we want, but things are a lot better.
• Universal health care became the law of the land. This happened during a brief moment of fillibuster-proof majority. So far, about 13 million more Americans now have health insurance. We have a ways to go, but it's a good start.
• Green energy received a big funding boost. Result: neighborhood roofs are sprouting solar panels, wind mills are going up around the country, we are nearly self sufficient in energy, our greenhouse emissions are down, and electric cars are hitting the road.
• Wall Street and the banks got a new set of regulations to live by. They are certainly tougher than we had before. Time will tell if they are tough enough.

For the last four years the Republicans have controlled the House and, not surprisingly, neither President Obama or anyone else can get any sort of progressive legislation through Congress.

Along the way a funny thing happened in California. The Democrats took over the whole government with a super majority. They could do anything they wanted. What they did was dig California out of a huge fiscal hole and balance the budget. Compare that with the cut-taxes-and-spend, borrow-against-tomorrow reality of the Republicans when they had control in the 2000s.

If we get a Democratic Congress we won't get everything we want, but we'll get some of it, which is a lot more than we'll get from the Republicans. Vote for congressional Democrats.

Leon Panetta has his head stuck straight up his ...

you know what. Why do I say this?

Panetta just published a book. I'm not going to comment on the book because I haven't read it. I have, however, heard Panetta be interviewed and I will comment about the interview. In particular, about Syrian chemical weapons. Panetta's story is very simple:

1. President Obama said Syrian use of chemical weapons would result in serious consequences.
2. Assad, Syria's embattled president, used chemical weapons.
3. Obama did not bomb Syria.

What makes Panetta a jerk is that he left out one teeny-weeny itsy-bitsy fact of enormous relevance. A more complete story goes like this:

1. President Obama said Syrian use of chemical weapons would result in serious consequences.
2. Assad, Syria's embattled president, used chemical weapons.
3. Threatened with bombing by Obama, Assad gave up his chemical weapons (at least the ones we know about).
4. Obama did not bomb Syria.

Given a choice between blowing up bits of Syria and getting rid of a dictator's chemical weapons America is clearly better off getting rid of the weapons. Duh.

It gets deeper though. Suppose we had bombed Assad severely enough to overthrow him. If the Assad regime went down what would happen to all those chemical weapons? The rebels would get them. Who are the strongest rebels? ISIS and other al Qaeda offshoots! Our mortal enemies. Next stop for those weapons, an American city near you.

What President Obama did with the Syrian chemical weapons crisis was brilliant. He got rid of the weapons without firing a shot. Those are weapons that can never be used by Assad or ISIS or anyone else. They are not coming to an American city near you. Oh, and by the way, taking down Assad is a lot safer now.

That's top notch leadership.

Obama and the Economy

With Congressional elections coming up it is time to see if President Obama deserves a Democratic majority in Congress so he can get some legislative help. One very good way to decide if a president has done well is to compare the state of the nation on the day he took office with today. For the economy, I'll do that now.

Just to be clear, I'm comparing the economy January 2009, when Obama took office, and 4 July 2014, right now.

In general the economy in 2009 was in free fall, in the middle of a full blown economic and financial crisis. It was the worst we've seen since 1929 and there were plenty of people that thought it would continue to go downhill. Today the economy is stable and growing. Improvement: vast. Some details follow.

The US economy was losing 750,000 jobs a month. Today it adds a few hundred thousand a month. Improvement: roughly 1,000,000 jobs/month.

The DOW was around 8,000. Today it is over 17,000. Improvement: more than double.

The S&P500 was well under 1,000. Today it is almost 2,000. Improvement: more than double.

Corporate profits were in a nose dive. Today they are near record levels. Corporate profits in 2009 were less than $700 billion. This year they are $1,900 billion. Improvement: $1,200 billion/year.

The government was on track to borrow $1,413 billion. This fiscal year the government is on track to borrow $649 billion. Improvement: $760 billion/year.

There is a whole TV network and a vast hinterland of commentators that will tell you everything Obama has done wrong: large or small, real or imagined, misleading or not. That's fine, but keep your eye on the big stuff, and these economic numbers are big stuff. There has been enormous improvement on Obama's watch, in the face of bitter knee-jerk Republican opposition.

The nation deserves a Democratic Congress to help President Obama out, so vote for your local Democratic congressperson. Who knows, some good stuff might even get done.

Blood in the Water

Lore has it that if there is blood in the water, sharks will attack. If the Republicans are rewarded for shutting down the government over Obamacare, we'll get a similar result.

Budget policy is normally made by Congress passing budget bills which the President signs. These bills last a certain amount of time, usually ending by the beginning of the fiscal year, October 1. If the normal budget bills are not ready by then, Congress traditionally passes a 'continuing resolution' that keeps the government open with spending at the same rate as the previous year. These continuing resolutions usually last a few weeks or months giving Congress time to pass the normal budget bills. There have been continuing resolutions every year since the late 1990s.

This year the Republicans tried to kill Obamacare by refusing to pass a 'clean' continuing resolution (a 'clean' resolution has no other stuff attached, it just funds the government). At first they insisted on a continuing resolution that also eliminated all funding for Obamacare. When that didn't work, they insisted on a partial elimination. Meanwhile there's been a partial government shutdown since there is no funding bill for this fiscal year. This has caused lots of problems, so the Republicans are now trying to pass partial continuing resolutions for parts of the government they like.

Obviously, this is an incredibly stupid way to govern a country. If the Democrats give in and allow Republicans to stunt Obamacare this time, the whole process will repeat itself in a few weeks or months when another continuing resolution will be needed, or when the debt ceiling needs to rise to avoid the government welching on its debt. The Republicans will want more, of course. They'll sense the blood in the water.

There are only two possible good results from this mess:

1. The Republicans are crushed, good governance wins, and a clean continuing resolution is passed. It would help if the Republicans then lost big in the 2014 election. That will put an end to government shutdowns for awhile
2. Some concessions are made in exchange for taking this whole strategy off the table. For example: eliminate the concept of a debt ceiling and make continuing resolutions automatic. This would eliminate government shutdowns indefinitely. You can still cut government spending, just use the normal legislative process.

In either case, neither party could get its way by threatening to hurt America. To get their way they would have to win elections and pass budget bills. You know, good governance.

The short story: if you want good governance, don't put blood in the water. It makes the sharks attack.

Time to End the Drug War, People are Coming Around

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN medical expert, just made a 180 degree turn around and now supports medical marijuana. Click the link to see why. That got me thinking.

One of the monumental failures of government policy is America's War on Drugs. It has imprisoned vast numbers of Americans, made criminals of almost everyone, spent enormous amounts of money, and illegal drugs are readily available to anyone, anywhere in the US (including prisons) at quite reasonable prices. There is another, much better, way to control drug use. See How to Actually Win the War on Drugs for details.

The War on Drugs has a racist result described in a very interesting book called The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. To understand the extremely well documented argument you need to know one fact: drug use among African Americans is about the same as among whites but arrest and conviction rates for drug crimes are much, much higher for African Americans. This is how blacks are, albeit imperfectly, kept down. Here's how it works:

1. Drug enforcement is focused primarily on black communities, particularly young men, because 'everyone knows' that black men commit the most crimes.
2. Since everyone does drugs at about the same rate, enforcement focus leads to much higher arrest rates for blacks, particularly young men.
3. District attorneys have great discretion in how vigorously they prosecute, and black men get a lot more vigorous prosecution, in part because 'everyone knows' that black men commit a lot of crimes.
4. The end result is a large fraction of young black men in prison, on parol, or with felony drug convictions which makes it hard, sometimes impossible, to get a job.
5. Joblessness is correlated with violent crime rates. In fact, the higher violent crime rates of black men is entirely explained by the higher jobless figures.
6. Since black men have a higher crime rate, drug enforcement is focussed on black communities ... see #1.

Note that the cost of imprisoning someone for a year is about the same as attending the University of California. Which will make a better citizen, and bigger tax payer, out of a high school kid smoking a bit of reefer?

NOTE: you can make a similar argument about brown people, but I left that out for simplicity.

One way to break this vicious cycle is to get rid of the drug war, which doesn't work anyway. Let's do it!

I'm Afraid to Say, America the Torturers

Two reports have come out reminding us in excruciating well supported detail of what we already should have known:

1. During the Bush administration torture by the U.S. government was widespread.
2. This torture was approved and promoted at the highest levels of government.
3. This torture was in direct contradiction to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits 'cruel and unusual punishment'.
4. This torture generated little if any reliable intelligence.

These reports are

• The Constitution Project's Task Force on Detainee Treatment
• The U.S. Bi-Partisan Leadership Against Torture on the 25th Anniversary of President Ronald Reagan Signing the Convention Against Tortue and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment.

Under the treaty, torture is a crime against humanity. If the home country of a torturer does not prosecute, any country may step in and bring charges. This happened some years ago when Great Brittian arrested ex-Chilean president Pinochet at the request of Spanish authorities for torture committed in the 1970s and 80s. Senior Bush administration officials would do well to stay in the U.S. to avoid a similar fate.

Of course, if America wakes up to the fact that our most basic laws were grievously violated by the highest officers in the land, and that these crimes severely damaged our standing in the world thus aiding our enemies immensely, we just might prosecute ourselves.

Obama, Republicans and Bipartisanship

Republicans have made a big deal about the lack of bipartisanship since President Obama took office. Of course, it takes two to be bipartisan. Let me remind you of one story from the early days of President Obama's term.

The Super Bowl was a week and a half after the inauguration. It just so happened that there were two republican senators from one team's state and two democratic senators from the other team's state -- so Obama invited all four senators to watch the game with him. To anyone who wanted to work together for the good of the country, this was a golden opportunity. Three plus hours with the new president in an informal setting. Plenty of time to get to know something about him, to present one's ideas and maybe make some deals.

You know how this story has to end: both republican senators turned the invitation down.

This set the pattern for the next four years. Time and again Obama adopted republican, conservative ideas -- only to have republicans immediately turn away from their own ideas, their own initiatives for the sole purpose of saying, in this election season, that Obama failed to get the bipartisanship he hoped for.

Do you want to reward this kind of behavior? Because if the Republicans win this election, it will validate their strategy and the next time they are in the opposition they will do exactly the same thing.

The Difference Between Bush and Romney Policy

Some months ago I sent an email to all of you asking for the difference between Bush's policies and Romney's. The response was a deafening silence.

In the debate, when asked to differentiate himself from Bush, Romney's first item was energy policy. Romney wants to do a lot of drilling for oil. Bush was all for a lot of drilling for oil. I can't tell the difference either. I'm sure there are some somewhere, but I don't see any big ones. The similarities, however, are quite striking. Among other things, both favor:

Lower tax rates

Higher military expenditures

Reduced regulation

A bellicose, go-it-alone foreign policy

The results of the Bush years are important to remember. They included:

Massive failure of the economy

Massive failure to control government finances (went from a balanced budget to a deficit of well over a trillion dollars)

Failure to win in Iraq

Failure to win in Afghanistan

Failure, in seven years of trying, to kill bin Laden

Failure to slow or stop Iran's nuclear program

Romney advocates many, if not most, of the same policies as Bush. Why would you expect substantially different results from a Ronmey presidency?

Islamic-Region Attacks on America, by President

It is instructive to look at the history of terrorist attacks on Americans. Consider:

Jimmy Carter -- Iranian students took American diplomats hostage. 52 were held for 444 days. Eight American servicemen died in a rescue attempt.

Ronald Reagan -- Hezbollah killed 241 American servicemen, most of them Marines, with a single truck bomb. Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky by Libya killing 243 passengers and 16 crew.

George H. W. Bush -- Iraq invaded Kuwait touching off a full scale war that killed 294 Americans.

Bill Clinton -- al Qaeda blew up two US embassies in Africa killing over 200 people and wounding thousands. Al Qaeda attacked the U.S.S. Cole killing 17 American sailors. The Khobar Towers attack killed 19 American servicemen.

George W. Bush -- al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center and severely damaged the Pentagon, killing almost 3,000, and a fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania. The Riyadh compound bombings in Saudi Arabia killed 35 people including nine Americans.

Barack Obama -- Four diplomats were killed in a recent attack on the consulate in Libya.

Thus, we see that Obama has, so far, the best record of protecting Americans from Islamic-region attacks of any recent president.

Obama and the Taliban

When Obama took office, the Taliban had the initiative in Afghanistan and were making major gains in Pakistan. They controlled large and growing swaths of territory in both and had just taken over Swat, which is only an hour or so from Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. Remember that Pakistan is nuclear armed.

Today the Taliban are on the defensive.  They have lost control of Swat and much of the rest of Pakistan.  They have lost control of a great deal of territory in Afghanistan.  Their leadership is dying under a hail of drone attacks.  Osama bin Laden is dead and the personal commitments the Taliban leadership made to him are gone.

That is about as good as it gets in that part of the world.

Obama's Campaign Promises

Like all candidates, President Obama made promises during the 2008 campaign, and like all candidates he delivered on some, partly delivered on some and failed on others. Also, like all voters we imagine he promised far more than he actually did. Right now I'd like to remind you of some of the promises that were kept and invite you to think about whether these would have happened under President McCain or Romney.

Obama promised:

• To get out of Iraq. We're out.
• To focus on al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Afghanistan. Bin Laden is dead, al Qaeda leaders are dying like flies, and the Taliban have been pushed back in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• To end 'Don't Ask Don't Tell.' It is gone.
• To enact universal health care. It is enacted. The next step: 'Medicare for All.'
• To cut taxes for the middle class. The stimulus contained the largest middle class tax cut in history.
• To support green energy. PG&E, my utility provider, just sent me a chart of energy supplies. Renewables are 18%, compared with 19% for hydro, 22% for nuclear, and 25% for natural gas. In other words, renewables are almost as big as any other supply! And it is not just California. I flew across the country last May. Looking out the window I saw an America dotted with wind farms. Wind is the fastest growing energy supply in the US and now provides 3% of all US electricity.
• To re-regulate the financial industry. Legislation has been passed, a consumer protection agency created, and government oversight strengthened.
• To increase manufacturing. US manufacturing is up about 50%.
• To turn the financial crisis around. Then the Dow was 8,000. Now it is over 13,000. Then we were losing 750,000 jobs a month, now we are gaining 100,000 or more. Then the financial sector was technically bankrupt, now it is much more stable. Then GDP was down about 9% for the year, now it is up 2% or more. Then two of the three US auto companies were headed for destruction, now GM is once again, for the first time in a long time, the biggest car maker in the world. Oh, and US companies are as profitable as they have ever been.
• To focus on bringing loose nuclear material under control. This is vital to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack on American cities, the second worst national security issue we face today (the first is the Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals). All around the world, over the last few years, poorly secured nuclear materials have been identified and either secured locally or, in many cases, shipped to the US for safekeeping. This may have been Obama's most important act, and one for which he will never get much credit.

Obviously, there is a lot more to do, so if you want these sorts of things to keep happening, vote for President Obama and other Democrats this November.

Romney Takes Deceit to New Lows

In a speech a few weeks ago, President Obama said "You didn't build that," where 'you' referred to business people and 'that' clearly referred to roads, bridges, and other infrastructure built by the government (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-ZO7XOpwa8). Cleaver editing of a video of the speech made it sound as if 'that' referred to businesses, which are obviously built by businessmen.  This edited video was played endlessly on Fox News and campaign videos with the inevitable nauseating commentary.

Taking sound bites out of context is pretty common in election year politics, but what happened next took deceit to a new level.  When the fact checkers called Romney's campaign out on this, instead of backing away they made 'you didn't build it' a central theme of their convention and their election campaign.

You can win elections with deceit and you can run tyrannies with deceit, but you cannot govern well with deceit.  Keep this in mind this November and vote.

Romney, England, and Foreign Policy

Romney is traveling abroad to build his foreign policy credentials.  Romney is familiar with the outside world.  He spent two years in France as a Mormon missionary and speaks fluent French.  He also had Bain invest in at least one Chinese company, in 1998 when he was very much in day-to-day control.  This particular Chinese company specialized in providing outsourcing services for American companies, i.e., shipping jobs from America to China. Although you might think Romney would be pretty good at diplomacy, he promptly insulted his British hosts on his first foreign stop by questioning their Olympic competence.  This was a major news story in the UK.

This is a good time to look at Obama's foreign policy and, closely related, military record.  It is outstanding.  Consider:

1. Our military is no longer bogged down in Iraq.
2. Large quantities of loose nuclear materials have been brought to safety.  This significantly reduces the biggest security threat we face: loose nukes falling into al Qaeda's hands.
3. Our overseas popularity is way up (for example, according to Time magazine this week, in Britain trust of the US President went from 16% before Obama to 80%).
4. The al Qaeda leadership has been decimated, including the death of their top dog, Osama bin Laden.
5. The Taliban have been pushed back in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
6. Iran is struggling under well co-ordinated international sanctions.
7. Iran's nuclear program was severely damaged by a computer virus, probably planted by the US and Israel.
8. North Korea is almost completely isolated.
9. Cuba and Venezuela are struggling.
10. Four Arab dictators have been toppled, and another (Syria's Assad) is in deep, deep trouble.  
11. A number of African countries have made significant steps towards democracy.

All and all, things have been going our way internationally.  You can think this is an accident, just luck, but if so Obama is very, very lucky.

Unlike domestic policy where Congress holds a lot of the cards, foreign policy is almost entirely the responsibility of the President.  How things go overseas is a good measure of his leadership and Obama's lookin' good.

Romney Lies Again, or Worse

Five eyewitnesses and participants say that as an upper classman at his prep school, Mitt Romney led a 'posse' of kids to tackle, pin down, and then cut a younger classmate's hair as he screamed for help. Romney says he can't remember the incident. Here's why I think he's lying:

The five eyewitnesses remember it very vividly. Some deeply and frequently regret their part in it. One of them ran into the victim 30 years later and apologized.

I got in a few fights as a kid, the last in eighth grade. I can remember nearly every detail of every one. Who struck first, where the blows landed, the expression on their face, everything. Romney was nearly an adult at the time, I was in grade school.

It is politically incredibly convenient not to remember. It avoids having to answer a barrage of acutely uncomfortable and politically damaging questions.

But what if I'm wrong, what if he really doesn't remember? What could that mean? I can only think of two possibilities:

That cruelty meant so little to him that he can't even remember it.

He did stuff like this so often he can't remember this particular incident.

Either way, that's worse.

Most likely, he's just a liar.

What is President Obama's Economic Record, Really?

President Obama's economic record is very simple: he turned an economy in a death spiral into one of modest growth. The Republicans call this failure, but, of course, their policies set our economy on the path to that horrendous free fall and, if they gain power, they will go right back to those same policies.

To see exactly how much improved our economy is, let's look at the numbers on 20 January 2009, when Obama took office, vs 20 January 2012.

When President Obama took office we were losing jobs at a rate of roughly 750,000 per month. Now we are adding something like 200,000 jobs per month. Total improvement, nearly a million jobs per month (1).

When Obama took office the GDP was dropping at a rate of over 8%/yr. Today it is growing at a rate of about 3%/yr, a swing of 11% for the better (2).

When Obama took office the S&P 500 stock index was around 830. Today it is around 1300, an improvement of over 50% (3).

Between 1 October 2008 (the beginning of the federal fiscal year) and Obama taking office, the U.S. government borrowed $502 billion. In the same period this fiscal year we borrowed $446 billion, a 12% improvement (4).

When Obama took office all of the major U.S. financial institutions were in deep trouble, and any number of them could have easily gone bankrupt in a general financial collapse. Today these same institutions are in good shape.

When Obama took office most of the U.S. car industry was on the brink of bankruptcy. Today the US car industry is very profitable and, for the first time in a long time, a U.S. car company, GM, is the biggest car company in the world.

Republicans will claim, of course, that he should have done better. Let's look at the closest comparison: 1929. Not only did we see a similar financial crisis, it was also the last time (before the 2000s) that Republicans controlled the Congress and the Presidency for an extended period.

Unlike this time, after the 1929 crash a Republican president (Hoover) ran the country for three more years on principles not that different from today's Republicans. How did things go? In 1930 GDP shrank by -12.0%, 1931 -16.1%, 1932 -23.2%. In other words, it got much worse every year. In 1933 a Democrat (FDR) came to power and pursued policies similar to President Obama's. In 1933 GDP fell by only -3.9%, in 1934 grew by 17.0% and in 1935 grew by 11.1% (5). I.e., things got better almost immediately.

The Republicans would have you believe that Mitt Romney, who was very good at making money buying companies with borrowed money, can do a better job with the economy than Obama. Maybe. But there is no evidence this is the case. There is ample evidence that Obama can improve the economy, by a lot, and that Republican policies were a disaster the last two times around.

The data are clear: if you want a strong economy, vote for President Obama.

(1) Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S_job_losses_&_gains_during_late-2000_recession.svg for 2009 http://mollysmiddleamerica.blogspot.com/2012/03/jobs-created-lost-february-2012.html for 2012.

(2) Source: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth

(3) Source: http://www.google.com/finance?cid=626307

(4) Source: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway

(5) Source: http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=1&ViewSeries=NO&Java=no&Request3Place=N&3Place=N&FromView=YES&Freq=Year&FirstYear=1930&LastYear=1935&3Place=N&Update=Update&JavaBox=no#Mid